DropSites — Plan of Record
Three inputs went in: the Hermes plan, the GPT plan, and the July market report. This page merges them into one plan of record — two columns showing exactly where the plans matched, where they clashed, and which version won. Everything is decided. What remains is building.
Where We Agree
These points need no further debate. Both plans landed here independently, and the July report supports them.
Locked The Core Offer
One new ready-to-launch website every week. $1 during the drop (Friday through Sunday midnight), $99 in the archive afterward, forever. Same files both times — the $1 is the price of being early.
Locked Paid Voting Is Dead
"$1 per vote, first to $100 gets built" is killed by both plans. Loser money, refund handling, and trust damage turn a fun website business into Kickstarter accounting. Votes will be free.
Locked Business-in-a-Box Packaging
Never sell "an HTML template." Sell "Launch a pressure washing business this weekend — $1." Service pages, quote form, click-to-call, SEO structure, install instructions. The product is the outcome, not the code.
Locked Client and Agency License
Every drop includes a one-commercial-project license: your business or one client's. Freelancers can buy the $1 drop and sell the finished site to a real business for $500+. That widens the market with zero fulfillment cost.
Locked Backend Beats Frontend
The $1 is customer acquisition. Real money: domain setup, customization packs, launch, managed hosting, and later marketing services. SEO gets white-labeled when demand proves out — never built in-house early.
Locked V1 Is Embarrassingly Small
One drop. One landing page. One checkout. A thank-you page that sells "Make It Mine." No voting platform, no accounts, no community, no marketplace. Those come after strangers pay.
Side by Side — Hermes Plan vs GPT Plan
Every dimension of the plan, both columns, with the verdict on each row. Hermes GPT Agreed marks show whose idea it originally was.
What Changed After Debate
The six disagreements that actually moved the plan. Everything else was agreement.
| Disagreement | Original Position | Final Position | Who Won |
|---|---|---|---|
| $99 archive | Hermes: dead on arrival, cannibalized by drops | Keep it — it serves later intent buyers from search and anchors the $1 price | GPT |
| Kill bar | Hermes: zero sales = dead | 500–1,000 qualified visitors first, judge the whole funnel, not one number | GPT |
| Customization | Hermes: generic $149–299 "Make It Mine" | Fixed packs and bundles with checklists — assembly-line fulfillment | GPT |
| Traffic vs funnel | Hermes: traffic is the real test. GPT: funnel economics are the real metric | Both kept — traffic is the gate, funnel is the scoreboard | Split |
| Payment rails | Hermes: Stripe eats a third of every $1 sale | Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy for the drop, Stripe for upsells | Hermes |
| Weekly treadmill | Hermes: broken cadence risk. GPT: pipeline makes drops 2–4 hours | Build the pipeline early; the catalog compounds into the real asset | GPT |
| $1 scarcity | Time only — "$1 until Sunday midnight" | Time plus quantity: first 50 copies at $1, then $99, real counts only | GPT + Owner |
Pricing Map
The full money map. Everything a customer can buy, in the order they are offered it.
| Product | Price | What It Is | When It Is Offered |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Drop | $1 | Complete website files, instant download, one-commercial-project license | Friday through Sunday midnight, this week only |
| The Archive | $99 | Same download, past drops only | Forever after the drop ends |
| Brand It Pack | $49–79 | Your name, logo, colors, contact details, hours, social links, favicon | Thank-you page and every follow-up |
| Content Pack | $99 | Custom headline, about section, up to 5 services, CTAs, FAQs, testimonials — AI-drafted from the intake form | Thank-you page and every follow-up |
| Image Pack | $49 | Swap hero, service and gallery images for the customer's real photos, resized and optimized | Thank-you page and every follow-up |
| Launch Pack | $99 | Domain connected, DNS configured, site deployed, SSL on, contact form tested, analytics on, mobile check | Thank-you page and every follow-up |
| Mod Pack | $99 | 5 modification credits for after launch — the catch-all | After the customer is live |
| Brand + Content | $129 | Bundle of the first two packs | Thank-you page |
| Launch It | $199 | Brand + Content + Launch — the whole thing done, live on their domain | Thank-you page |
| Managed Hosting | $19/mo | Hosting, SSL, updates, backups — the recurring business | At launch and after |
| Marketing services | Later | SEO, Google Business Profile, lead generation — white-labeled | Only once hosting base exists |
The thank-you page ladder
Customization Packs
Each pack has fixed deliverables. The customer fills out one form; you run the checklist. No scope debates, no "can you also just..." — if it is not on the list, it is a Mod Pack.
$49–79 Brand It Pack
- Business name everywhere
- Logo in (header, footer, favicon)
- Brand colors applied
- Phone number and email swapped in
- Address and service area
- Social links
- Business hours
- Primary call-to-action updated
$99 Content Pack
- Custom hero headline and subheadline
- About section rewritten
- Up to 5 service descriptions
- Custom calls-to-action
- FAQs written
- Testimonials and reviews placed
- Business-specific details added
Key decision (GPT): AI drafts everything from the intake form, you review. The offer stays strong and fulfillment stays cheap.
