Week 14 Update - April 5

I’m actually writing this on April 28th. I got behind on the DownPaymentProject updates due to the kids’ spring break (two weeks) and a home reno project to replace the flooring in the entire house. (note: this is ongoing but it’s a weekend project now)

Publish new main website

The website at https://downpayment.gift has finally be updated. The old site was tweaked a little since the original version but the structure is largely the same.

The main goal of the new site was to deokoy a template that would give us room to grow in the design and features and to launch a non-wedding focus. The original branding was all about down payment wedding registries. The new website is more generic to all first-time home buyers and not exclusively focused on wedding buyers. The logo is the same, with the same green and gift wrap design. I don’t have any plans to revise the logo. I think we would customize the colors and backgrounds on the gift logo and use it for some time to come.

Old Website, featuring the old wedding focus

The new website is a more like a typical SaaS software website. I’m on sure if that is a good thing or bad. It’s based off a Jekyll template. I wanted to stay in the Jekyll / Bridgetown RB ecosystem. It’s using Bootstrap v4. The old website was not using any framework. The new site is still static, still on Netlify.

New site, who dis?

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Week 13 Update - March 29

Here is a rough list of dev activity in the last week. A few key fixes… but the most exciting thing is the new website starting.

Start new main website!!!

Update Roadmap URLs. Need to update the content on the Public and Partner roadmap to make sure it’s keeping pace. Focusing on bigger items on these resources.

Minor UI fix: no caching Old Password in Profile -> Password changes

Partner Trial Webhook. Explored using Invite system in peerboard to generate login and trial users. Looked at other content ideas with existing bulk member invites, like tribe.so, webinars, or private podcasts.

Fix and update legacy paperform webhooks for new client, new partners

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Week 12 Update - March 22

This week we added a drop down “hello bar” style notification to the app. This will be used for urgent messages or offers. The first application is to tell partners to confirm or Verify their Free Trial account through our third-party shopping cart. Once a Partner creates an account, requiring only 3-fields, First, Last and Email, they will see the Onboarding Co-Branding Form followed by the main partner dashboard. After 5 seconds, a hello bar pops down from the top reminding them to Verify their free account.

hellobar style banner with Free Trial confirmation

When they click on this message, it takes them to a “pre-filled” checkout page on the external shopping cart. They should not need to do anything but click Verify. If they skipped their Company name (Lender or Business name) in Onboarding, that field will be blank.

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This is how we should do onboarding

I was looking a new SaaS for video editing, specifically aimed at editing webinar recordings, called Milk.Video.

Milk.Video

They have a pretty clean and elegant onboarding or welcome screen. It’s almost like a full page “slider” with some app function built in and animated GIFs if you don’t take the first option to actually upload a video.

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Why did you build downpayment.gift?

A little back story…

In 2010 we started attending Wedding Shows to generate business from first-time homes buyers.

We were in Santa Rosa, CA in Sonoma County, about 45-50 minutes north of San Francisco. There were several wedding shows at that time (and still today). The largest was the Wedding Expo which often features 900-1100 brides or couples in attendance over 2 days. We would attend this show twice a year and a second, smaller show, twice per year. The show were always in Sept/Oct and January.

Wedding Expo

At the shows we would run giveaways, raffles, serve wine if allowed and collect surveys (lead forms).

These marketing efforts proved to be great way to build a database of prospects with name, phone, address and such. The survey component allowed us to segment the leads between those that just wanted to win the raffle (bedandbreakfast.com gift cards) and those that might be interested in buying a house sooner rather than later. The reception of a mortgage company at these wedding shows proved better than we expected.

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Public and Partner Roadmaps, plus Timelapse Demo Video

New Product Demo Video

..but first on roadmaps…

It’s our plan to continually push out new updates, marketing and follow a public roadmap. This DPP, Down Payment Project, blog is all about building in public.

Public Roadmap

Partner Roadmap

Click on Ideas to submit features or suggestions. The great thing about public “roadmaps” is that you can influence the future features and marketing content we produce.

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