
Rate my startup (3rd time's the charm) - TimothyBurgess
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.<p>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).<p>My first submission's feedback:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123579<p>And my second submission's feedback:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2206413<p>(The old site may be broken now... I haven't checked and I don't care to.)<p>So... here's what I did...<p>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.<p>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.<p>I also got rid of the demo animations and video tutorial.  Those were lame too!<p>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.<p>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.<p>Last... I added a walkthrough for first-time users.  It <i>should</i> guide users through the entire app enough for them to know how to use it.  This needs further real world testing, I'm sure.<p>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?<p>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.<p>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.<p>There's definitely still some more work to be done but I think I'm <i>finally</i> 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.<p>http://www.tourlogger.com
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swanson
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
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! :)

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maxbrown
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
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%.

~~~
TimothyBurgess
I put the "Get Started Now" buttons on their own lines and indented them
slightly.

And as for the logo, I have the g's hanging over the image so that the rest of
the text lines up. I tried moving it up but it just looks weird to me. I
prefer it to hang over like that... reminds me of when I was first learning to
write... and the g's, p's, j's, etc. hung below the line.

I did add a slight stroke to the g's to make the bottom overhang stand out
more.

Let me know if that's any better!

~~~
bmelton
The 'g's I'm okay with dangling, though I still don't think they look great.

What I was specifically talking about with the 'floating sausage' remark was
the 'o', 'u', 'o' and 'e' in the logo, and how they seem to ALMOST touch the
border they sit above.

For what it's worth, I fancy myself a designer too, and I constantly struggle
with letters that dangle and figuring out the appropriate alignment for them.

In general, the site looks amazing, but if I had to point out its achilles
heel, it's definitely the logo.

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erichcervantez
I think the page design overall is quite excellent. On the questions page I
would enlarge the font size of the bolded questions just a nudge. The absolute
worst part of the site however is the logo, in my opinion. The thin, noodly
font seems completely out of place against the strong blocky composition in
the background. It's look more like an afterthought or a temporary logo put in
place until the final one is completed. Otherwise, great job on everything
else!

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julianc
Overall looks nice but there is a thing that I don't like: the dark background
on your homepage and pricing page, it really breaks the page as a whole. Make
it a lighter color, a light, warm blue or green or yellow. The dark color
really bothers my eyes.

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ctb9
total nitpick but something I noticed that has an easy fix:

when you hover over the big three images on your landing page, they 'blink'
while the new image loads.

the easy fix is to preload the hover images in javascript.

alternatively, you would make them a sprite (one image) and change the
background offset on hover to show the appropriate one.

congrats on the progress.

~~~
TimothyBurgess
Yeah I had noticed that but didn't think much of it. It does get kind of
annoying.

It shouldn't take long at all to do... so I'll add a div with a fixed position
way off the page and out of sight to preload the images since I want the
landing page(s) to be 100% functional without javascript.