$49 Image Pack
- Hero image replaced
- Service images replaced
- Team or owner photo added
- Gallery images swapped
- Resize and optimization included
$99 Launch Pack
- Domain connected
- DNS configured
- Site deployed
- SSL certificate live
- Contact form set up and tested
- Basic analytics installed
- Final mobile and desktop check
Mod Pack $99 — 5 modification credits GPT
The catch-all for everything else. Only sold to customers who are already live. "Want something changed? Five credits, $99." This is where bespoke work is allowed to exist — priced by the credit, not by the hour.
Fulfillment becomes an assembly line
Metrics and Kill Bar
The only numbers that matter in the proof phase. Not revenue from dollar websites — the shape of the funnel.
What a win looks like
1,000 visitors → 30 buy the $1 → 6 ask about customization → 4 take hosting. The $1 conversion is unremarkable — and you just found a customer-acquisition funnel for a far higher-value service. That is the business working.
What a finding looks like
1,000 visitors → 75 buy the $1 → 0 take hosting. Not failure. It means your buyers are designers and developers who do not need hosting — pivot the backend toward licenses and bundles for Business A instead of forcing Business B services on them.
Marketing Engine
DropSites does not work because the websites are good. It works if attention gets manufactured around every drop. The concept gives more to market than a normal template store: weekly drops, $1 pricing, a copy cap, voting, rankings, before and after customization, and a business opportunity. One product produces a year of content.
Audience 1 The do-it-yourself business owner
"I need a website." Local service owners — pressure washers, dog walkers, cleaners. They buy the $1 drop, then the packs. This is the Business B answer at the checkout question.
Audience 2 The hustler and freelancer
"I could turn this $1 site into $500." Designers, agencies, side-hustles, local marketers. GPT's read, and it is probably right: this is the easier organic audience at first. The "sell this $1 website to a client for $500" angle writes its own content and draws comments.
The channels
| Channel | Mechanic | Job It Does |
|---|---|---|
| Short-form video | 10 to 15 hook variations per drop, screen-recording the finished site: "This entire 5-page website costs $1." Put them on TikTok, Reels, Shorts, Facebook. | Cheapest awareness and hook testing there is |
| Meta ads to the vote | Ads run to the free vote and the waitlist — not to the $1 checkout. Buyers are acquired as emails and sold to on drop day. | Paid acquisition at $10–20 per day to start |
| Manual outbound | 500–1,000 businesses in that drop's niche with a personal note: "We're releasing a website for dog-walking businesses Friday. First 50 can grab it for $1 — thought you might want one of the spots." Run by automation or a virtual assistant with ready-made copy. | Backup reach for the first 50 buyers — delegated, not owner labor |
| Affiliate creators | Paid on the backend only: $25 per customization pack, or a cut of packs and hosting. Never a commission on the $1. | Scalable reach with zero front-end cost |
| Reddit and communities | Post the experiment honestly: "Every week I build whatever business website gets the most votes and sell it for $1. Terrible idea?" People will argue, suggest niches, and ask for the link. | Traffic plus free market research |
| The Drop List (email) | Waitlist → IT'S LIVE → real counts remaining → SOLD OUT → next drop preview. | The conversion channel — where the sale actually happens |
The weekly cycle
| Day | Content |
|---|---|
| Monday | Reveal the voting leaders |
| Tuesday | "Here's what you picked" — show the winner and the build |
| Wednesday | Behind the scenes, features, before and after |
| Thursday | Preview plus waitlist push |
| Friday | 🔥 DROP LIVE — $1, cap announced |
| Saturday | What buyers can do with it — customization possibilities |
| Sunday | LAST DAY — price goes to $99 tonight |
The $1 Cap — Limited Copies
Owner decision: the $1 price is limited in quantity, not just in time. Every drop announces its cap up front — "First 50 copies: $1. After that: $99."
It kills the waiting game
This settles the cannibalization question for good. With a cap, next week's $1 is not guaranteed — finite dollar inventory means "I'll just wait for the next drop" becomes a losing strategy. The archive at $99 is no longer competing with a drop anyone can wait for.
Two reasons to act, and a runway
Deadline plus scarcity. And because the cap is announced early, the drop gets marketed 7–10 days before checkout opens — a waitlist fills first, instead of spending drop morning wondering where customers come from.
Sold out is next week's ad
"Last week's drop sold out all 50 copies. This Friday: Mobile Detailing, first 100 at $1." The cap can grow with the business — Drop 1: 25, Drop 2: 50, Drop 3: 100, Drop 10: 500. Scarcity that scales.
Give the mechanic an identity
"50 Founder Copies" or "50 Drop Copies" instead of "first 50 people." It starts to read like a brand with a launch culture, not a discount template shop.
