Week 16 Update - April 19

Autofill names and email from parameters in new client, new partner forms

I’ve been spending a ton of time improving and debugging the signup process for new users. It’s been the core feature from December to current. To enable automated onboarding, signup and pursue a PLG approach, Product Led Growth.

In the new client and new partner forms, I’ve enabled pre-filling the first and last names and email from the parameters passed in the URL. This enables passing the data from other directory in the URLs. For example, if we have a claim your partner listing directory with pre-filled data, and they click to CLAIM that listing, it would pre-fill the data into the form and the user only needs to click one button and they are enrolled!

This will also be useful in my email campaigns. If I already know their first and last… and I’m sending a email. The signup form can easily prefill their info.

Renamed Marketing Content section to “DROPS” aka Marketing DROPS

Taking a page from the gaming and streaming industry and renaming the Marketing tab in-app and in the community pages to reference Marketing Drops instead of just Content. So basically, like a video game producer… dropping content or resupplying players (think dropping materials from a plane). I’m not sure where is started to be called Drops. …but that is the new name for Weekly content updates. Marketing Drops. We hope to continually ‘drop’ new content and email the partners and prospects when we do. Look for new Drops on Social and Email.

The goal is to provide users an incentive to return to the app freqently, even if they don’t have any active registries.

My kids play a lot of video games, originally on the Xbox and now on PC. One of the games they played a lot in 2020 is called Sea of Thieves… it does not take a genius to listen to your 10 and 13 year old yelling about going back online to grab the special promotional Twitch Drops from some Sea of Thieves streamer/player… that maybe this Content Drops approach works and might be useful in downpayment.gift.

I had to look up the Twitch API - Twitch Drops enables you to grant in-game rewards to the Twitch community...

So we are going to be focused on Drops in two places: community.downpayment.gift and in-app in the Marketing Tools The first should be available without a login. The in-app content requires a valid partner login.

I just went to screengrab the menu on the community site… I thought I changed this on the community page, but the Drops phrase is not there! Will fix that now.

I had to look up the Twitch API - Twitch Drops enables you to grant in-game rewards to the Twitch community...

Apparently there are a dozen different slang definitions of Drop. For this context, we are going with “secret delivery” or “in-game rewords” and not the drug related meaning, like dropping acid, or the music beat definitions.

Partners can Log in As Demo

When a Partner user is first created, there is a Demo user and Registry created for them to play around with. This was driven from the fact that most of the UI of the app assumes there is an active registry, but when a Partner first logs onto the app, there is literally nothing happening. Blank screen. No registries. No invites pending. They can upload and edit their co-branding and after that… there is not much to do to learn the app and get confidence in the app for advising clients to use a crowdfunding registry for down payment.

Demo Registry: New Partner Logins will see Onboarding Demo with a test pledge already added

Enter the Onboarding Demo Registry! Now when a partner first signs up, we create them an Event, Registry and Client User named “Onboarding Demo”. The basically see the Registry Campaign in their dashboard first thing. The email is pseudo random and the password is encrypted and unavailable. They can edit the registry, names, upload photos, description for the funding campaign, and play with Sharing the page and more.

Demo Registry: Under Campaigns, Onboarding Demo will be listed as an Active Campaign

Until today, they could not really see what the end-user sees and it was impossible to sync to Stripe and actually see how the campaigns worked for real. We could publish the page, but once someone started pushing payment related buttoms, all bets were off on what would happen. The Onboarding Demo user was not attached to a Stripe account.

This week we added a very useful Sign in as Demo feature to the drop-down menu for the Onboarding Demo registry only, for Partners only. For obvious security reasons, you are unable to log in as other real clients.

Sign In As Demo menu option for Onboarding Demo user in Partner account

How does it work? It will popup a warning where clicking Continue will log them out and back in as this Demo user. Once logged in as the demo, they can step through all the main steps an end-user Client would do.

They will see the standard checklist:

  • upload a feature photo
  • customize their banner, color and font
  • edit their story, description
  • link to account **see below
  • publish
  • share
Demo Client Dashboard

Originally we thought we might ask the Partners to create a dummy registry for themselves to learn and test the process. However, this is a good idea and many might, most will not. Instead they may put it off or just log out. Giving the Partners access the Onboarding Demo use account to see the Checklist and Onboarding allows them to support a client or lead in the process.

Another leap forward this week was implementing a flag for Onboarding Demo’s to have them use the Stripe Test Keys for development and testing transactions. This enables a Partner to walk through linking the fictional account to a fictional identity and fake bank account. At the end, we can run transactions through using well documented test Visa, MC numbers, like 4242 4242 4242 4242, and so on. Ultimately we may remove this function in the future when we move to Custom Stripe Connect onboarding.

Stripe Test Mode : All our dialogs are flagged as Test
Stripe Test Mode: link to a fake test account by clicking the pre-fill button
Stripe Test Mode : Alternatively use a test debit card

During the normal identify verification, the client must receive a SMS message. That step is simulated here:

Stripe Test Mode : All our dialogs are flagged as Test

Once the Test Account is Linked, the Partner will “Publish” the Page… queue the confetti!!! (no really confetti cannons please)

They can receive a test transaction from the actual page and jump back and see the Test Transaction History.

Stripe Test Mode : In App Transaction History after a $50 test mode trans

More fixes

There are too many changes to list in detail. Here is a quick list:

  • new stripe connect logo (purple logo)
  • update the stripe connect oauth2 calls to prefill params «== sounds small, but this is big for easing users through the connect process
  • edit category in stripe
  • edit statement descriptor defaults

Other non-Stripe stuff

  • clean up LMS account (coassemble)
  • remove bogus test accounts
  • change development so it sends test users to different groups in coassemble, so not liter up the production lists with demo or test emails.
  • e-file personal taxes; this was a solid 2 days in here
  • receive first covid vaccine on April 17th #teammoderna
  • first Microconf mastermind call

Change default early-access period

We changed the default early-access period from a 6 months trial to 90 days trial.
The longer trial will still be offered for cohort training and other promotions.

Partners have an invitation code option in the sign up form that reads from defaults or the URL parameters too. Promotion codes for longer trial may be set here. Additionally, the hellobar link to the shopping cart link to confirm their trial plan will change based on the preset trial length.

We also setup additional Trial plans in the shopping cart.