DEV Community: Alexey Kramin

Dos and Don'ts of Cold Outreach for Digital Product Proposals

Alexey Kramin — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 10:00:44 +0000

As the founder of a digital commerce tool, I get a lot of questions like, “I set up my store, uploaded my products - now how do I get customers?”

Some people jump right into social media with posts like, “Hey everyone, I’ve just created a great eBook about applying for an O-1 American visa. Come check it out!” But let’s be honest, that kind of message barely grabs attention—most people just tune out that type of pitch.

So, I’ve pulled together a few tips for freshly minted online entrepreneurs to help you get started.

Identify Your Audience

You might think that your products are interesting to anyone. Hmmmm, maybe, but it can also show that you just don’t really know your audience. What do they like, what do they watch, what do they do in their free time, and where do they hang out? There are hundreds of other questions that could be asked, but let’s not overcomplicate things and start small.

The main goal here is to narrow down your focus to find an audience more likely to buy your product. Here’s what that looks like: let’s say you’ve just launched a Turkish pastry cookbook. If you promote it randomly on any channel with a big but completely random audience, the process starts to feel like gambling. Sure, you might attract a few people and even make some sales, but trying to turn that approach into a stable sales channel won’t work—it’s random, and you can’t build a reliable system on random.

On the other hand, you can make an educated guess about the kinds of people who’d be interested in baking Turkish pastries. Think home bakers, foodies, or people who love international cuisine. Look for people hanging out on cooking forums, following cooking content on social media, or reading food blogs. Reaching out to these people multiplies your chances of being recognized, and, even better, appreciated.

✅ So identifying your audience? Definitely a DO

Send a Standard Message to All

Now, you compile the best message about your book, explain why it’s great, highlight all the benefits for customers, and… send it to every single person you can reach. You might think, “Hey, more eyes on my book, right?” But here’s the catch: when you blast the same message to everyone, it comes off as, well… cookie-cutter. People can sense when something’s mass-sent, and it feels like spam.

Imagine a Turkish pastry cookbook landing in the inbox of someone who’s never baked a day in their life. Or someone who’s just there for the quick dinner recipes and isn’t interested in mastering baklava. They’re probably not going to care. Worse, they’ll just ignore it altogether.

Instead, imagine taking a few extra seconds to make it feel a bit more personal. Spot someone who’s posted about their latest baking success? Drop in a line about how your cookbook might be the next thing they’d love to try. Or if someone’s always sharing recipes from different cultures, point out how your book dives into authentic Turkish flavors. That little extra effort? It’s what turns a message from “meh” to memorable.

🙅‍♀️ So sending a standard, impersonalised message is a DON’T

Keep It Short and Simple

The attention span of a person today is about 8 seconds. That means you have only 8 seconds to grab their attention. Now imagine your long, detailed message, lovingly written to highlight every aspect of your cookbook, being shown to someone who quickly scans the text without really reading it. It just gets ignored.

They skim over it, maybe catch a word here or there, but that message you put so much thought into? It just blends into the noise. People today are bombarded with messages left and right—long-winded ones just don’t stand a chance. If your pitch takes too long to get to the point, they’ll move on before they even know why your cookbook’s worth their time. All that heart and detail you poured in? It’s lost in a quick scroll.

Instead, think bite-sized. Lead with a line that grabs them: “Master the secrets of Turkish pastries in your own kitchen.” Boom. In one line, they know what’s in it for them. After that, just a little teaser about what makes your cookbook special—maybe it’s a recipe for authentic baklava or a dive into regional favorites that are hard to find outside Turkey. Short, sharp, and inviting. Just enough for them to say, “Wait, tell me more.” That’s when you know you’ve hooked them.

✅ Please, DO keep it simple

Focus on Making the Sale

You started all this to make sales—lots of them—and there’s nothing wrong with that. You’ve put in the work, gained experience, spent your time, and made a real effort to create something valuable. Naturally, you want to sell it as a polished product. After all, we live in a world of capitalism; selling is part of the game.

But here’s the big BUT: nobody likes feeling like they’re just a walking wallet. When people sense they’re being treated as nothing more than a sale, it’s a quick turn-off. Instead, start by sharing a little value upfront—something that shows them the benefit of what you offer without pushing for the sale. For our Turkish pastry cookbook, maybe it’s a quick tip on mastering flaky dough or a recipe for a popular pastry. Give them a taste of what they’d be getting, and let them see the value themselves.

This way, you’re building trust first, proving you’re here to offer something genuinely useful, not just to make a quick buck. People are far more likely to buy from someone who respects them enough to share value first. It’s a simple way to make them curious instead of feeling pressured.

🙅‍♀️ Nobody likes to be a victim of unexpected aggressive sales. So DON’T

Share What Others Think

Would you buy a book because a salesperson persuaded you, or because ten other people said it’s great? Well, both methods can work, but let’s be real: we’re social animals, and we rely on the opinions of others. If at least a handful of people can share a few words about your product—how it helped them, how cool it is—that can make a huge difference in building credibility.

You might be struggling to get your first feedback, but don’t overlook your closer circle. Your family, friends, and their friends can be fantastic first reviewers. Reach out to them and ask for honest opinions. Encourage them to share their thoughts publicly, whether it’s a quick post on social media or a review on a platform where potential buyers might see it. Their endorsements can provide that social proof that makes others feel confident about giving your product a shot.

After all, people trust recommendations from real users way more than a slick sales pitch. It’s all about showing that others have found value in what you offer.

✅ So go ahead and share what others think—because it’s a solid DO!

Neglect Follow-Ups

Do you reply to all the emails and messages you receive? I used to do so, and I was actually surprised when I found out that not everyone does. Actually, I started to ignore them recently when I started to receive more of them, and a lot of them are far from relevant for me.

People ignore messages not because they are rude. It’s just their right what to do with the received message. And pretty often they just miss some of them or decide to reply later and forget. Life happens, and this is a usual situation. So don’t hesitate to send a kind reminder after some time. A gentle nudge can be the perfect way to reignite interest without being pushy.

🙅‍♀️ So don’t just sit back and hope for the best—neglecting follow-ups is a definite DON’T if you want to keep the conversation going!

The Final

Even great products need to be marketed properly. Success isn’t about throwing everything out there and hoping it sticks - it’s about building relationships, being genuine, and giving people a reason to care about what you’re offering.

Follow my digital product commerce saga on 𝕏 👉 https://x.com/alexhustles
Check my SaaS for selling digital products 👉 Marketsy.ai

You Probably Lose a Part of Your Potential Audience for Your Online Courses

Alexey Kramin — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 15:24:31 +0000

Today, there are several platforms that allow you to sell your educational content. Here is a short list of them:

Teachable
Heartbeat
Podia
Kajabi
Thinkific

All of the solutions above offer comprehensive content creation and fulfillment tools. However, what some of them lack is a proper storefront that fully represents the potential of your courses. The good news is that you don’t have to abandon your favorite platforms just because they lack the storefront feature. You can utilize a separate platform and set up fulfillment with zero coding skills using no-code automation tools like Zapier. Let’s take a look at how to do it in a few simple steps.

Selection of a platform

If you're a fan of getting things done, as I am, you probably don’t want to spend ages and a fortune on building something complex. Instead, you'd prefer a tool with the necessary functionality without unnecessary bells and whistles.

You could opt for a generic solution like Shopify, Squarespace, or Wix, but these platforms are like large conglomerates with a myriad of functions and setup steps. Another option is WooCommerce with WordPress, but it might seem like overkill, requiring significant customization even though it offers almost infinite flexibility.

A balanced solution could be Marketsy.ai. It offers website building and customization functionality with some AI assistance, but without excessive customizations. This means you won't need to spend hours tinkering with every single button and form input on the website while still achieving a good-looking store page. What's more important is that Marketsy.ai provides a fully functional storefront solution with a cart, on-site checkout, and no-code integrations, which is exactly what we're interested in.

Flow Automation

I’m not going to describe the creation of a store and adding of products as these are pretty simple. Let’s jump straight to your platform's integration. We will automate course enrollment on Heartbeat using Zapier integration between Marketsy.ai and Heartbeat.

First of all, go to your Marketsy.ai store’s Zapier setting and copy your Zapier API key.

Go to Zapier and start creating a new Zap. During this process, you'll need to set up a new trigger from Marketsy.ai. Below is an example of how to do it.

Then we need to select an event that triggers our Zap. This event is “New Order”

After that, we need the API key that we’ve copied earlier.

