Tortoise Labs’ new website copy paid for itself in a month
This website was a collaboration with Annie Bacher.
“My thinking was, if I can do this website project, then I’m betting it's going to contribute to one new customer. And that was a fair bet — it already has. The project paid for itself in a month.”
- Nick Rimsa, Founder, Tortoise Labs
THE CHALLENGE
Nick’s website no longer reflected the work he was doing, and potential customers were getting confused
Nick Rimsa is the Founder of Tortoise Labs, the incubator that helps first-time founders go from idea to paying customers.
In the past, Nick has had some trouble explaining his work, because the support he offers to founders is versatile and tailored to individual needs.
Yes, he advises new business owners. But he also helps them by doing nitty-gritty work like prototyping, customer research, web copy, design, and development, setting up systems and automations… and I could keep going with this list, but I won’t. The point is:
In addition to teaching and advising, Nick is right there “in the weeds” with founders, doing the work they need the most help with—but his website wasn’t representing that.
“I wrote my site in a very rushed way several years ago,” Nick explains. “Over time I only made improvements in a duct-tapey way, plugging things in only when necessary.”
“At a certain point I realized that my website was no longer super reflective of the work that I'm doing. And potential customers were increasingly confused about who I am, what I do, and what I offer.”
Because his offerings weren’t clearly defined on his website, Nick was spending time talking to and scoping projects for unqualified leads, and doing work for free.
Often leads who weren’t a good fit would reach out, which meant time wasted on the call, understanding project scope, assigning a budget, and crafting a plan—all for the project not to materialize.
Other times, leads would be a good fit in terms of the projects they wanted to accomplish, but they wouldn’t have a budget to spend. Because his services and their costs were not clearly defined on his site, these folks would reach out anyways—and Nick would end up supporting them for free.
“Working with so many people for free was taking up so much time on my calendar and preventing me from doing meaningful work that I was getting paid to do,” he explains.
And, the copy on his old site wasn’t speaking to an important audience: the partner organizations that pay for his services, so founders don’t have to.
When potential organizational partners would reach out after getting referred by someone he was already working with, Nick would find himself repeating the same information, over and over.
“Usually, they'd be confused. We'd have a conversation. I would clear up the confusion,” he explains. “A lot of that confusion came from people thinking I was basically just talking to founders on a weekly basis, when in reality, a lot of the work that I was doing was in the weeds, and setting things up, and building things, and actually contributing in a more meaningful way than just talking to founders.”
Once potential partners understood the breadth of his work, the conversation would immediately shift from “what do you do?” to “how can we work together?”
But before they could get there, Nick would have to clear up confusion every time — which made conversations and sales cycles longer.
“Eventually I said, enough is enough. I've had the last conversation I want to have about this, and I want to make it more clear who I am and what I do—because I'm just annoyed by having to repeat so much information.”
In addition to repeating information, Nick says he was looking to define his offerings for organizations more clearly. “Until that point, the offerings that I had defined were very loose, structurally, and our conversations would revert to being a little bit wayward.”
Nick explains that the colleges and nonprofits he works with often wanted to see something that was a little more structured. “Having the slightly loosey-goosey conversations that I was so accustomed to in the past whenever selling and marketing became a challenge in itself.”
“This website project was a really good opportunity for me—as I was beginning to define some longer-term lines of business—to reformat, to rethink, and, most importantly, redo all of the copy, so that I could eliminate confusion, showcase the work that I'm doing much better, and start going after customers with something much more legitimate and reflective of who I am and what I do.”
So that’s what we set out to do.
“At a certain point I realized that my website was no longer reflective of the work that I'm doing. And increasingly potential customers were getting confused about who I am, what I do, and what I offer.”
THE PROCESS
I listened deeply to Nick and his customers, so I could website copy that feels “real”
Here’s what the whole process looked like from start to finish:
Nick filled out a Discovery Workbook, so I could learn more from him about the story and the purpose behind his business.