The SEO Play
Search demand for every niche comes in three flavors, and all three funnel into the same drop. The free layer is what turns "free" intent into buyers.
| Intent | Example Searches | Page That Captures It |
|---|---|---|
| Free intent | free dog walking website, free dog walking website template, free pet sitting website template | Free download page with a legitimately usable one-page version — the complete multi-page DropSite pitched right beside it for $1 |
| Template intent | dog walking website template, dog walker HTML template | The drop page itself: vote page before the build, product page after |
| Commercial research | best dog walking websites, what should a dog walking website include, dog walking website cost | Supporting articles that all point at the drop |
The URL equity play
Every requested site lives at one permanent URL. Before the build it is a vote page — "requested by 836 people" — with genuinely useful content underneath (what the site should include, pricing, service areas). When the drop wins, that same URL transforms into the product page. Months of links, votes, emails and search history never get thrown away.
The bigger play
The person searching "free pressure washing website" also searches for free pressure washing logos, estimate and invoice templates, business name generators, flyer ideas, SEO keywords. Free tools built around the same business owner all feed the same catalog. That is how organic search gets serious — and it is the digitalassetideas content machine aimed at one customer.
SEO compounds underneath everything. It is never the validation channel.
Acquisition Order and Drop Metrics
Track every cohort by drop
| Metric | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Businesses contacted | The real denominator during the outbound phase — replaces "visitors" as the top of the funnel |
| Visitors | Top of the funnel for the traffic channels (video, ads, SEO) |
| $1 buyers and cost per buyer | The front end is expected to lose money. This number only exists to be divided into backend revenue |
| Pack buyers, by pack | Which packs actually convert in which niches — the data that designs the product line |
| Hosting customers | The recurring engine — the number the whole business is built to grow |
| 30-day and 90-day revenue per buyer | The only number that decides whether the machine works |
After 5 to 10 drops this table answers the question no amount of debate can: which niches produce dollar freeloaders and which produce $100–500 customers. That data starts choosing what gets built, alongside the votes.
The Plan
Phase 1 Prove it — one drop, one page, one week
- 1. Finish Drop #001 (pressure washing, Swiss Grid look) and package it as business-in-a-box with install instructions and the client license.
- 2. Publish the storefront with the drop, the countdown, the pricing ladder and the checkout question.
- 3. Wire checkout through Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy (file delivery and tax handled, fees around 10%).
- 4. Push traffic from channels already owned. This is the real experiment — the page measures the traffic engine.
- 5. Judge at 500–1,000 qualified visitors on the full funnel, not one number.
Phase 2 Grow it — the board, once buyers exist
- Free voting board and the Top 100 — demand generation, email capture, product research, social proof, and the "You picked it, we built it" launch mechanism.
- Idea pages that double as SEO pages for niche searches ("HVAC website template").
- Curated selection from the leaders — never an automatic "rank 1 gets built" promise.
Phase 3 The machine — packs, pipeline, and recurring
- Customization packs fully live with the intake form and checklist fulfillment.
- Drop-generation pipeline so each drop is 2–4 hours of work.
- Managed hosting at $19/mo as the recurring base.
- Marketing services (SEO, Google Business Profile, leads) white-labeled — only once the hosting base exists. "You have a website. Now let's get you customers."
Where Things Stand
| Component | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Design system — 16 archetypes + lookbook | Done | dropsite-lookbook.pages.dev — every future drop gets one assigned look, no two drops look alike |
| Market research report | Done | templates-deep-dive.pages.dev — commoditized market confirmed; value lives in niche specificity and services |
| DropSites storefront | Built | Drop listing, countdown to Sunday midnight, pricing ladder, FAQ, client license pitch |
| Drop #001 — Pressure Washing | In Progress | Swiss Grid look, 5 pages, quote form, click-to-call, SEO structure, install instructions |
| Checkout wiring | Your Move | Create the Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy product — one link gets pasted into the storefront button |
| Traffic push | Your Move | The actual test. Channels already owned: ad accounts, digitalassetideas, the leadgen fleet |
Next Steps
Do now
- 1. Finish and package Drop #001.
- 2. Create the Gumroad product, paste the checkout link into the storefront.
- 3. Send traffic. Reach 500 qualified visitors.
- 4. Read the funnel. Decide Business A or Business B with data.
- 5. Ads first: build the ad → vote/waitlist → email → drop funnel and start testing hooks at $10–20 per day.
- 7. Queue outreach for automation or a VA: the 500-name pressure washing list (business, website, email, social, site quality) with ready-to-send copy — owner does not hand-type these.
- 6. Put the 50-copy cap on the storefront and wire a 50-use Gumroad drop code so the count is enforced, not decorative.
Do not do yet
- No voting platform, no accounts, no community features.
- No SEO services in-house.
- No hosting infrastructure beyond one managed stack.
- No debating the model further — it is settled.
- No thin programmatic city pages, and no SEO pages until keyword phrasing is validated.
Sources: Website Templates Market Deep Dive · DropSite Lookbook · GPT plan review transcripts · Hermes plan review