As soon as we have set up the Marketsy.ai integration, we need to do the same for Heartbeat. The process is pretty much the same: create an event, authenticate via the API key, and set up the action. The only exception is that we need to trigger two events in Heartbeat: 'Add to Group' and 'Invite user.' Both of them utilize the 'Customer email' property received from the Marketsy.ai 'New order' trigger payload. Here is an example of how the action should look:

And that's pretty much it. Every time a customer makes a purchase on your Marketsy.ai store, they will be automatically invited to your paid community courses on your favorite education platform.

Conclusion

It’s great to have extra income from selling digital courses on any of the available platforms. But you should not be limited by these platforms and can reach even greater exposure for your products by starting a proper storefront for them. And as far as you already know, it doesn’t mean that you will have to manage one more tool, but with the help of no-code integrations, you are able to make it as smooth as possible.

Enjoy!

Like the story or have a question? Let’s connect

We made a twist and learned a lot

Alexey Kramin — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 15:41:00 +0000

Hello! My name is Alexey, and this article is about my and my teammates path over the last year. There are a lot of “we” in the text, not because we are a faceless company, but because we are a team that is responsible for it’s collective decisions.

Running a startup might be tough. Actually, I think it IS tough. There is a lot of uncertainty. And you are so free that sometimes you are not sure what to do or where to start at all.

We started a year ago with the idea of microapps. It’s an idea of fast and cheap building of complex applications by combining smaller ones. For example, a mixture of followings, likes, direct messages, product listings, and purchases creates a social marketplace as a result. We've got a couple of happy startups-customers who use this approach and have already acquired their own customers. It’s super cool. However, we have been having growing doubts about product/market fit because our feature delivery felt more akin to custom or consulting development.

And as we are still a startup, we have to check our ideas constantly. So an incredibly inspiring and also totally terrifying word came to our minds.

The Pivot

Ideal storm

The majority of our microapps are built around e-commerce and marketplace concepts. So we decided not to throw all this working and reusable code out the window. We just wanted to reshape it to make it easier to use and understand. And this is where AI comes on stage. Why not combine GTP with e-commerce? And we did it. We implemented an MVP for a whole e-commerce website out of a single text prompt. We were just testing another idea, but the result turned out amazing.

We got huge social approval for our scale and drew some conclusions from that. I hope they will be useful for your startup too 🙏🏽

Idea simplification

You should be able to explain your startup idea during an elevator ride. It’s called an elevator pitch. So we needed a quite tall building to explain all the advantages of microapps, to mention that you are not locked into our code and why, and not to forget to highlight that it’s super simple and fast.

“AI-generated marketplace” sounds much easier, right? And it is. And as a huge bonus, it requires less effort in any direction to get the idea across to people.

A bit of numbers to prove this thought

For 10 months, we built 2 complex applications on our microapps basis. We learned that there is a demand for such solutions. But we also learned that it’s pretty hard to stand out from development agencies and prove that we are not an agency at all.

On the other hand, we launched the AI tool within a couple of weeks. And in another couple, we got 30 stores generated by our tool. We might get even more, but Mark Zuckerberg decided to release his Threads, and we got a little lost in the shuffle 😄 You may say, “30 is not a lot,” and you will be totally right, BUT it’s 15 times more customers or potential customers that we had for 10 months who we can get feedback from. We have 15 times more traction for experiments. 15 times more visitors to check out our ideas. It’s amazing, I think.

Niche narrowing

Do bigger niches have more potential users? In absolute numbers, they definitely have more people, but that doesn’t mean that a lot of them are underserved in your target area. Also, the bigger the niche, the more players there are. Especially big ones. Are you ready to compete with huge competitors? It’s great if you are, but you have to be smarter, quicker, and more flexible to win. And one of the smart, flexible decisions you can make is niche narrowing.

For us, it went the following way. Firstly, we had such niche idea: “any startup in pre-seed stage with non-technical founders”. It was quite a broad niche, and we tried to solve the pain of any startup, but it was a kind of loss of focus. You can try to solve several problems at once, but it is best to start with one. So our new direction is “tiny or small sellers of goods who need lightweight solutions for their store.” Will see where it leads.

There is no need to burn the remaining assets

We might be afraid of pivoting because we have some users we don’t know how to engage in a new pivotied system. But actually, it’s not an immediate process. And not a one-way ticket to Mars, as it might seem at first glance. So you are not betraying your current customers, if you have any. Rather than abandoning them, the pivot can be seen as an opportunity to provide an even better experience for them. It shows that the startup is committed to continuously improving and evolving their product or service to meet the needs of their customers.

Our takeaways

Eric Ries wrote in his book:

Ask most entrepreneurs who have decided to pivot and they will tell you that they wish they had made the decision sooner

I think it’s like wishing being smarter yesterday than you were. My opinion is: It’s not always possible without the experience you gained before the pivot. So I regret nothing, and I’m glad we’ve done it at least. We are only at the beginning of our pivotal path, but it looks very promising already. If you are hesitating about whether your startup needs a pivot, it might need one because you’re already thinking about it. Take care and good luck! ✌🏽

I would like to share the pivoted product. Feel free to leave any feedback

Liked the text? Let’s meet on social media

How e-commerce trends transform 2023

Alexey Kramin — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 15:23:46 +0000

Subscription models

The subscription-based business model has taken the e-commerce world by storm, experiencing tremendous growth over the past few years. With an annual growth rate of over 100% in the subscription e-commerce market it's clear that subscriptions are here to stay.

What's behind this surge in popularity? Well, it's all about convenience and personalization. Subscriptions offer customers the ultimate convenience of regularly delivered products, eliminating the need for constant reordering. Plus, the personal touch of tailored offerings keeps customers engaged and coming back for more.

But it's not just customers who benefit. Brands are embracing subscriptions as a way to ensure a consistent revenue stream and foster long-term loyalty. In an ever-evolving e-commerce landscape, subscription-based businesses are becoming a go-to option for both retailers and consumers.

To attract and retain loyal customers, brands are getting creative with their subscription models. Many B2C companies are marketing subscriptions as money-saving opportunities, even offering lifetime price rates as incentives. Exclusive gated membership communities like Fabletics and Lululemon are also on the rise, tempting customers with VIP treatment and access to exclusive products and events.

The appeal of these benefits is so strong that Lululemon, for example, expects a whopping 80% of their customers to sign up for membership within the next five years. They're not just promoting their subscription and community; they're actively engaging with customers on social media, surprising and delighting them with subscription offers.

In a world of economic uncertainty and rising prices, subscription models are proving to be a win-win for both businesses and customers. So, whether it's for the convenience, the savings, or the VIP treatment, subscriptions are changing the way we shop and fostering a loyal customer base in the process.

Social Commerce

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are no longer just spaces for connecting and sharing; they have evolved into bustling e-commerce hubs. With the introduction of shopping features like Instagram's Checkout and Facebook's Marketplace, these platforms are transforming the way we shop online.

Gone are the days of jumping from one website to another to make a purchase. Social media has bridged the gap, offering a seamless shopping experience within the platforms themselves. Imagine scrolling through your Instagram feed, stumbling upon a trendy outfit, and with just a few taps, you can buy it right then and there, without ever leaving the app.

This integration of shopping features is revolutionizing the world of e-commerce and is set to drive the growth of social commerce in 2023 and beyond. The convenience and simplicity of making purchases directly on social media platforms have captured the attention of users and businesses alike.

Instagram's Checkout feature, for instance, allows users to explore products, view detailed descriptions, and make secure purchases without being redirected to an external website. Facebook's Marketplace provides a space for users to discover, buy, and sell a wide range of products within their social network.

The impact of social commerce is significant. Businesses now have access to a vast pool of potential customers, tapping into the immense user base of these platforms. On the other hand, users benefit from a more streamlined and integrated shopping experience, discovering new products and making purchases with ease.

As social media platforms continue to evolve, we can expect even more innovative shopping features and collaborations with brands. Social commerce is blurring the lines between socializing and shopping, creating a new era of convenience and accessibility in the e-commerce landscape.

So, the next time you're scrolling through your favorite social media platform, keep an eye out for those enticing shopping tags and buttons. You never know when you might stumble upon your next must-have item, just a few clicks away. Or you can start your own social marketplace as easily as one-two-three

Personalization

In the ever-evolving world of e-commerce, personalization is the name of the game. Consumers crave unique and tailored shopping experiences, and retailers are rising to the challenge by harnessing the power of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI).

