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Ask HN: Feedback on my startup

by fananta on 1/8/16, 3:46 AM with 44 comments

The landing page is here: http://productmap.co

Is the landing page too simple? The concept is to consolidate the way different companies share their product updates (release notes, emails, changelog, etc.)

  • by hunvreus on 1/8/16, 5:41 AM

    - I'd recommend you look into Amy Hoy's writings, especially about her "Pain/Dream/Fix" approach to pitching products [1]. Sign up to her newsletter as well.

    - Colors and logo seem to be inspired from ProductHunt. It's fine to steal (really), but at least be a tad more creative with the logo.

    - If you're going for a simple page, I wouldn't hesitate to use larger font sizes.

    - "Designing Web Applications" from Nathan Barry may be a good investment of money [2]. He actually also took advices from Amy Hoy for his own products [3].

    - I'd put a human face on this page, maybe of yourself. There are tons of studies showing that this helps building trust and rapport [4] (especially useful as it is a product in the making with no users yet).

    [1] https://unicornfree.com/2013/how-i-increased-conversion-2-4x...

    [2] http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/

    [3] http://nathanbarry.com/step-by-step-landing-page-copywriting...

    [4] https://vwo.com/blog/human-landing-page-increase-conversion-...

  • by ErikVandeWater on 1/8/16, 5:24 AM

    Pros: It's pretty and it's simple. Excellent selection of color. Very likeable.

    Cons: Yes it is unclear what you are trying to offer. I'd suggest replacing the blue rectangles with text of what you imagine the product update timeline would look like for an example company. Signup page takes a while to load.

  • by jaisonjustus on 1/8/16, 10:22 AM

    I like your page, good minimalism. Also, I like the why you handled branding. I got a good feel of the talent behind the scene. But there are couple of things you need to take care. Some are critical too.

    The main thing as everyone spotted you required a good short description. It's better to put a short description just below the message about the problem that you are trying to solve. for example, if you take basecamp landing page, they give more focus to the heading - “Work together the easy way”. Just after that, they had a short description about the problem they solve - “Basecamp’s unique blend of tools is everything any team needs to stay on the same page about whatever they’re working on. There’s nothing else like it!”. From this, I got a gist of what basecamp do.

    Once you add the short description, bring the early access button to upfront. Then it makes sense. It will be like in an order message, short description and call to action. check this http://i.imgur.com/vUxKt5B.png I made small modification on your web page.

    Another thing I like to say is about the timeline. For me, When I saw it in first glance, I felt it as a screenshot of actual product. But I later got confused. it seems more like a design that you added for aesthetic because inside the timeline slice there is no text saying like for example “Release 1.0.5” instead a green rectangle. If it's an actual screenshot make it a bit more intuitive. It's just a suggestion.

    If possible, try to add a bit more drilled down information on page scrolling. Because sometimes people require a bit more details. for example, you can refer basecamp website. On the website as you scroll more details information starts coming and make more sense to the app. Even you are in early access stage but still you require some more supporting descriptions. Which helps you to get more clicks from your target audience.

    Also, I suggest putting your address/country. Becuase I like to know where are you from? :). Nice to see a lot of energy. All the best to your team.

    Peace

  • by gigamick on 1/19/16, 6:15 PM

    I have requested an invitation for both my personal and work email addresses. I seem to have an account for my personal address but I can't for the life of me think how this happened. I don't have any emails from you... Really odd? Anyway, regards the work account - how long till my invitation is actioned.

    And no - Homepage isn't too simple. It's great.

  • by CyrilBoh on 1/8/16, 5:16 AM

    Don't know if I'm missing a link somewhere but I really can't find anything that explains what your product/service is.

  • by dopamean on 1/8/16, 5:41 AM

    This tells me nothing about the product... It looks very clean but I have no idea if this is something I need and I feel like that information should be easily attainable from the landing page.

  • by beiyuame on 1/20/16, 7:53 AM

    The landing page should be enough if there were not so many bugs. I don't know where to contact you directly about bugs!

  • by isaiahg on 1/8/16, 4:13 AM

    I wish there was a bit more information to be honest. Is this a patching system? Or is it just like an alert system for updates? I'm not really sure what it is.

  • by vecter on 1/8/16, 6:42 AM

    Are you targeting B2B or B2C companies? Of those two, B2B sounds like the obvious choice, but even then, I'm not sure there's enough value for companies to adopt this. What makes you think companies actually want this and are willing to pay money for it?

  • by eps on 1/8/16, 8:29 AM

    If I understand correctly, this is a beautified Changelog, probably with an opt-in (email and/or social media) notifications. Does this also provide means for in-app update checks and downloading updates/binary patches? If it's a Yes for all of the above, then it'll be what most software development shops already have in place (and it's trvially simple to set up compared to all other stuff that they need to do).

    I mean - it looks nice, but it doesn't seem to solve any pertinent problems for its target audience.

  • by MattBearman on 1/8/16, 12:41 PM

    It's a good, clean design, but the page doesn't make it clear what your product does. To be honest, I'm guessing it's road map / change log as a service based on the name more than anything. So assuming I'm right in what productmap does, you've definitely got a good name :)

  • by beiyuame on 1/20/16, 7:53 AM

    Is productmap not open to everyone now?

  • by mumino on 1/8/16, 5:05 AM

    where is your productmap? I liked idea personally but I would like to see your own productmap first.

  • by exolymph on 1/8/16, 3:48 AM

    My first reaction: Is this something that companies actually want/need? Have you validated the market? That's ultimately more important than the v0 landing page design.

  • by ItsMeVlad on 1/8/16, 11:03 AM

    I love the design and the "Get early access" button, especially the minimalism involved in the side bar. However, I do have a question on the site's functionality, if it's meant to provide a singular place for product updates, changelogs and emails, how does it differ from Atlassian's JIRA?

  • by ecesena on 1/8/16, 5:43 AM

    Clickable link http://productmap.co

  • by anthony_franco on 1/8/16, 5:59 AM

    Reminds me of Marc's Changelog. Here's a live example: http://changelog.nomadlist.com/

  • by rekoros on 1/8/16, 5:36 AM

    This would be awesome.

    Heads up though: people will want to embed this on day one.