9 ms·

Rate my startup (3rd time's the charm)

10 points by TimothyBurgess 16y ago

Well here I am again. I've done this twice before and received from seriously amazing feedback. I couldn't have made it to this point without you awesome people here on HN providing me with helpful feedback and criticism. The current (third) revision is a million times better than the first two... and I actually think the first was better than the second (less clutter but less information). My first submission's feedback: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123579 And my second submission's feedback: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2206413 (The old site may be broken now... I haven't checked and I don't care to.) So... here's what I did... Someone said something along the lines of "the name is terrible" (and it really was)... so I ended up spending a couple of days trying to figure out a new name. It's seriously absurd how many .com domain names are taken for resell and not used whatsoever. Out of principle I didn't even bother contacting those nimrods for a quote. I put together a long list of potential, available domain names and finally got one... and registered it for $5. Next I had to come up with a new design. I believe someone called my 2nd revision's design "appalling" (LOL) and it most definitely was. I had my reasons for doing it like I originally did but it just didn't work as I intended. I wanted to fit pretty much all of the information on one, concise page... but it ended up looking stupid and unprofessional. I also got rid of the demo animations and video tutorial. Those were lame too! As for the new design, I looked around the web a while for some inspiration and found a few sites of which I felt had a lot in common with my product. I combined the look and feel of one site with the structure of another and of course added my own touch to it. Some of you may be able to recognize which sites I used as inspiration. It took me about a week to complete the entire new front end and recreate the sign up process to be much more user friendly and match the new look. And of course I had to tie up the old back end with the new front end and do a ton of testing. Last... I added a walkthrough for first-time users. It should guide users through the entire app enough for them to know how to use it. This needs further real world testing, I'm sure. I've also considered adding a demo button that has all the functionality of the free trial except for the networking aspects and no data is saved after they log out... so that people can click once to try it out rather than go through the sign-up process. Maybe I could give demo users the ability to switch over to the free trial mid-demo so their data stays intact. Anyone have thoughts on that? Oh and today I added a small feature that should scale the text for various resolutions (since the app itself is based on percentages)... I still need to add an option for users to toggle this on and off and possibly specify their own font size. And in case anyone mentions it (as was mentioned in revision 2)... I go straight to https because users can log in on any page. There's definitely still some more work to be done but I think I'm finally at a point where I can officially release my product into the wild. And I couldn't have made it what it is today without the help of you fine folks... so thank you. HN is truly a valuable resource. http://www.tourlogger.com

deleted 16y ago
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swanson 16y ago
I am no where near the target audience for your app, but the difference between this version and the last is miles apart. I did a double-take to make sure both sites were done by you. One thing I ran into was that when I first loaded up the page, I didn't realize it was for musicians touring -- I thought it was about 'sight-seeing' touring. Maybe you can emphasize the musical element somehow. Nothing on the front page indicated to me that this was an app for bands. Maybe your tagline ("Instantly track merch sales and expenses") could be tweaked slightly ("Instantly track your bands merch sales and expenses while you tour"). Good luck with the official release!
- TimothyBurgess 16y ago
  Haha yeah I had a feeling people who saw the original would doubt I created the new version. I had a number of people respond to my previous revisions telling me to hire a designer. I never bothered saying "I can do it myself" because I figured I'd let my new design say it for me. My original design is very misleading regarding my abilities... I was just trying something different but it clearly didn't work out. I'll definitely let your suggestion about the sight-seeing confusion twirl around in the ol' noggin. Thanks! :)
maxbrown 16y ago
Wow - worlds better. One thing that strikes me is the logo... maybe it's a style preference, but the overlap distracts me. I would keep it that size and make the white top bar bigger, or shrink it a bit, so it doesn't overlay on to the middle. Also, on your features pages, I would try to do something more with the "Get Started Now" button. The color definitely works, draws my eye, but maybe you can offset it from the text more? Feels jammed in there. Should be a solid, set out call-to-action. Good luck with it! Looks like an incredible improvement.
- bmelton 16y ago
  Plus 1 on the logo -- it looks a little fragile on the page, and hangs oddly over the page with an effect that I can only describe as resembling the "Floating Sausage" or "Finger Sausage" effect you get when you put your two fingers close together in front of your eyes. It definitely is a MAJOR improvement though, 100%.

deleted 16y ago

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swanson 16y ago

I am no where near the target audience for your app, but the difference between this version and the last is miles apart. I did a double-take to make sure both sites were done by you. One thing I ran into was that when I first loaded up the page, I didn't realize it was for musicians touring -- I thought it was about 'sight-seeing' touring. Maybe you can emphasize the musical element somehow. Nothing on the front page indicated to me that this was an app for bands. Maybe your tagline ("Instantly track merch sales and expenses") could be tweaked slightly ("Instantly track your bands merch sales and expenses while you tour"). Good luck with the official release!

TimothyBurgess 16y ago
Haha yeah I had a feeling people who saw the original would doubt I created the new version. I had a number of people respond to my previous revisions telling me to hire a designer. I never bothered saying "I can do it myself" because I figured I'd let my new design say it for me. My original design is very misleading regarding my abilities... I was just trying something different but it clearly didn't work out. I'll definitely let your suggestion about the sight-seeing confusion twirl around in the ol' noggin. Thanks! :)

maxbrown 16y ago

Wow - worlds better. One thing that strikes me is the logo... maybe it's a style preference, but the overlap distracts me. I would keep it that size and make the white top bar bigger, or shrink it a bit, so it doesn't overlay on to the middle. Also, on your features pages, I would try to do something more with the "Get Started Now" button. The color definitely works, draws my eye, but maybe you can offset it from the text more? Feels jammed in there. Should be a solid, set out call-to-action. Good luck with it! Looks like an incredible improvement.

bmelton 16y ago
Plus 1 on the logo -- it looks a little fragile on the page, and hangs oddly over the page with an effect that I can only describe as resembling the "Floating Sausage" or "Finger Sausage" effect you get when you put your two fingers close together in front of your eyes. It definitely is a MAJOR improvement though, 100%.