Data is at the heart of this revolution. E-commerce retailers are collecting and analyzing vast amounts of customer data to gain insights into their preferences, behaviors, and purchase patterns. This valuable information serves as the foundation for creating personalized shopping experiences that resonate with individual customers.

With the help of AI, retailers can leverage this data to deliver customized product recommendations, targeted advertisements, and personalized email marketing campaigns. It's like having a virtual shopping assistant who knows exactly what you need and when you need it.

Imagine browsing an online store, and suddenly, you're presented with a selection of products that align perfectly with your style and preferences. Or receiving an email showcasing exclusive offers on items you've been eyeing for a while. These personalized touches make the shopping experience feel tailor-made just for you.

In 2023, this trend is set to reach new heights. Retailers will continue to refine their personalization strategies, combining customer data with predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs and desires. By analyzing past behaviors and trends, retailers can proactively offer products and recommendations that align with customers' tastes, even before they realize they want them.

The benefits of personalized shopping experiences are twofold. Customers feel seen and understood, fostering a sense of loyalty and connection to the brand. Retailers, in turn, benefit from increased customer satisfaction, higher engagement, and ultimately, greater conversions and sales.

So, the next time you embark on your online shopping journey, keep an eye out for those personalized recommendations and tailored experiences. Behind the scenes, data analytics and AI are working tirelessly to curate a shopping experience that feels uniquely yours. Get ready to be wowed by the power of personalization in the world of e-commerce.

AI in Personalized Shopping Experiences

AI's rapid growth is revolutionizing custom shopping experiences by gathering valuable customer data, such as shopping habits, preferences, and timing of purchases. This information empowers brands to deliver personalized shopping experiences tailored to individual customers.

Imagine having your favorite sales associate with a technological twist. AI can recommend new shoes you might like or share details about upcoming sales, enhancing your shopping experience.

Although we're not yet at the stage where AI robots can express human emotions as depicted in science fiction, practical applications of AI in customer service are emerging. Companies are leveraging AI to compose responses for customer care interactions, such as checking the status of an item. Embracing AI will enhance efficiency as customer journeys become increasingly complex.

As AI bots continue to improve their communication skills, brands can train them to offer more advanced customer service, including product recommendations based on customers' moods and preferences.

But there are not only bots powered by AI. Nowadays, as technologies are moving really fast, you can meet AI-powered landing page builders like Unicornplatform. Or the whole e-commere website builder like Fleexy’s Marketsy. The fully working solutions are generated by AI using a simple prompt. So you can not only improve but also start a new e-commerce business or marketplace using AI.

The Power of AR and VR in E-commerce

AR and VR technologies are revolutionizing the world of e-commerce by providing immersive and interactive experiences for customers. These technologies enable customers to visualize products in ways previously unimaginable.

By embracing AR and VR, retailers can offer engaging shopping experiences that foster brand loyalty and drive higher sales. The VR retail solutions market is projected to reach $5.5 billion by 2028, while the AR retail market is expected to reach $6.7 billion.

With augmented reality (AR) commerce, customers can "try before they buy" using 3D mapping technology. This has transformed industries like fashion, beauty, and home decor, as customers can virtually experience products and services at their fingertips. Brands can leverage AR commerce without physical stores, expanding their reach.

Benefits of AR commerce include:

Allowing customers to experience products remotely
Serving customers who lack nearby store access
Enabling informed purchase decisions and reducing returns
Providing cost-effective marketing and sales channels

Examples of AR commerce include virtual glasses try-on, furniture placement visualization, and makeup product testing.

Target, for instance, enhances the customer shopping experience through AR in its iOS app. Customers can superimpose common furniture items into their spaces to visualize their appearance, increasing confidence in purchasing decisions and reducing returns.

The summary

Subscription Models: Subscription-based businesses have witnessed remarkable growth, offering convenience and personalization to customers while ensuring consistent revenue and fostering loyalty.
Social Commerce: Social media platforms have transformed into e-commerce hubs, allowing users to make purchases without leaving the platform, driving growth and convenience in online shopping.
Personalization: E-commerce retailers are utilizing data analytics and AI to deliver tailored shopping experiences through personalized product recommendations, targeted advertising, and customized email marketing campaigns.
AI in Personalized Shopping Experiences: AI is revolutionizing custom shopping experiences by collecting and utilizing valuable customer data, enhancing efficiency, and improving customer service interactions.
The Power of AR and VR in E-commerce: AR and VR technologies offer immersive and interactive experiences, allowing customers to visualize products and enabling retailers to provide engaging shopping experiences that drive sales and brand loyalty.

10 crazy ideas for a marketplace. Real examples

Alexey Kramin — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 19:19:49 +0000

1. Funereal Ephemera: Exploring the Mysteries of Death

For those fascinated by the mysteries of death, Funereal Ephemera is the Etsy shop of your dreams. This haunting emporium specializes in "vintage cemetery, funeral, and postmortem photography." From flower-covered cemeteries to poignant images of bodies in coffins, this shop offers a glimpse into a different era. You'll find religious and medical artifacts, taxidermy, and even glimpses of the macabre. Prices vary, but most photographs range from $10 to $40, allowing you to embrace your dark side without breaking the bank.

2. The Pastel Purgatory: Embrace Your Inner Feline

Are you a cat lover who's eager to unleash your inner feline? Look no further than The Pastel Purgatory on Etsy. This whimsical shop offers accessories that'll make you feel like a purrfect kitty, from fuzzy ears to stylish collars and leashes. It might sound strange, but don't be fooled—this shop has earned top ratings and impressive sales. With prices ranging from $20 to $80 (or more), you'll be ready to pounce on these feline treasures.

3. Wild Things Inc.: For the Lovers of Creepy Crawlies

Calling all bug enthusiasts and lovers of the macabre! Wild Things Inc. is the Etsy shop for you. Embracing all things creepy and crawly, this store specializes in exotic animal parts and art. Whether you're seeking holiday ornaments filled with snakeskin or itching to create your own masterpiece using tarantula and cockroach molts, turtle shells, or animal bones, Wild Things has everything your heart (or your dark side) desires. Even arachnophobes might consider it a nightmare—but for those who dare, the inventory is ever-changing, and custom orders are welcome.

4. Flavored Toothpicks: Adding Zest to Your Dental Routine

Toothpicks are handy, but have you ever thought they could use a little flavor? Flavored Toothpicks on Etsy agrees! With enticing options like cinnamon, grape, wintergreen, and even bacon, this shop takes toothpick indulgence to the next level. But hold on tight, because they also offer some truly bizarre flavors, including baby formula and breast milk. Yes, you read that right! If you're in the mood for a unique dental experience, check out their selection of over 140 flavors, conveniently packaged in a small, sliding metal tin for just $6.87.

5. Cappy Sue Creations: Turning Trash into Treasures

You've heard the saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure," right? Well, Cappy Sue Creations takes that sentiment to a whole new level. This Etsy shop is a haven for the eclectic, offering everything from random paintings and jewelry to art pieces that range from strange and unusual to traditional and beautiful. But here's the kicker—they also specialize in transforming your unwanted junk into something fresh, interesting, and even more appealing. So, don't know what to do with all those office gift exchange items? Cappy Sue Creations has your back. And if you're feeling a little adventurous, they even have a selection of not-so-safe-for-work items. Prices vary depending on the item, so start exploring and see what hidden gems you can find!

6. MillionDollarHomepage.com: From Pixels to Pockets

Imagine selling pixels on a website and becoming a millionaire overnight. Sounds crazy, right? Well, for Alex Tew, it turned out to be the jackpot ticket. Initially just a way to pay for college, his website, MillionDollarHomepage.com, became a sensation, propelling him to unimaginable success. Suddenly, major news networks were clamoring for interviews, and the young man found himself swimming in a sea of publicity. But here's the kicker: other people tried to copy his idea! Talk about a ridiculously successful concept.

7. The Curiositeer: Where the Extraordinary Meets the Bizarre

What if you could wear a bat's skull around your neck or sport a spider as a ring? The Curiositeer turns these extraordinary ideas into reality. This Etsy shop offers jewelry and other curious items crafted from materials like human teeth, insects, and animal skeletons. With preserved frog hearts, scorpions, and bird skulls embedded in resin and mounted to pendants or rings, you can flaunt your love for the peculiar. And for those seeking something slightly less spine-chilling, The Curiositeer also offers jewelry made with flowers and rocks. Prices range from $20 to $50, allowing you to indulge in the extraordinary without breaking the bank.