Nick conducted customer interviews. I usually do this part, but Nick’s a pro customer interviewer, so having him handle this step was a no-brainer. (You can hire him to do this for you, btw. He’s spent a whole year of his life interviewing customers... seriously, he counted.)
I pulled Voice of Customer (VOC) data from those interviews, so we could figure out how his customers talk about their problems, feelings, and success as it relates to Nick’s services.
Based on VOC and discovery, I created a Messaging Playbook for Tortoise Labs, so we could make sure we were on the same page about how the new website should sound, and so Nick could use it as a guide for all his copy and content moving forward.
I wireframed the website copy in Figma, so that it was crystal clear how the new copy would look and feel once it was live on the page.
Nick designed and developed his new site — check it out!
As a UX Researcher himself, Nick especially appreciated the voice of customer research (VOC) part of the process.
“All of that customer research is what my work is predicated upon when building products and services,” he explains. “Everything stems from the customer and what it is that I'm helping them to accomplish.”
“The website copy was so good because it stemmed from reality, not from some sort of storytelling magic. It was real. And it was so good because it was based on what customers were actually saying.”
Here are a few examples of what this looked like in practice:
During interviews, the struggle that founders repeated the most was that they “didn’t know where to start.” This turned into Nick’s new Homepage hero copy: “If you want to build a business and you don’t know where to start, start here.”
Many founders talked about struggling with alternative programs because they were too templated, not customized to their needs, or run by folks who’d never actually built their own businesses. This turned into a line on the Services for Founders page: “Maybe you’ve tried getting guidance from one-size-fits-none programs, or from “mentors” who have never actually built their own businesses…”
During interviews with organizational partners, they talked about “entrepreneurs” instead of “founders.” And, they emphasized the importance of having a curriculum tailored to their audience and their institutional goals. This turned into a line on the Services for Organizations page: “We work closely with you to tailor our curriculum for early-stage entrepreneurs, so you can make sure it works for your audience and your organization’s goals.”
And so on. Here’s a peek at the first page of Nick’s VOC doc on founders:
Doing voice of customer research helps you find the words that customers are already using, so you can write website copy that actually resonates with them.
Want to learn more about the VOC process? Check out these FAQs.
“Listening to what my customers were saying during the interviews themselves was an opportunity for me to glean all sorts of new and different things,” says Nick. “But then actually seeing all of it in one single place on that voice of customer doc, and seeing all of it so neatly and carefully organized into themes and ideas — it was just so cool to see. I read through it again and again.
“All of that research is so time-intensive and takes so much TLC. I don't often see that people are doing that, because it's really hard work, and it takes a long time.”
“Whenever anybody puts that much care, time, and effort into foundational work, it's inevitable that the end product is also excellent.”
Nick says that doing the project forced him to take a deeper look at how to define his service offerings, too.
“The project forced me to understand where I was allocating time and effort, and where I wanted to be allocating time and effort. So, through the process I understood more clearly what I want to be doing with my time within the umbrella of this business.”
Since writing the site, his offerings have evolved, and he’ll continue to experiment with them — but moving forward, he has clear language to talk about what he does, and space to publicly share those offerings on his website.
Nick did the web design and development himself (you can hire him for that too, btw — I did, and am thrilled with the results. Like I said, he’s versatile). “And the process of actually going from Figma to website was very simple and straightforward,” he says.
My wireframes > Nick’s design and development
“I loved that before actually laying things out on the page, I could get a view of how things would actually physically look, which helped me to then figure out what typography and coloring and images to use.”
So, built on the foundations of deep listening — both to Nick and to his customers — the new Tortoise Labs website was live.
“The website copy stemmed from reality, not from some sort of storytelling magic. It was real. And it was so good because it was based on what customers were actually saying.”
“All of that research is so time-intensive and takes so much TLC. I don't often see that people are doing that, because it's really hard work, and it takes a long time. Whenever anybody puts that much care, time, and effort into foundational work, it's inevitable that the end product is also excellent.”
