Lists Kit reset

I am confused who your customer is too - as you already know.
From my mind, if I was going to set up a lists site, I would go immediately to WordPress. It is very quick to set up a domain.com/category/item URL structure and I can include whatever content I want on each page, be that written words, images, embedded YouTube links or tables of information. Think about a site that lists stores in a particular location as an example. I could create a category called “beauty” and then create a post for each beauty store, adding opening times, links to their logo, prices, a feed from their Instagram or TikTok and buttons to take me to the booking section of their site (hopefully to discuss an affiliate deal in the future). Or if I created a list site with spare parts for a car, I could do the same, adding a list of part details, model numbers etc.

For me, the ease of creating with WordPress trumps a boilerplate solution. Sure, the post and pages would all have to be made manually in WordPress, which is where ListsKit could step in. If I could populate a JSON file, or even better a Google Sheet or AirTable table, the data could be pulled through automatically. I would just need to add the relevant CSS styles and placeholders in the ListsKit template to add my required fields (which would need to be flexible to allow me to add any fields I needed and have them inserted into the template easily).

But… is there a need for that sort of tool and would it be best suited to the public, or devs?
That’s the position you need to work out first.

IMHO, I can see using Lists Kit as a lightweight marketing tool. For example, if I actually had books to sell as an indie author, I could see myself building a listing site with my books and several comps. The tags let visitors sort the items on the list, which means they’re actually sorting themselves. Ultimately, you only want people who would be interested in your kind of books to click through, so it’s actually a good thing to send visitors to other authors.

And if I were to employ that marketing strategy, I would want to spin up several sites, not just one: BestFantasyBooks, BestFantasyAuthors, BestFantasySeries, BooksThatShouldBeMovies… stuff like that. A template that I could learn, use, and then possibly forget about until the next marketing push sounds ideal (depending on how high the learning curve is.)

I don’t actually know how effective that strategy is. “Learn how to market stuff effectively,” is still on my to-do list.

But let’s say you had a demonstrably effective use for Lists Kit…

• Do you see yourself offering to build sites as a service where you would use Lists Kit? In other words, is the code the product, or does it work better as a backend to a service?
• How would you feel about resellers using Lists Kit and possibly running many different marketing campaigns with a lifetime license and your email on speed dial? Would success of the product you’re offering now actually be a huge problem?

@tao Yea maybe you’re not the target customer of Lists Kit because Wordpress works for you and you actively develop in PHP and enjoy it. For someone like me who don’t actively build on PHP/Wordpress, having to buy a wp theme, pay monthly subscription for sharing hosting are costs. And having to constantly update the plugins out of security concerns, worry about SQL injections etc is a real PITA for me. All that work for a directory which I have no idea if it will get profitable.

That’s why I chose a HTML template. Free to host, no constant updates. It’s also familiar tech than PHP which I don’t know. I can deploy and forget (mostly, other than minor updates). And focus on marketing. Yeah Lists Kit isn’t for non-technical public for sure. I guess my customers are prosumers, devs who are like me and have similar experiences like me. The problem now is having to find these folks who are like me…

@Winkletter That’s exactly what I’m doing now in a way!

Hmmm yes a done-for-you service is possible. I could test this on Upwork or Fiverr perhaps… 🤔