8. Doggles.com: When Fido Rocks the Shades

Who would've thought that selling sunglasses for dogs could lead to millions? Meet Ken and Roni di Lullo, the brilliant minds behind Doggles.com. While most dog owners never considered decking out their pooches with eyewear, the moment these "Doggles" were marketed as UV radiation shields, a frenzy began. Dog owners worldwide rushed to get their furry friends a pair, resulting in cool-looking canines and two brand-new members of the millionaires club. With shops in 16 countries, these doggy sunglasses entrepreneurs struck gold.

9. aKNITomy: An Icky and Cuddly World of Knitted Wonders

Step into the icky and cuddly world of aKNITomy, where knitted anatomy takes center stage. This unique Etsy shop sells framed, knit versions of human anatomy and dissected creatures—think frogs, rats, bats, and even aliens. It's a strange blend of cute and bizarre that's bound to catch your eye. And if you fancy taking on your own scientific knitting projects, aKNITomy has you covered with patterns and DIY kits available for a small fee. Finished projects range from $75 to around $200, so embrace your love for the peculiar and snag a knitted masterpiece.

10. Terrible Origami: When Imperfection Becomes Art

And my favourite one!

Origami is an art form known for its delicate precision and beauty. But who says imperfection can't be art too? Welcome to Terrible Origami, where crumpled paper becomes a masterpiece. This Etsy shop takes the "OMG" factor to new heights with its collection of delightfully terrible origami creations. While the prices may seem outrageous—many exceeding $100—the shop's true purpose is more of a joke than a serious business. However, for die-hard fans, Terrible Origami-branded T-shirts are available for purchase. Believe it or not, a few of these "terrible" origami pieces have actually found their way into customers' hands. So, embrace the imperfect and let the crumpled art speak to your soul.

Don’t be afraid of your ideas

As you can see, even the most creepy and bizarre ideas could be loved by people. Everything is up to you. And if you have something special to say, stop keeping it inside and shout it loud. And Fleexy’s marketplace builder is here to help test your ideas. Everything you need is just an idea and a short prompt. AI will generate your own marketplace with your special products in 5 seconds.

Improve your messengers communication experience with these 7 small tips

Alexey Kramin — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 15:35:40 +0000

How often do you meet people with whom communicating via messenger feels weird? Or maybe you are that kind of person? Sometimes it is a lack of something pretty obvious, but it needs to be spoken out loud. Anyway, the next 7 tips will make you a better messenger communicator, and everybody will love you for that.

Introduce yourself on the first contact

It can be a new colleague or an old one from another department with whom you've never chated before. Or maybe a person with whom you communicated using another channel. It's a good approach to start with an introduction because it will give your interlocutor more context and describe why they should answer you at all.

Go straight to the point

You must have encountered the following situation before: Someone sends you "Hi!", and then you are watching typing bubbles for six minutes. And you, already distracted, lose your focus and go to this conversation. Well, to avoid that, we just need to not separate our "Hi" from the main part of the message.

Divide into semantic parts

There are two extreme cases. When there are too many messages. Or the only one, but huuuuuuge. So it's a good idea to separate long messages into some semantic parts. But do not do too much, for sure. Imagine that the people you are talking to can just swipe a particular message and reply to it.

Follow the topic

When you have so much to discuss with your team, it might be too seductive to do it in the same chat or thread. But in the end, you will get into a mess and won't be able to find anything in this conversation. To avoid this, just go to another thread if you are using Slack, Discord, or another tool with threads. Or just create another chat and invite everyone who is needed

Make summaries

When you finish a very long text conversation, it's nice to make a short summary of the results. You will thank yourself afterward when you need to return to this conversation and read not every message but only the summary. Also, if someone missed the conversation, they can just do the same and thank you as well.

Tag people

If you are talking to more than one person in a chat and need an answer from a particular person, tag them with a @ symbol or how it works in your messenger. Keep in mind that people don't read chats at all. Or a person could have 10 messages and other business to do, miss your message and never respond.

Nothing good is sent after 9 pm

I will repeat. Nothing good is sent after 9 pm! The majority of people are not in the best mental condition at this time. Because nights, weekends, or holy days are for resting but not for working conversations. And a person who initiates such chats just annoys the rest. If you really-really want to send a message right now, schedule it.

These tips will definitely improve your communications and give you some love from colleagues as a side effect. Share it with people who you think should read it. Have effective conversations ✌🏾

Like the article? Let's meet on social medias ❤️

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Will our functions transform into AI text prompts from interpreter instructions?

Alexey Kramin — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 15:07:30 +0000

I've been implemented a JavaScript AI emoji generator recently. And as OpenAI API responses are not always consistent, or maybe my prompts are far from ideal, I needed to create a backup function that generates random emojis if the response is not parsed properly.

Surprisingly, I found that functions might more look like an instruction for a person than for a machine in future 😅. Here is what I mean:

