Guess who's back!? back again!?
Wow, it’s been a minute.
And for good reason.
We’ve been working.
I might switch up the newsletter format from time to time to give you an update on how progress is coming along.
I’ll still provide bite-sized wisdom you’re familiar with, but I figured it would also be helpful/valuable to bring you along the journey of building Readar.
That way, you can learn from my mistakes in real time.
So far …
- We have a working minimum viable product
- Are currently waiting for Amazon’s Product Advertising API … aka PA API
- And designing future features
MVP
It’s alive!
Thank you to everyone that gave feedback on the first version.
Safe to say this is much better than before.
One of the most powerful forces you can harness — and I mean this in a genuine way — is people finding flaws.
With so many different perspectives (and asking them not to pull punches) we got much better insight than if we had stayed in “theoryland” thinking we had it all figured out.
Thank you!
So, if you want to get people to give you legit feedback, ask for …
- the good
- the bad
- and the ugly
The good lets people feel comfortable, about making *you *feel comfortable.
The bad points out things you probably already knew.
The ugly gives them permission to let a rip — pointing out blind spots you had no idea about.
PA API
With that feedback in mind … thank you to the first four people who bought a book through our MVP!
- Carlos M.
- Robby R.
- Sean C.
- Quincy G.
Ya’ll are real ones.
They helped us get approved to use the Amazon PA API (since they don’t just give them out to everyone).
The reason why the PA API is so important, is because we can then programmatically link every book recommendation to Amazon checkout — rather than doing that manually for hundreds of thousands of books.
- Yes we get an Amazon Affiliate commission to the tune of 4.5% from every book sold, so every bit helps, but if you can do the math … we’re not really doing it for the schmoola.
The real benefit is we’re able to get a lot more information on these books with the API so we can make better recommendations for you.
However, this approval process has been brutal lol.
If you’re building a platform that leverages Amazon, you get to leverage their existing infrastructure and customer familiarity.
But despite Jeffy B’s obsession with le customer, I’m not sure if this area of the company got the memo.
Issues:
- Their isn’t a status dashboard to see where you’re at in the process — so you’re left in the dark.
- You’re consistently redirected to chat bots, copy-paste response reps via chat, or FAQ sections —> which pretty much tell you to wait several weeks for an email
Solution:
In the words of the great poet Jacques Bermon Webster III (Travis Scott),
“Pick up the phone baby”.
Sometimes, nothing beats the good ol-fashioned telephone.
Supposedly, these API requests have a bad habit of not getting forwarded to the approval team (which does things manually).
And supposedly … I should have been approved in … wait for it … January.
Ugh.
Well, it is what it is.
But if by chance you’re in a similar spot and you don’t want to wait as long as I did, call:
- 1-888-280-4331
And as much as we love our Amazon overlords, we’d eventually like to bring publishers to the platform so they can link their books directly for purchase.
But only one massive undertaking at a time …
Future Features
Our main focus with Readar is to augment your reading experience.
What dat mean?
We want to help you retain and apply the right information as fast as possible.
So that’s what we’ll initially put our effort into:
- Retention
- Application
And if you have any ideas for those areas, reply to this email.
Seriously!
I’d love to integrate features you’re explicitly asking for.
Best of luck in your entrepreneurial endeavors, and as always …
Keep seeking,
Michael