Keelsheet is a quarterly estimated tax kit for freelancers and 1099 earners (calculator + Schedule C ledger, Excel/Google Sheets). It's live on our own site with Stripe, plus Etsy and Gumroad.
Where it stands after 48 hours
- ~47 site visits, almost all direct
- Etsy and Gumroad: zero views (both hide new sellers until there's outside traffic)
- 0 sales
What I learned already
- Marketplaces won't hand you buyers on day one. Gumroad Discover needs real sales first; Etsy ranks on reviews and conversion you don't have yet.
- Got banned from one subreddit for answering tax questions as a brand account. Lesson: brand accounts and Reddit don't mix.
- A comment on Indie Hackers about title vs description search on Gumroad changed how I wrote both listings.
This week's tests
- Free Q4 estimated tax worksheet as the front door (Jan 15 is the next deadline)
- A "How did you find us?" field at checkout, since "direct" tells me nothing
- Guides that answer one exact question each (missed a payment, how to pay online, how much to set aside)
- Small-creator and freelancer newsletter partnerships
If you sold a low-ticket template from zero: what got you the first 3 sales?
Top comments (9)
With about 47 visits, zero sales is not much evidence either way. At a 2% visit-to-sale rate the chance of seeing 0 sales from 47 visits is about 39%, and at 1% it is about 62%. So it is too early to say the offer does not work. At this size a more useful signal is whether people take a smaller step, like downloading the free Q4 worksheet or leaving an email. The "How did you find us?" field is a good idea, and giving each place you post its own tag in the link makes "direct" much less of a black box.
Thanks, this is a really useful way to frame it. Your numbers check out (0.98^47 is about 0.39), so zero sales at this traffic level mostly says we need more traffic, not that the offer is dead. We're taking your advice: the free Q4 worksheet is up now, email signups are the smaller step we're watching, and we're moving to a separately tagged link for each place we post so "direct" stops swallowing everything.
@veristria agreed, and thanks. Asking freelancers what they use today is a good nudge.
Glad it helped. A separate tagged link per place is the right move. At this traffic level I would watch signups per 100 visits rather than sales for now, since one sale is still a rare event. Good luck this week.
Makes sense, signups per 100 visits it is. One sale is too rare to learn from at this volume.
@veristria yep, that's the whole reason for the tags. Thanks both.
The per-place tagging will pay off fastest. Once each link has its own tag, you can see which post actually sends Q4 worksheet signups instead of guessing.
Thanks for pointing out the per-place tags. We're going to give each link its own tag so we can see which post actually sends the Q4 worksheet signups.
47 mostly direct visits and no traffic from the marketplaces tells you very little about demand yet. I'd stick with the free worksheet test, but track how many people use it and come back for the $14 kit. I'd also ask a handful of freelancers which quarterly tax step is most confusing. Their language may give you a clearer headline than another launch post. Two days is too early to judge the price.
Thanks Lalit, fair points. Worksheet signups and how many of those come back for the kit is exactly what we're watching. And agreed on asking freelancers which quarterly step trips them up, their wording will probably beat ours for the headline.
Two days is still early, so keep going. Talking directly to a handful of freelancers and asking what they use now might teach you more than any landing page test.