// regular JS function
function getNEmojis(n) {
  const emojis = [
    '😄', '😃', '😀', '😊', '😔', '😉', '😍', '😘', '😚', '😗', '😙', '😜', '😝', '😛', '😳', '😁', '😔', '😌', '😒', '😞', '😣', '😢', '😂', '😭', '😪', '😥', '😰', '😅', '😓', '😩', '😫', '😨', '😱', '😠', '😡', '😤', '😖', '😆', '😋', '😷', '😎', '😴', '😵', '😲', '😟', '😦', '😧', '😈', '👿', '😮', '😬', '😐', '😕', '😯', '😶', '😇', '😏', '😑', '👲', '👳', '👮', '👷', '💂', '👶', '👦', '👧', '👨', '👩', '👴', '👵', '👱', '👼', '👸', '😺', '😸', '😻', '😽', '😼', '🙀', '😿', '😹', '😾', '👹', '👺', '🙈', '🙉', '🙊', '💀', '👽', '💩', '🔥', '✨', '🌟', '💫', '💥', '💢', '💦', '💧', '💤', '💨', '👂', '👀', '👃', '👅', '👄', '👍', '👎', '👌', '👊', '✊', '✌', '👋', '✋', '👐', '👆', '👇', '👉', '👈', '🙌', '🙏', '☝', '👏', '💪', '🚶', '🏃', '💃', '👫', '👪', '👬', '👭', '💏', '💑', '👯', '🙆', '🙅', '💁', '🙋', '💆', '💇', '💅', '👰', '🙎', '🙍', '🙇', '🎩', '👑', '👒', '👟', '👞', '👡', '👠', '👢', '👕', '👔', '👚', '👗', '🎽', '👖', '👘', '👙', '💼', '👜', '👝', '👛', '👓', '🎀', '🌂', '💄', '💛', '💙', '💜', '💚', '❤', '💔', '💗', '💓', '💕', '💖', '💞', '💘', '💌', '💋', '💍', '💎', '👤', '👥', '💬', '👣', '💭', '🐶', '🐺', '🐱', '🐭', '🐹', '🐰', '🐸', '🐯', '🐨', '🐻', '🐷', '🐽', '🐮', '🐗', '🐵', '🐒', '🐴', '🐑', '🐘', '🐼', '🐧', '🐦', '🐤', '🐥', '🐣', '🐔', '🐍', '🐢', '🐛', '🐝', '🐜', '🐞', '🐌', '🐙', '🐚', '🐠', '🐟', '🐬', '🐳', '🐋', '🐄', '🐏', '🐀', '🐃', '🐅', '🐇', '🐉', '🐎', '🐐', '🐓', '🐕', '🐖', '🐁', '🐂', '🐲', '🐡', '🐊', '🐫', '🐪', '🐆', '🐈', '🐩', '🐾', '💐', '🌸', '🌷', '🍀', '🌹', '🌻', '🌺', '🍁', '🍃', '🍂', '🌿', '🌾', '🍄', '🌵', '🌴', '🌲', '🌳', '🌰', '🌱', '🌼', '🌐', '🌞', '🌝', '🌚', '🌑', '🌒', '🌓', '🌔', '🌕', '🌖', '🌗', '🌘', '🌜', '🌛', '🌙', '🌍', '🌎', '🌏', '🌋', '🌌', '🌠', '⭐', '☀', '⛅', '☁', '⚡', '☔', '❄', '⛄', '🌀', '🌁', '🌈', '🌊', '🎍', '💝', '🎎', '🎒', '🎓', '🎏', '🎆', '🎇', '🎐', '🎑', '🎃', '👻', '🎅', '🎄', '🎁', '🎋', '🎉', '🎊', '🎈', '🎌', '🔮', '🎥', '📷', '📹', '📼', '💿', '📀', '💽', '💾', '💻', '📱', '☎', '📞', '📟', '📠', '📡', '📺', '📻', '🔊', '🔉', '🔈', '🔇', '🔔', '🔕', '📢', '📣', '⏳', '⌛', '⏰', '⌚', '🔓', '🔒', '🔏', '🔐', '🔑', '🔎', '💡', '🔦', '🔆', '🔅', '🔌', '🔋', '🔍', '🛁', '🛀', '🚿', '🚽', '🔧', '🔩', '🔨', '🚪', '🚬', '💣', '🔫', '🔪', '💊', '💉', '💰', '💴', '💵', '💷', '💶', '💳', '💸', '📲', '📧', '📥', '📤', '✉', '📩', '📨', '📯', '📫', '📪', '📬', '📭', '📮', '📦', '📝', '📄', '📃', '📑', '📊', '📈', '📉', '📜', '📋', '📅', '📆', '📇', '📁', '📂', '✂', '📌', '📎', '✒', '✏', '📏', '📐', '📕', '📗', '📘', '📙', '📓', '📔', '📒', '📚', '📖', '🔖', '📛', '🔬', '🔭', '📰', '🎨', '🎬', '🎤', '🎧', '🎼', '🎵', '🎶', '🎹', '🎻', '🎺', '🎷', '🎸', '👾', '🎮', '🃏', '🎴', '🀄', '🎲', '🎯', '🏈', '🏀', '⚽', '⚾', '🎾', '🎱', '🏉', '🎳', '⛳', '🚵', '🚴', '🏁', '🏇', '🏆', '🎿', '🏂', '🏊', '🏄', '🎣', '☕', '🍵', '🍶', '🍼', '🍺', '🍻', '🍸', '🍹', '🍷', '🍴', '🍕', '🍔', '🍟', '🍗', '🍖', '🍝', '🍛', '🍤', '🍱', '🍣', '🍥', '🍙', '🍘', '🍚', '🍜', '🍲', '🍢', '🍡', '🍳', '🍞', '🍩', '🍮', '🍦', '🍨', '🍧', '🎂', '🍰', '🍪', '🍫', '🍬', '🍭', '🍯', '🍎', '🍏', '🍊', '🍋', '🍒', '🍇', '🍉', '🍓', '🍑', '🍈', '🍌', '🍐', '🍍', '🍠', '🍆', '🍅', '🌽', '🏠', '🏡', '🏫', '🏢', '🏣', '🏥', '🏦', '🏪', '🏩', '🏨', '💒', '⛪', '🏬', '🏤', '🌇', '🌆', '🏯', '🏰', '⛺', '🏭', '🗼', '🗾', '🗻', '🌄', '🌅', '🌃', '🗽', '🌉', '🎠', '🎡', '⛲', '🎢', '🚢', '⛵', '🚤', '🚣', '⚓', '🚀', '✈', '💺', '🚁', '🚂', '🚊', '🚉', '🚞', '🚆', '🚄', '🚅', '🚈', '🚇', '🚝', '🚋', '🚃', '🚎', '🚌', '🚍', '🚙', '🚘', '🚗', '🚕', '🚖', '🚛', '🚚', '🚨', '🚓', '🚔', '🚒', '🚑', '🚐', '🚲', '🚡', '🚟', '🚠', '🚜', '💈', '🚏', '🎫', '🚦', '🚥', '⚠', '🚧', '🔰', '⛽', '🏮', '🎰', '♨', '🗿', '🎪', '🎭', '📍', '🚩', '⬆', '⬇', '⬅', '➡', '🔠', '🔡', '🔤', '↗', '↖', '↘', '↙', '↔', '↕', '🔄', '◀', '▶', '🔼', '🔽', '↩', '↪', 'ℹ', '⏪', '⏩', '⏫', '⏬', '⤵', '⤴', '🆗', '🔀', '🔁', '🔂', '🆕', '🆙', '🆒', '🆓', '🆖', '📶', '🎦', '🈁', '🈯', '🈳', '🈵', '🈴', '🈲', '🉐', '🈹', '🈺', '🈶', '🈚', '🚻', '🚹', '🚺', '🚼', '🚾', '🚰', '🚮', '🅿', '♿', '🚭', '🈷', '🈸', '🈂', 'Ⓜ', '🛂', '🛄', '🛅', '🛃', '🉑', '㊙', '㊗', '🆑', '🆘', '🆔', '🚫', '🔞', '📵', '🚯', '🚱', '🚳', '🚷', '🚸', '⛔', '✳', '❇', '❎', '✅', '✴', '💟', '🆚', '📳', '📴', '🅰', '🅱', '🆎', '🅾', '💠', '➿', '♻', '♈', '♉', '♊', '♋', '♌', '♍', '♎', '♏', '♐', '♑', '♒', '♓', '⛎', '🔯', '🏧', '💹', '💲', '💱', '©', '®', '™', '〽', '〰', '🔝', '🔚', '🔙', '🔛', '🔜', '❌', '⭕', '❗', '❓', '❕', '❔', '🔃', '🕛', '🕧', '🕐', '🕜', '🕑', '🕝', '🕒', '🕞', '🕓', '🕟', '🕔', '🕠', '🕕', '🕖', '🕗', '🕘', '🕙', '🕚', '🕡', '🕢', '🕣', '🕤', '🕥', '🕦', '✖', '➕', '➖', '➗', '♠', '♥', '♣', '♦', '💮', '💯', '✔', '☑', '🔘', '🔗', '➰', '🔱', '🔲', '🔳', '◼', '◻', '◾', '◽', '▪', '▫', '🔺', '⬜', '⬛', '⚫', '⚪', '🔴', '🔵', '🔻', '🔶', '🔷', '🔸', '🔹'
  ];
  const res = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < n; i++) {
    res.push([]);
    for (let j = 0; j < n; j++) {
      res[i].push(emojis[Math.floor(Math.random() * emojis.length)]);
    }
  }
  return JSON.stringify(res);
}

// AI powered JS funciton
function getNEmojisAI(n) {
  const API_KEY = process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY;
  const MODEL_ID = 'gpt-3.5-turbo';
  const configuration = new Configuration({
    apiKey: API_KEY,
  });
  const openai = new OpenAIApi(configuration);

  const completion = await openai.createChatCompletion({
    model: MODEL_ID,
    messages: [{ "role": "user", "content": `generate exactly ${n} funny and playful emojis for each paragraph of the input following the meaning of them. 
      Return it as JSON with an array of non empty strings containing exactly one emoji arrays.
      It shoudln't contain any additional keys in JSON. Only array of arrays. Length of the array should be equal to ${n}. 
      No additional texts or explanations or extra array entities.
      The input: "${input.trim()}"` 
    }]
  });
  return completion.data.choices[0].message.content;
}

Both functions return the same output, but as you can see, the biggest part of the second function is more like a WhatsApp message than a JavaScript function. It looks like one day, with all the AI improvements, our code might transform into a set of AI-prompts incapsulated into functions and classes. So enjoy coding and learn better prompts ✌🏽

If you like the article, follow me on social media ❤️

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How I built my first AI project for a couple of hours

Alexey Kramin — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 15:07:20 +0000

Artificial Intelligence is here probably for ever. It becomes more and more widespread and usual, like personal computers or smartphones. And we won’t be able to imagine our lives without it very soon. To use it as a developer in your projects becomes incredibly easy too. I developed a simple tool using the OpenAI NPM package, and I’m going to share my approach. Let’s go.

Idea

The main idea is pretty simple. I saw that many people on Twitter share their achievements, like MRR, subscribers numbers, or progress like lists, with emojis. For example:

🧚‍♂️ be fairy
👑 be gorgeous
🦄 be unique
🐳 be a whale
🦧 be funny

I decided to create a tool that looks for appropriate emoji according to text provided.

