How to describe your project in 50 characters or less.

Five insights gained from 250+ projects submitted to Fifty.

The more you describe your project — the better you become at it. Whether it's your landing page or elevator pitch, every iteration refines the idea. Some descriptions are more challenging — like when you’re asked to condense your whole project into 50 characters.

I extended this challenge to indie hackers, and from this — Fifty was born. Fifty is a way to discover Indie Hacker projects in 50 characters or less. While adding submitted projects to Fifty, I gained some insights into what makes a good description.

1. Drop the Fluff

Don’t use words like amazing, great, the best, etc. in your description. It dilutes the message, takes up characters, and feels like marketing speak.

“SEO toolkit to improving your projects” reads much better than “Awesome SEO toolkit to make your projects the best on the internet”.

The second option reads like it’s trying to sell me something — which immediately turns me off to the project.

2. Avoid “and”

As with your hero header text on your landing page, pick one value proposition to sell people on. “We offer this and this and this” overloads the reader. You’ve only got 50 characters, don’t half-ass two descriptions crammed into one.

3. Uber for Newsletters

A message from the man Paul Graham himself.

One good trick for describing a project concisely is to explain it as a variant of something the audience already knows. It’s like Wikipedia, but within an organization. This form of description is wonderfully efficient.

This still holds true. A wonderful example of a description that follows this model is “End-to-end encrypted Trello” by Portabella.

4. No Metrics

Nobody cares about your 500 users, MRR, ARR, XYZ, ABC, or whatever other acronym you’re trying to cram into your description. This is great on a slide deck when pitching to VC’s — not so much when explaining to potential users what you can do for them.

5. Who & What

If you’re not using the “Uber for Newsletters” method — a great model to use when describing your projects is “who is it for” and “what does it do for them”. This attracts your target audience and tells them what you can do for them.

Take a look at this description from Logology — “The logo maker for design lovers”.

The main point, for me, is to drop the fluff. If you are direct, and potential users know what you offer — you will fair a lot better.

Cheers ✌

Find me on Twitter & Indie Hackers.