I love this concept, and I can see my business using it. We have three team members, so I'm surprised you consider us an Enterprise. I'd be more comfortable if you called us a "Business" or an "Agency". And should a true enterprise be capped at five users and pay just $69 per month? If I were to sign up, I'd get an Advanced plan and deal with just having two users.
As a business owner, this product solves two needs: 1) saves lots of time and 2) ensures that salespeople can assemble good looking proposals.
Do you have example proposals on the website? I want to see what this generates without creating a free account and doing a bunch of work myself.
Apowell, Awesome thought, thank you soo much. We tried to minimize quantity of team members and other items in plans so that we have capacity to add them up after application release. Right now all plans are free and there is no limitation on features. I've already added a task to create one more banner that says "Beautiful proposals in minutes. Check what your clients will get" linking to a live example of web based proposal. Again, really appreciate your feedback.
I'm in your target market, though I'm not as serious as many.
My thoughts:
1. Figuring out how to register without Facebook was way too tough. I had to find two links that were indistinguishable from the rest of the text.
2. What is "Brand". Is that car brand (BMW) or part brand (Bilstein)?
3. Okay, now I've gone to the "What do you want to sell" page, and I see "Brand" is the part brand (this is just because I'm poking around -- as a regular user, I'd never do this). Which makes me wonder, how do I find parts for my particular year/make/model (E46 330i, in my case)?
4. I can't do anything useful from the home page. Show me a list of brands, a search box, anything to start me on my way.
5. What does "forensics" mean in this context? The "Show forensics updates" is neat looking, but useless for someone who is buying or selling (but interesting for wasting time / kicking tires). The pictures should at least tell me what the product is.
Hopefully this hapazard feedback is useful. It looks like promising concept and you've clearly worked hard on it, but I think you need to populate it with products and then observe first-hand how people interact with it.
1) We would prefer it if people register with Facebook but I agree that I've made it a little too discrete to register without it in the new design.
2/3) I'll add the background text examples to the search fields like we've done on the sell pages so that it's more clear what should be in the Brand field. I hope that'll clear up any confusion.
4) The home page definitely needs some work. The key thing that's there doesn't show until there are listings present, unfortunately. Like on the Forensics tab it will show the most recent listings with prices, etc.
5) I suppose we should make that more clear upfront. Part Forensics is our parts wiki. It made more sense on the original release but clearly doesn't anymore.
All feedback is useful. Right now we are talking about ways to build a user base quickly and adding a few products on our own might be a way to make the site a little more useful.
To go back to one of my questions, by looking around could you identify why our service might be better than the others? We have some very real competitive advantages but I don't think we're communicating them very well so I'm interested in hearing what first time users are taking away from it at first glance - so we can make it better.
I use Quickbooks as well. I entered everything by hand until we started exceeding a couple hundred transactions per month. Now I import transactions from the bank and reconcile against the paper statements each month.
I was anti-bookkeeping for a while, but now I'm hooked. I think it's good for the business if you review all your expenses and produce a P&L each month.
By suggesting several possibilities, you're saying "these times really do work for me, so if you pick one, we're set, you can put it on your calendar". When you say "let me know when works for you", you're still leaving open the possibility that you're not actually available at the time they choose, possibly leading to more scheduling emails.
Plus, when I'm on the receiving end of a "let me know when works for you", I feel a little presumptuous assuming that I really can pick any time and that person is going to clear their schedule for me.
Not to mention that even if they haven't been explicitly released under the GPL, they are derivative code upon a GPL-licensed piece of software and thus GPLed themselves.
One might argue. Plenty of others, including lawyers, have argued that isn't so. There are even court decisions to support that WP themes and plugins may not be derivative works. Nobody can say definitively until there are some actual cases resolved in court to provide guidance.
1) I clicked a ton of shirts; does it ever end? Where are the suggestions?
2) I clicked "help" and got nothing. Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, all on a Mac.
3) Could you preload the next comparison so the site is snappier? If the next comparison depends on the results of the previous comparison, perhaps load the comparison tree up 2-3 levels deep. The experience would be much nicer if it everything was totally instant.
> 1) I clicked a ton of shirts; does it ever end? Where are the suggestions?
The suggestions are at the bottom. I'll make some changes to make this attract more attention and to make its purpose clearer. But no, there is no "end" per se.
> 2) I clicked "help" and got nothing. Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, all on a Mac.
Oops, fixed!
> 3) Could you preload the next comparison so the site is snappier?
Perhaps those are good ideas, but they don't sound right for you right now. Building a network-effect business that requires buy-in from Paypal and/or national brands? I can't think of much that's tougher or more speculative.
You should consider creating something that individuals or small businesses will pay for because it scratches an itch. I pay for several services like that each month -- Blinksale, Springloops, AuthorityLabs, Chargify, WebsitePulse, Postmark, and Basecamp. (But don't limit yourself to tools for developers -- there are many industries with un-scratched itches.)
Thanks for the advice. So target the niches rather than fortune 100. That sounds like a more promising way to get your foot in the door. You are right it is really tough getting noticed by the bigger players I guess my approach should be to squeeze in with the smaller ones first.
Don't be wrapped up in creating the next Paypal. A very small business can be a big thing for you and your family. Once you've created a healthy income from full-time self-employment, then you can start changing the world.
I've known from an early age that I wanted to work for myself, and I've structured my life to make that possible. I've always had side projects going - through high school, college, and two full-time jobs.
When the side projects grew profitable enough and we had socked away enough money, I quit my job to work on my business full-time. My wife was about twelve weeks pregnant when I gave my notice.
That was a bit over a year ago, and I haven't looked back. I'm financially conservative, so I probably waited longer than others in my shoes would have. I had enough income to support a basic lifestyle (I call it "pork-chop profitability"), and if the income dried up we had enough savings for a couple years. It was a high bar, but with a baby on the way I didn't want to be reckless.
Start working on small, attainable side projects with immediate revenue potential. Pick two targets: self-employed income and non-retirement savings. When you hit both targets, it's time to go full-time. And most importantly, make sure your family supports you and understands your ambition.
Very true. And with the Amazon iPhone app, you don't even have to leave to finish your purchase. Just scan the barcode, purchase, and continue enjoying your coffee.
Not just barcodes, it can recognize DVD/book/CD covers too. You can even take pictures of items (iPods, laptops, toys, etc) and it will do its best to identify the item and find it on Amazon. It's pretty slick.
As a business owner, this product solves two needs: 1) saves lots of time and 2) ensures that salespeople can assemble good looking proposals.
Do you have example proposals on the website? I want to see what this generates without creating a free account and doing a bunch of work myself.