Implementation

Let’s start from the backend. I’m using Node.js so first of all I need to install OpenAI npm package. Then to use the package you need to obtain your API-key from open AI website.
When you finish all the preparation it’s time to get you hands dirty. Init OpenAI package:

const { Configuration, OpenAIApi } = require('openai');
// Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual OpenAI API key
const API_KEY = process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY;
// Replace MODEL_ID with the ID of the model you want to use
// we are gonna use the chat completion functions so the following model id
// works there properly. Check in the API documentation if a model you wanna try
// works with selected API functions.
const MODEL_ID = 'gpt-3.5-turbo';
const configuration = new Configuration({
    apiKey: API_KEY,
});
const openai = new OpenAIApi(configuration);

When we initialised the OpenAI object, we can call the API then:

const completion = await openai.createChatCompletion({
    model: MODEL_ID,
    messages: [{ "role": "user", "content": `generate exactly 5 funny and playful emojis for each paragraph of the input following the meaning of them. 
  Return it as JSON with an array of non empty strings containing exactly one emoji arrays.
  It shoudln't contain any additional keys in JSON. Only array of arrays. 
  Length of the array should be equal to ${count}. 
  No additional texts or explanations or extra array entities.
  The input: "${input.trim()}"` }]
});
const output = completion.data.choices[0].message.content;

I tried to use Edits API first, but the result was not really predictable so I switched to ChatCompletion. It’s not perfect, but responses much more suitable.
Our output should look like a stringified JSON, but sometimes the AI returns not really expected response. So we need to be sure that we have a plan B if it could not be parsed properly.

let outputArray = [];
try {
  outputArray = JSON.parse(output
    .replaceAll(' ', '')
    .replaceAll('\n', '')
    .replaceAll('],]', ']]')
    .match(/\[(.|\n)*\]/g)[0] // get only array. There might be other info generated
    .trim()
  );
  outputArray = outputArray.map(arr => {
    if (arr.length) return arr;
    return getNRandomEmojis(5); // there might be an empty array
  });

  while (outputArray.length < input.length) {
    outputArray.push(getNRandomEmojis(5)); // length of any array might be less then we expeced (5)
  }
} catch (e) {
  console.error(e);
  const paragrapthsLength = input.length;
  for (let i = 0; i < paragrapthsLength; i++) { // just generate random emojis as a backup
    outputArray.push(getNRandomEmojis(5));
  }
}

Now let’s summarise everything we did and combine it into one file. The full code of the service looks as below.

async generateResponse(input) {
  // Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual OpenAI API key
  const API_KEY = process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY;
  // Replace MODEL_ID with the ID of the model you want to use
  // we are gonna use the chat completion functions so the following model id
  // works there properly. Check in the API documentation if a model you wanna try
  // works with selected API functions.
  const MODEL_ID = 'gpt-3.5-turbo';

  const configuration = new Configuration({
    apiKey: API_KEY,
  });
  const openai = new OpenAIApi(configuration);

  const inputStringified = input.map(inp => inp.val.trim()).join('\n');

  const completion = await openai.createChatCompletion({
    model: MODEL_ID,
    messages: [{ "role": "user", "content": getMessageContent(inputStringified, input.length) }]
  });

  const output = completion.data.choices[0].message.content;

  let outputArray = [];
  try {
    outputArray = JSON.parse(output
      .replaceAll(' ', '')
      .replaceAll('\n', '')
      .replaceAll('],]', ']]')
      .match(/\[(.|\n)*\]/g)[0] // get only array. There might be other info generated
      .trim()
    );
    outputArray = outputArray.map(arr => {
      if (arr.length) return arr;
      return getNRandomEmojis(5);
    });

    while (outputArray.length < input.length) {
      outputArray.push(getNRandomEmojis(5));
    }
  } catch (e) {
    console.error(e);
    const paragrapthsLength = input.length;
    for (let i = 0; i < paragrapthsLength; i++) {
      outputArray.push(getNRandomEmojis(5));
    }
  }

  return outputArray;
}

function getMessageContent(input, count) {
  return `generate exactly 5 funny and playful emojis for each paragraph of the input following the meaning of them. 
  Return it as JSON with an array of non empty strings containing exactly one emoji arrays.
  It shoudln't contain any additional keys in JSON. Only array of arrays. 
  Length of the array should be equal to ${count}. 
  No additional texts or explanations or extra array entities.
  The input: "${input.trim()}"`;
}

function getNRandomEmojis(n) {
  const res = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < n; i++) {
    res.push(getRandomEmoji());
  }
  return res;
}