THE RESULTS
Better qualified leads. 5 hours/week saved. A website that paid for itself in a month. And clarity moving forward.
“The final product was a distillation of these conversations and all of these docs and all this time and effort. It was so spot on, and exactly what I was looking for,” says Nick.
“I had struggled for so long with explaining my work, what I do, and why folks should want to work with me, that it was exciting to see it all in one single place and for that messaging to all be so spot on. It just felt right.”
And beyond feeling right, Nick says that having a website that clearly describes his work…
Reduces the number of repeated conversations he has with potential customers. “Now we're moving on from ‘who are you and what do you do?’ to ‘what can you do for us, specifically?’ right away,” says Nick. With so much information clearly laid out on his website already, his conversations have moved from general calls to qualification calls.
Allows him to focus on a smaller number of higher-quality leads. “I'm no longer spending so much time understanding the scope of the project and then determining whether the potential customer even wants to move forward,” he explains. Because his ideal customer and services are clearly defined on the site, he wastes less time on unqualified leads.
Gives him tools to make sales faster. “In the past, I had always needed to write something out again and again, and these sales cycles would take forever. Now I can reach out to potential customers to say, ‘this is who I am, and these are my offerings,’ so much more clearly,” says Nick.
Minimizes the amount of work he’s doing for free. Now that he has his services clearly defined online, people are no longer reaching out asking if he can help them for little or no compensation — because that question is already answered on his website.
“Adding all those things up, I'm probably saving five hours a week,” says Nick.
“And what am I able to do with those five hours a week? I'm able to immediately reallocate that time to building and growing the businesses that are most successful that come out of the incubator.”
“The whole point of the incubator itself is to create profitable, sustainable businesses” explains Nick “If I'm spending more time with the founders who have developed those foundations through their own hard work, and who need someone who’s in the weeds with them, I am a significantly more valuable asset to those founders — rather than spending that time helping someone who can probably be doing a significant amount of work on their own before potentially working together.”
For Nick, the website project was worth the investment.
“My thinking was, if I can do this website project, then I’m betting it's going to contribute to one new customer. And that was a fair bet — it already has.”
Before the website was even live, Nick shared the prototype version of his services for organizations page, its corresponding VOC research doc, and a bunch of case studies with an existing partner, who then passed those assets to the decision-maker in his organization.
“And the conversation immediately jumped from ‘I'm interested in potentially working with you on this’ to ‘hey, here's a contract’ in no time — because his boss could just instantly look at all of this evidence, make a decision, and proceed to move forward,” says Nick.
“The project paid for itself in a month. And I imagine that it will continue to contribute to many more clearly defined customers.”
Nick says the ROI on research-backed, compelling website copy is clear. “It's so clearly an investment because there's so clearly a return. It's not a nice-to-have. It's not a fun thing to do. It's a necessity.”
“I'm probably saving five hours a week. And I'm able to immediately reallocate that time to building and growing the businesses that are most successful that come out of the incubator.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR TORTOISE LABS
Creating scalable lines of business so Tortoise Labs can help more founders grow
Nick says his vision for Tortoise Labs centers around:
Growing and scaling the businesses that have come from the incubator.
Helping founders to get to that foundational level so that they can then grow and scale.
Establishing and creating additional lines of business that are scalable and not dependent on Nick’s time.
“So that I can then use that revenue to reinvest in the business, to then create more of these businesses that are growing and scaling,” explains Nick.
“Ideally, I have a machine that is constantly spinning,” he says, “And having a website that's so clearly talking to the right customer who I want to work with, that explains the offerings that I provide, and that helps people to understand whether they're a good fit for me before even approaching me — that helps allows for that machine to be in constant motion.”
“As not only the customer I'm serving but the offerings that I'm providing continue to evolve, I'd say that there's really no question of who I want to be working with in order to make those improvements.”
It’s easy to do great work for people who do great work. So there’s really no question for me, either.
Stop struggling to describe who you are and what you do.
Reach out to see how I can help you find the words that feel real.