function getRandomEmoji() {
  const emojis = [
    '😄', '😃', '😀', '😊', '😔', '😉', '😍', '😘', '😚', '😗', '😙', '😜', '😝', '😛', '😳', '😁', '😔', '😌', '😒', '😞', '😣', '😢', '😂', '😭', '😪', '😥', '😰', '😅', '😓', '😩', '😫', '😨', '😱', '😠', '😡', '😤', '😖', '😆', '😋', '😷', '😎', '😴', '😵', '😲', '😟', '😦', '😧', '😈', '👿', '😮', '😬', '😐', '😕', '😯', '😶', '😇', '😏', '😑', '👲', '👳', '👮', '👷', '💂', '👶', '👦', '👧', '👨', '👩', '👴', '👵', '👱', '👼', '👸', '😺', '😸', '😻', '😽', '😼', '🙀', '😿', '😹', '😾', '👹', '👺', '🙈', '🙉', '🙊', '💀', '👽', '💩', '🔥', '✨', '🌟', '💫', '💥', '💢', '💦', '💧', '💤', '💨', '👂', '👀', '👃', '👅', '👄', '👍', '👎', '👌', '👊', '✊', '✌', '👋', '✋', '👐', '👆', '👇', '👉', '👈', '🙌', '🙏', '☝', '👏', '💪', '🚶', '🏃', '💃', '👫', '👪', '👬', '👭', '💏', '💑', '👯', '🙆', '🙅', '💁', '🙋', '💆', '💇', '💅', '👰', '🙎', '🙍', '🙇', '🎩', '👑', '👒', '👟', '👞', '👡', '👠', '👢', '👕', '👔', '👚', '👗', '🎽', '👖', '👘', '👙', '💼', '👜', '👝', '👛', '👓', '🎀', '🌂', '💄', '💛', '💙', '💜', '💚', '❤', '💔', '💗', '💓', '💕', '💖', '💞', '💘', '💌', '💋', '💍', '💎', '👤', '👥', '💬', '👣', '💭', '🐶', '🐺', '🐱', '🐭', '🐹', '🐰', '🐸', '🐯', '🐨', '🐻', '🐷', '🐽', '🐮', '🐗', '🐵', '🐒', '🐴', '🐑', '🐘', '🐼', '🐧', '🐦', '🐤', '🐥', '🐣', '🐔', '🐍', '🐢', '🐛', '🐝', '🐜', '🐞', '🐌', '🐙', '🐚', '🐠', '🐟', '🐬', '🐳', '🐋', '🐄', '🐏', '🐀', '🐃', '🐅', '🐇', '🐉', '🐎', '🐐', '🐓', '🐕', '🐖', '🐁', '🐂', '🐲', '🐡', '🐊', '🐫', '🐪', '🐆', '🐈', '🐩', '🐾', '💐', '🌸', '🌷', '🍀', '🌹', '🌻', '🌺', '🍁', '🍃', '🍂', '🌿', '🌾', '🍄', '🌵', '🌴', '🌲', '🌳', '🌰', '🌱', '🌼', '🌐', '🌞', '🌝', '🌚', '🌑', '🌒', '🌓', '🌔', '🌕', '🌖', '🌗', '🌘', '🌜', '🌛', '🌙', '🌍', '🌎', '🌏', '🌋', '🌌', '🌠', '⭐', '☀', '⛅', '☁', '⚡', '☔', '❄', '⛄', '🌀', '🌁', '🌈', '🌊', '🎍', '💝', '🎎', '🎒', '🎓', '🎏', '🎆', '🎇', '🎐', '🎑', '🎃', '👻', '🎅', '🎄', '🎁', '🎋', '🎉', '🎊', '🎈', '🎌', '🔮', '🎥', '📷', '📹', '📼', '💿', '📀', '💽', '💾', '💻', '📱', '☎', '📞', '📟', '📠', '📡', '📺', '📻', '🔊', '🔉', '🔈', '🔇', '🔔', '🔕', '📢', '📣', '⏳', '⌛', '⏰', '⌚', '🔓', '🔒', '🔏', '🔐', '🔑', '🔎', '💡', '🔦', '🔆', '🔅', '🔌', '🔋', '🔍', '🛁', '🛀', '🚿', '🚽', '🔧', '🔩', '🔨', '🚪', '🚬', '💣', '🔫', '🔪', '💊', '💉', '💰', '💴', '💵', '💷', '💶', '💳', '💸', '📲', '📧', '📥', '📤', '✉', '📩', '📨', '📯', '📫', '📪', '📬', '📭', '📮', '📦', '📝', '📄', '📃', '📑', '📊', '📈', '📉', '📜', '📋', '📅', '📆', '📇', '📁', '📂', '✂', '📌', '📎', '✒', '✏', '📏', '📐', '📕', '📗', '📘', '📙', '📓', '📔', '📒', '📚', '📖', '🔖', '📛', '🔬', '🔭', '📰', '🎨', '🎬', '🎤', '🎧', '🎼', '🎵', '🎶', '🎹', '🎻', '🎺', '🎷', '🎸', '👾', '🎮', '🃏', '🎴', '🀄', '🎲', '🎯', '🏈', '🏀', '⚽', '⚾', '🎾', '🎱', '🏉', '🎳', '⛳', '🚵', '🚴', '🏁', '🏇', '🏆', '🎿', '🏂', '🏊', '🏄', '🎣', '☕', '🍵', '🍶', '🍼', '🍺', '🍻', '🍸', '🍹', '🍷', '🍴', '🍕', '🍔', '🍟', '🍗', '🍖', '🍝', '🍛', '🍤', '🍱', '🍣', '🍥', '🍙', '🍘', '🍚', '🍜', '🍲', '🍢', '🍡', '🍳', '🍞', '🍩', '🍮', '🍦', '🍨', '🍧', '🎂', '🍰', '🍪', '🍫', '🍬', '🍭', '🍯', '🍎', '🍏', '🍊', '🍋', '🍒', '🍇', '🍉', '🍓', '🍑', '🍈', '🍌', '🍐', '🍍', '🍠', '🍆', '🍅', '🌽', '🏠', '🏡', '🏫', '🏢', '🏣', '🏥', '🏦', '🏪', '🏩', '🏨', '💒', '⛪', '🏬', '🏤', '🌇', '🌆', '🏯', '🏰', '⛺', '🏭', '🗼', '🗾', '🗻', '🌄', '🌅', '🌃', '🗽', '🌉', '🎠', '🎡', '⛲', '🎢', '🚢', '⛵', '🚤', '🚣', '⚓', '🚀', '✈', '💺', '🚁', '🚂', '🚊', '🚉', '🚞', '🚆', '🚄', '🚅', '🚈', '🚇', '🚝', '🚋', '🚃', '🚎', '🚌', '🚍', '🚙', '🚘', '🚗', '🚕', '🚖', '🚛', '🚚', '🚨', '🚓', '🚔', '🚒', '🚑', '🚐', '🚲', '🚡', '🚟', '🚠', '🚜', '💈', '🚏', '🎫', '🚦', '🚥', '⚠', '🚧', '🔰', '⛽', '🏮', '🎰', '♨', '🗿', '🎪', '🎭', '📍', '🚩', '⬆', '⬇', '⬅', '➡', '🔠', '🔡', '🔤', '↗', '↖', '↘', '↙', '↔', '↕', '🔄', '◀', '▶', '🔼', '🔽', '↩', '↪', 'ℹ', '⏪', '⏩', '⏫', '⏬', '⤵', '⤴', '🆗', '🔀', '🔁', '🔂', '🆕', '🆙', '🆒', '🆓', '🆖', '📶', '🎦', '🈁', '🈯', '🈳', '🈵', '🈴', '🈲', '🉐', '🈹', '🈺', '🈶', '🈚', '🚻', '🚹', '🚺', '🚼', '🚾', '🚰', '🚮', '🅿', '♿', '🚭', '🈷', '🈸', '🈂', 'Ⓜ', '🛂', '🛄', '🛅', '🛃', '🉑', '㊙', '㊗', '🆑', '🆘', '🆔', '🚫', '🔞', '📵', '🚯', '🚱', '🚳', '🚷', '🚸', '⛔', '✳', '❇', '❎', '✅', '✴', '💟', '🆚', '📳', '📴', '🅰', '🅱', '🆎', '🅾', '💠', '➿', '♻', '♈', '♉', '♊', '♋', '♌', '♍', '♎', '♏', '♐', '♑', '♒', '♓', '⛎', '🔯', '🏧', '💹', '💲', '💱', '©', '®', '™', '〽', '〰', '🔝', '🔚', '🔙', '🔛', '🔜', '❌', '⭕', '❗', '❓', '❕', '❔', '🔃', '🕛', '🕧', '🕐', '🕜', '🕑', '🕝', '🕒', '🕞', '🕓', '🕟', '🕔', '🕠', '🕕', '🕖', '🕗', '🕘', '🕙', '🕚', '🕡', '🕢', '🕣', '🕤', '🕥', '🕦', '✖', '➕', '➖', '➗', '♠', '♥', '♣', '♦', '💮', '💯', '✔', '☑', '🔘', '🔗', '➰', '🔱', '🔲', '🔳', '◼', '◻', '◾', '◽', '▪', '▫', '🔺', '⬜', '⬛', '⚫', '⚪', '🔴', '🔵', '🔻', '🔶', '🔷', '🔸', '🔹'
  ];
  return emojis[Math.floor(Math.random() * emojis.length)];
}

Your front-end might look as you prefer. Example of mine is on the GIF

The tool itself - Emoji Me

Instead of a conclusion.

It’s was a tiny example of an AI application for some routine automations, but it’s a step into very promising and intriguing AI world. There are so much interesting to discover so do it and enjoy.

If you like the article, follow me on social media ❤️

Twitter

How to improve vendors’ experience in marketplaces or they deserve better

Alexey Kramin — Wed, 24 May 2023 10:27:31 +0000

Everybody loves marketplaces, right? We can’t imagine our world without Amazon or Aliexpress anymore. More and more people are using e-commerce stores or platforms to buy anything from groceries to a Dyson. In fact, Amazon can sell more than 4,000 products per minute (!!) in some countries, and this number only increases.

Do these facts say that there is no room for new small players? Absolutely not! You can reach for the stars with your own idea of a marketplace. It is obvious that you have to create a smooth journey for the buyers, but what about the vendors? Even big players lack some facilities and benefits for vendors because their main focus is buyers. But if you don’t treat your vendors well, you can lose your customers as well.

And we have a few obvious and not-so-obvious features that could make your sellers happier. So here we go.

Payments handling

The first and really important thing is the handling of payments. The system should cover it totally and give a supplier the most benefit from it. Also it’s a place where your fee might be applied 😉. Vendors should forget about income management headaches and focus on their businesses.

Clear analytics

It should be easy for sellers to understand what of their products are demanded and what are not. How much they earned. And if it's even worth it to use your marketplace as a selling channel. It should be fair and informative without additional hassling. Being able to export these statistics and play with the numbers outside of the system could also give you a positive karma point from your sellers.

Products management

Adding and managing products must not be a pain in the neck. Help your sellers add them quickly, emphasize all the benefits, and kick it off to the storefront ASAP. Don’t force people to fill out hundred-field-long forms to add a single product. It’s really annoying. It should be like a game: click here, save there, and boom, you've got your first sale. Everybody is happy.

Having the ability to connect to some third-party product management systems might also be a plus. Because a seller could have a few sales channels and might want to manage products from the one place

Promotional tools

If anybody wants to promote their products, why not let them do this? It could be another source of income instead of fees increasing. Often, vendors want to get a better listing position for some specific periods, and everybody can win in this case. But you should be careful with the balance. A group of sellers who take all the promotional opportunities and don't give a chance to the rest of the sellers might appear.

Fair and obvious listing

Let the business work, and it will balance itself. So all the sellers should understand how products and vendor listings work. If a product of good quality has a higher rating in reviews and many purchases, it definitely meets customers needs better and should be listed higher than other products. So your suppliers should understand that they should pursue the quality of their goods to get more sales.

Give an opportunity to newbies

If a seller doesn’t have any sales or reviews yet due to being newly registered, do they deserve a chance not to stay in the shadow of well-rated players? Yes, they do! The competition for customers attention may be tough. And if you support newly created vendors to let them show their full potential, you will get more loyal suppliers.

Flexible fees

It might be a good idea to have a few different tiers for your vendors. Everybody has different sizes of businesses and might be treated personally. It might vary in the amount applied per sale, for different subscriptions, or for any other fee flexibility you can provide. It’s up to you.

Allow to develop customers loyalty

Many big marketplaces lack this feature, and you could benefit from it. Allow your providers to make stronger connections with their customers and develop their loyalty. By the end, you will have recurring purchases, better-quality goods, and a stable seller. Win-win again 😊

As a conclusion

Even huge marketplaces could underestimate sellers satisfaction with the system. But they deserve more. Because not only buyers make this marketplace business sustainable, but the natural balance between buyers and sellers. Both of these groups are your customers, and they should be respected and served well.

Build an ecological marketplace with Fleexy’s micro apps

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How to start your next-generation beauty marketplace in 2023

Alexey Kramin — Thu, 04 May 2023 11:46:53 +0000

Intro

There are plenty of marketplaces on the Internet where you can buy anything you can imagine. E-books from Amazon, nice accessories from Etsy, or some collection vinyl from eBay.

But what about beauty? Don’t you think that it would be great to have a platform where you can find a hairdresser or a barber with good ratings and reviews? Or maybe you want to have perfect makeup for a very special day, like a wedding. Also, you can visit a salon or order the service to be done at your place. There are many other options for different features that we can imagine now, and all of them can be accumulated on one beauty platform. Sounds good? Let’s look inside!

Niche

Why the beauty, by the way? In the last few years, e-commerce has occupied bigger and bigger parts of all markets, and the beauty market is no exception.

A bit of boring statistics. According to Statista, revenue in the beauty and personal care market will amount to US$571.10 billion in 2023. The market is expected to grow annually by 3.80% from 2023 to 2027. Also, 27.5% of total revenue will be generated through online sales by 2023. It’s about US$157 billion!

The chart of expected growth for the beauty market

Some of the drivers of such growth are customers’ continuous seeking of a variety of treatments, including cuts, highlights, and straightening, that require skillful barbers and hairstylists. Besides, the male customer base is growing (thanks God for that 😄).

As the market is growing, it definitely needs new sales channels. And here is the beauty e-commerce platform. The solution aims to bring together the best practices of e-commerce and beauty services. This includes features like online payments and bookings, convenient listings and sorting, one-click orders, and transparent review systems. Additionally, the solution will offer the best beauty content, products, and services. By combining these elements, users can enjoy a seamless and comprehensive experience when shopping for beauty products and services online. It also reduces costs for service providers and customers, which makes the service even more affordable and expands the target audience.

It’s a win-win, as you can see. And it is an opportunity for you to get a piece of that pie.

Building

You decide to build your own platform to serve beauty service consumers. How should it look? What should it contain?

Your platform must include a few required modules to make customers’ and service providers’ journeys smooth and enjoyable.

First of all, a convenient listing

Listing example in Norwegian hairdresser marketplace https://www.thedaba.com/

Listing example in beauty and health service marketplace https://www.sasu.no/

It must be easy to look through services, providers, or products at a glance. All the important data has to be visible without additional action from the customer. The main services of the provider, their name, short introduction, and rating should all be taken into account. The easier and more convenient the user finds this interface, the higher the chance of getting a satisfied customer into the system.

Order flow

When we find a provider we would like to buy a service from, we want to order a service. It might be pretty straightforward or have some conditions according to your business logic, but it should remain as easy for the customer to perform as possible.

Booking flow example in beauty and health service marketplace https://www.sasu.no/

Booking flow example in Norwegian hairdresser marketplace https://www.thedaba.com/

The idea of the flow is to ask the customer all the required information for their coming booking and gently proceed to payment.

Chat

It’s quite often the case when a customer or a provider wants to clarify some questions before accepting an order, especially in the beauty industry. A customer might have a specific request, a provider needs to be sure of the set of requested services, plans have changed at the last minute and the booking should be rescheduled, etc. You definitely need a chat feature to allow users to manage such actions. It should be powerful enough to be able to share images, notify users about new messages, and be mobile device-friendly.

Chat example in Norwegian hairdresser marketplace https://www.thedaba.com/

Mobile first chat example in art social marketplace The Conart

Payment

When a user finally finds the service they want to buy, discusses everything in the chat, and goes through the order flow, it’s finally time to pay. Your platform has to provide one or more available ways to pay. It might be a credit card payment, PayPal, cryptocurrency, or anything else. But it should exist. Also, the whole process should be secure for the customers not to lose their money and for the platform itself not to become a victim of fraud. Fortunately, the majority of online payment systems provide the required level of security and keep you and your customers safe during the whole payment process.

Other, but not least, modules

Besides the described modules, there should be many less obvious but necessary modules, such as sign-in/sign-up, notifications (sms, email, etc.), an admin panel for service providers and super admins, a review system, you name it.

Manual things

In addition to all the tech businesses, there is a list of management businesses.

For example, you might need to manage and moderate the system to provide the best services to your customers and service providers.
Payment handling also requires your attention. Get payments, make refunds when needed, and handle fund transfers to service providers.
There are also customers who you need to communicate with if they have issues.
Analytics and reporting will be required to show the productivity of service providers and the system itself.

It sounds a bit more complicated than in the beginning, huh? But the solution exists.

The solution

As always, there are numerous options. You can start with Shopify, WooCommerce, or OpenCart, for example. They vary in price, some of them are totally free, but the approach is quite the same. You build your own marketplace using some provided functionality and additional plug-ins, which are also paid or free with zero coding. As a result, you get a fully functioning system with limited flexibility and customization, which can be no problem at all on a small scale.

But your idea might be so unique that none of the existing systems meet your requirements. Or hopefully, your business grows, and you can decide that it’s time to break those flexibility limitations you had with the no-code system and build something custom according to your exact needs. And the proper decision here is to use professional code to build the product from scratch. It is definitely way more expensive, but it also allows you to have unlimited control over your system. And if you are visionary and persistent enough, it will greatly improve your product.

It is a classical way of building a marketplace. But are there any alternatives? Yes there are!

Modern alternative

There is a ready-to-go system for marketplaces that contains all the modules described above and even more to help you start your beauty marketplace instantly. And it’s not a box application with a rigid framework. Actually, it has the launching ease of a box solution, but its flexibility equals bespoke-developed systems. This is the next-generation marketplace itself.

The next generation here is in the approach of how it is built and how it works. It is the microapps solutions that the Fleexy team provides. It’s an approach of combining micro-applications into one application. The library of microapps is huge and continues to grow. It contains all the microapps explained above and allows you to start a beauty marketplace amazingly quickly. Moreover, you get full control and flexibility over your system without spending months and a fortune on development.

As a result, this approach is worth considering as an alternative to creating your MVP and then scaling it into a sustainable business.

Meet the solution: fleexy.

Conclusion

In the constantly growing markets, there is always room for everybody who is adventurous enough to run their own startup. If you feel that the beauty industry around you lacks some convenient tech products and you want to change it, it’s time to act. Fasten the belt and break into this world.

DEV Community: Alexey Kramin

Dos and Don'ts of Cold Outreach for Digital Product Proposals

Identify Your Audience

Send a Standard Message to All

Keep It Short and Simple

Focus on Making the Sale

Share What Others Think

Neglect Follow-Ups

The Final

You Probably Lose a Part of Your Potential Audience for Your Online Courses

Selection of a platform

Flow Automation

Conclusion

We made a twist and learned a lot

Ideal storm

Idea simplification

Niche narrowing

There is no need to burn the remaining assets

Our takeaways

How e-commerce trends transform 2023

Subscription models

Social Commerce

Personalization

AI in Personalized Shopping Experiences

The Power of AR and VR in E-commerce

The summary

10 crazy ideas for a marketplace. Real examples

1. Funereal Ephemera: Exploring the Mysteries of Death

2. The Pastel Purgatory: Embrace Your Inner Feline

3. Wild Things Inc.: For the Lovers of Creepy Crawlies

4. Flavored Toothpicks: Adding Zest to Your Dental Routine

5. Cappy Sue Creations: Turning Trash into Treasures

6. MillionDollarHomepage.com: From Pixels to Pockets

7. The Curiositeer: Where the Extraordinary Meets the Bizarre

8. Doggles.com: When Fido Rocks the Shades

9. aKNITomy: An Icky and Cuddly World of Knitted Wonders

10. Terrible Origami: When Imperfection Becomes Art

Don’t be afraid of your ideas

Improve your messengers communication experience with these 7 small tips

Introduce yourself on the first contact

Go straight to the point

Divide into semantic parts

Follow the topic

Make summaries

Tag people

Nothing good is sent after 9 pm

Will our functions transform into AI text prompts from interpreter instructions?

How I built my first AI project for a couple of hours

Idea

Implementation

Instead of a conclusion.

How to improve vendors’ experience in marketplaces or they deserve better

Payments handling

Clear analytics

Products management

Promotional tools

Fair and obvious listing

Give an opportunity to newbies

Flexible fees

Allow to develop customers loyalty

As a conclusion

How to start your next-generation beauty marketplace in 2023

Intro

Niche

Building

First of all, a convenient listing

Order flow

Chat

Payment

Other, but not least, modules

Manual things

The solution

Modern alternative

Conclusion

Links: