
&! (and bang), project management for teams - bpierre
https://andbang.com/
======
moe
I don't like to be that guy, but your landing page is a tragedy.

It's visually gorgeous, yet completely fails at explaining what the product
does and how it's different from the two dozen competitors. Remember rule #1:
Show, don't tell (hint: screencast, live-demo).

Don't promise "LET'S CUT THE VAGUERY" when all that follows is cropped
screenshots and breathless marketing copy.

ALL YOUR TEAMS ARE A CLICK AWAY, TEAM STATUS & PRESENCE AT A GLANCE, MINIMALLY
DISTRACTING GROUP CHAT ...

I can't help but respond: O RLY?

Skype has all that. Minus the breathless marketing copy...

~~~
adambrault
I think you make some fair points. 100% agree we desperately need a better
demo on the front page.

I think the landing page needs help, too, but we've gotten _mostly_ positive
responses to it. I personally didn't expect this, because I wanted a nice demo
and we just flat haven't had time to put one together.

We launched it on the same day as our realtime web app conference (krtconf)
and I wrote the bulk of the copy at about 2 a.m. the night before. Not my best
work, but no excuses--sometimes you just have to ship! :D

~~~
peterwwillis
A brief (snarky) reflection:

 _"Our team at &yet has been building &! for a year, using and improving it
for nearly 6 months."_

Approximately %0.00023 of the time spent was on the landing page copy on the
night before the deadline. Perhaps a project management system would help
here.

------
antimora
I don't get it. What's this?

Could this be explained without requiring me to sign up?

~~~
robryan
I thought the landing page explained it pretty well.

~~~
antimora
Here is Copy-Paste from the home page. At what point should I start
understanding what this is? I think I get that there is a suspense point and
make me curious, but not strong enough to make me sigh up. In fact I will
rather never sign for anything unless I have to.

TONS OF TIME GETS WASTED KEEPING YOUR TEAM ON THE SAME PAGE.

MEETINGS STRANGLE PRODUCTIVITY.

NOBODY GETS IN THE ZONE WITH MORE EMAIL.

NAGGING IS A DRAG FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED.

WHAT IF SAME-PAGIFYING JUST HAPPENED AUTOMAGICALLY?

GET READY TO MEET &!Realtime mind-meldification for teams.

Wooooo! Sign up now!let's do this thing Or read on...

LET'S CUT THE VAGUERY SHALL WE?

IT'S ALL ABOUT SHIPPING

Finishing's the hardest part. &! keeps you focused on the most important
things—there's no room for anything else. Ship stuff today!

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL "What are you working on?" and "Are you busy?" are the
most pointlessly painful questions when you're just trying to get something
done.

Never do it again. Ever. Ever!

etc etc ...

~~~
adambrault
Cool. Thanks for the feedback. It's definitely not as clear as it could be.
We'll do better.

------
adambrault
Hi, Adam Brault, &yet CEO here. Thanks for trying &bang. Our team has worked
hard on it and we have a lot more work in store for it.

We've gotten some incredibly useful feedback so far (lots of "Well, duh!"
moments).

We certainly would be grateful for any feedback you have and would be glad to
answer any questions.

~~~
ephermata
It's wonderful that you have "give us feedback" as one of the initial tasks in
the first team created. It's less wonderful that there is no obvious way to
give you that feedback. Five minutes in and already I'm falling behind on
shipping!

On a different note: I actually need to recruit people I don't previously know
to my team. Would it be possible to add a landing page for a team that signs
up the person and then auto-ads them to that team. This would have a hard-to-
guess URL, so I would have confidence that only people I recruited (or their
friends) would show up.

Finally, I just need to ask, are you fans of
<http://www.mspaintadventures.com> ?

~~~
adambrault
Good point and cool idea about the custom invite URL.

I've seen mspaintadventures.com and was entertained... why? :)

------
Vivtek
The service itself looks awesome, but let me just say that the landing page is
_fantastic_ \- just the right balance between humor and information to keep me
reading to find out details as they occurred to me, gave me an option to sign
up right at the top, but then kept explaining more without making me click to
another page to do it.

I am truly in awe of that landing page.

~~~
adambrault
Thanks. :) There are definitely tons of places it needs to be improved, but we
appreciate the kind words!

------
ramanujan
This is really very awesome. The keyboard shortcuts [1] are particularly well
done and worth trying out.

Just a really great version 1. Down the line, it'd be amazing to have some
sort of Github/Github Enterprise integration and/or Salesforce integration.

[1] Too few people focus on these, but they are absolutely key to get power
users for webapps or apps in general. This is why Gmail is irreplaceable if
you need a webmail ui and can't use gnus for some reason.

The funny thing is that it's not that hard to build an app around keyboard
shortcuts if you design it that way from the beginning. Hopefully we'll see
more of this.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Keyboard shortcuts are awesome[1], though they do tend to interfere with
keyboard-based browsers. Right now I use Conkeror, which is Emacs-inspired
Mozilla-based browser, and encountered some problems with webpage and browser
shortcuts interfering witch each other. Sometimes it's annoying (Twitter,
SMBC), sometimes it renders the webpage keyboard shortcuts unusable (&!) [2].

I know that people using keyboard browsers are probably the 0.005% of users
and thus not worth optimizing Internet for; however as the keyboard shortcuts
become more and more popular among webpages, it might be interesting to talk
about how to make them well. Should everyone design their own shortcuts, or
are there operations so common across webpages, that it would be better to
have universal keyboard shortcuts configured browser-side?

[1] - I got addicted to keyboard shortcuts in GMail, they're great! :).

[2] - fortunately, all of this is (AFAIK) solvable by writing a major mode for
given webpage.

------
bjornsteffanson
This absolutely needs an interface demo. While the page looks nice, I have no
idea what the product actually does, and I'm not really interested in giving
up my email address just to find out...

~~~
Palomides
or at least larger screenshots

------
zobzu
Someone went to far with the web-design-marketing ;-) Pink, contrasts too much
caps makes the site difficult to read.

~~~
pjscott
I like the pink, in principle; it really draws your eye. The problem is that
it draws your eye to disjointed phrases that don't make sense unless you read
some of the surrounding non-pink context, creating a confusing effect to
readers who are skimming the page.

------
JoshTriplett
This looks a lot like a successful project status approach I've used on a
previous project: everyone kept their status on a wiki, with a very short list
of currently active work and a slightly longer list of pending work.
Effectively, everyone shared their TODO list, and from the combined list you
could tell at a glance what everyone worked on without having to ask or have
status meetings. (Thus, meetings only existed to deal with actual blocking
problems, and remained short.) Management within the team learned to look at
that TODO list rather than asking for status reports; when management outside
that team wanted a report on recent accomplishments, they got a rolled-up copy
of completed TODO items with a few highlights called out at at the top.

I like the idea of having a tool built around the same approach, assuming I've
understood it correctly.

A few bits of feedback on your launch page: While I found phrases like "mind-
meldification" amusing, the first instance of such a phrase occurred when you
said "same-pagifying", and that one in particular didn't so much strike me as
amusing as pointy-haired-bossish; I almost closed the page right then. Also,
do you _really_ want to use the politically charged phrase "don't ask don't
tell" in marketing copy? And finally, while I liked the repeated links to the
register page, the one with the text "Try using it right now!" somehow made me
expect an instant demo page without having to sign up; this seems like the
kind of interface where 30-60 seconds playing with it will tell me if I want
to use it.

(One other thing: you say at the bottom "absolutely free for teams of 2", but
honestly this looks like it might make a perfect TODO list application for a
team of 1; have you considered that use case?)

~~~
adambrault
You're pretty much dead on.

We built the tool based on a completely stripped down paper process we
created. We made a set of Post-It notes that we put on a shared space. Then we
would put what we were actually working on the door to our office. It worked
really nicely, except you had to physically be in the office and it required
you to get up from your desk a lot. &bang was literally taking that approach
and making it a web app.

Thanks for the feedback on the launch page. All valid points. We plan on
making it easier to try out as well.

Regarding your last point, we are going to improve the one-user experience,
too.

------
iand
Can't even see site intro because my mobile browser doesn't support
websockets. Please fix so I can at least read about why I might want to use
your app when I get to a pc with a modern browser.

~~~
adambrault
Good point. Forgive the dirty websockets check. We're going to do this better.

~~~
ramchip
Same thing here (as a non-mobile Opera user). But it's understandable for such
a new site.

------
bosch
You should fire your web developer... How can your homepage not work with IE9?
Seriously - WTF do you need websockets for on your homepage? I can _maybe_
(notreally) see it for your application but product sites should be available
for all browsers and not discrimiinate.

~~~
adambrault
I'm disappointed it pissed you off so much. But I made that call.

Why? Because we were getting people pissed off that they didn't find out until
they went to sign up. We flat haven't had time to do a more complex and
friendly/informative solution, but we want to. Forgive us.

Here's the backstory on the websockets decision on an app level:
[http://andyet.net/blog/2011/nov/14/we-shipped-an-app-that-
re...](http://andyet.net/blog/2011/nov/14/we-shipped-an-app-that-requires-
websockets-heres-w/)

~~~
bosch
Well I agree with Hanselmen:

"The 10,000 people on the planet that care about Web Sockets are not your
customers, and while using Web Sockets might get you mentioned on TechCrunch,
supporting only Web Sockets is a great way to cut your potential audience in
half."

But it all depends on who you're looking to as your market. I'd go as far to
say that the group of people who DON'T support web sockets is exponentially
bigger than the ones who do...

~~~
ericd
As PG has said more than once, it's better to make a small group insanely
happy than to make everyone "meh" about your stuff. The geek side of me is
really happy to see long polling finally getting thrown out the window like
the hack that it is, and if you want to make a stand against it, I'll love you
more for it.

Pragmatically, though, you probably want to eventually have a fallback mode in
this case, with a note telling people that they should probably use a better
browser. Team apps are one of those least common denominator problems, after
all.

------
mperham
I test drove it a few days ago. I really liked the UI (with keyboard
shortcuts!) but found that it really didn't add value since we already use
Pivotal Tracker. PT already has a notion of the story you are working on along
with tasks for each story that you can quickly create and check off as you
complete them.

The group chat feature feels pretty simplistic and isn't even in the same
ballpark as Campfire or HipChat.

It's a promising design and feature set but still needs a lot of work to
justify the high price.

------
SecretofMana
Since the landing page point has been beaten to death, here are a few things I
think about the app itself after messing around: the keyboard shortcuts are
awesome and just make the application fun to use, but the amount of real
screen estate being wasted is criminal. With the window maximized on a
1920x1080, the taskbar is crammed to the left side while the rest of my screen
is simply a gaping gray hole.

On the task management side of things, I tried to add a task for both members
of a team using "$ @all task description" but it seemed to just go to my
shortlist. It was difficult to distinguish, as a result, between different
shortlists and the team shortlist. I was also confused by the presence of a
lightning bolt icon next to one of my tasks that I might have accidentally
added when messing around with keyboard shortcuts. The icon seemed to have no
clear meaning and there was no helpful tooltip waiting for me when I hovered
over it. I also wish there was some way to rank my tasks based on their
priority.

That being said, this actually looks really cool, and I'd love to support it
as the kinks get worked out.

~~~
michaeldhopkins
&! user here. Try it as a Fluid app if you have a Mac, then size the window to
fit the app so it takes up the space of a slightly larger IM window. I
actually zoom it out using Fluid so it takes up a little less space. &! sends
Growl notifications for tasks and directed chat through Fluid which I like as
it lets me background the app and still use it.

------
jrockway
Something I've always wanted at work is an "internal Twitter" so that people
can share quick status updates without forcing anyone to read them. I would
personally just write a quick script to archive and webify the IM clients'
status messages, but I suppose if you don't want to program and don't like
your current chat system, you could use this.

I think one of the problems with this, though, is that only people younger
than 30 feel the need to tell a computer what they're doing with their day.
Most people would rather go home five minutes earlier than communicate with
their team electronically. That's the hard problem to solve here.

(Incidentally, automation could work. I remember writing a CPAN plugin that
detected which module you were installing and it changed your IM status to
show that, kind of like the plugins that show which song you're listening to.
Enough incoming data like this and enough filtering for humans, and you could
get a pretty good idea of what your team is doing without requiring them to
explicitly communicate.

Please develop this further :)

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Yammer does a nice job of this (albeit it is full featured enough to be more
like an "internal Facebook").

------
bamazizi
very minimal and simple. it's basically a chat + to-do-list... i'm not gonna
compare it to Trello but that's what we use right now and so far it has turned
out to be great not to mention it's free.

$10 a month per team member is WAY over priced for such a minimal app. for a
10 member startup it's $80 a month or $960 a year for a chat app!

~~~
andrewfelix
Our team use Trello too, and it works great. This seems very similar. Why not
compare it to Trello?

~~~
bamazizi
you can, and probably should i didn't want to start a this vs that game and
take the spotlight away from these guys

------
jluan
To my cranky old self, the overbearing similarity between this product (aimed
at productivity) and services like Twitter and Facebook (aimed at fun),
combined with the overly cheery, flippant color scheme, make it difficult for
me to take my work in &! seriously and actually get things done.

------
viraptor
> "What are you working on?" and "Are you busy?" are the most pointlessly
> painful questions when you're just trying to get something done.

So true. I don't believe this solves the problem though. I rarely got asked
those questions. But when I did, the person just wanted more and more
information: so how long is it going to take, when did you start, at what
stage are you, does anyone else need to get involved, is there something to be
prepared, etc. This is crazy and tools could not help.

Everyone else knew that, yes, everyone is busy with something and that they
can just look at what's "in progress" on the bug tracker... Technology won't
always solve personality problems.

Also - Teambox seems to be similar and also provide the facebook/twitter-like
status updates.

------
yavle
Ajax username checking makes the field sluggish
(<https://andbang.com/register> with FF 8.0) - when I type username fast, most
of the letters don't show at all. I believe the reason is at: register.js line
24 =)

~~~
epaga
had the same issue when registering.

------
woebtz
I left feedback, but it got stuck "Submitting..."

The short version: \+ The graphics are great. \+ The usability can be
improved. \+ Add a graphical button to access the shortcut/hotkey guide. \+
Add tooltips for any non-conventional icons (sections, thunderbolt, rocket
ship)--include shortcut [esc], etc. \+ Add non-modal feedback/confirmation
when stuff happens: \+ After adding a task: "woebtz added 'Research cheese
puff API' to shortlist." \+ After thunderbolting a task: "woebtz is working on
'Test meatloaf' now." \+ After rocket shiping a task: "woebtz shipped 'Deliver
milk to client!'" \+ Keep up the great work.

------
Soliah
I've registered but after clicking the "and bang!" button I get nothing.

I also noticed that tabbing between the username field causes a delay.
Probably to do with the username availability check.

~~~
adambrault
What browser?

------
latchkey
I applaud you for having a business model. As well as one that does not
involve ads. That said, I can't see myself (or anyone else for that matter)
spending $10 a month (per user) on the current version of service. Basically,
you've implemented a relatively basic 'wall'.

There really just isn't enough there to warrant spending that much money. I
think you need to spend some more time on adding features than repeatedly
posting to HN as a way to drum up business and feedback.

~~~
adambrault
We didn't post this. I was a bit surprised and it made for a completely
unexpected and a bit stressful day.

No doubt, it's a nice surprise for anyone to be pinned to the top of HN for
most of the day, but we haven't put out a press release for &bang for a
reason: we have some things we kind of wanted to do first.

As far as price goes, businesses spend money on software that they use when
they get value out of it.

We've bootstrapped our way from just me to a team of 15+ and while we
carefully watch our budget, we don't handcuff our team when it comes to
hardware and software expense.

We subscribe to web apps that run $15, $25, even $45 per month per user. At
the end of the day, all of those combined are a ridiculously small part of our
budget and we don't even think about the expense. They help us get the job
done and that's what we care about.

With &bang, we're going to work hard to know our customers and deliver them
value by making it easier and more fun to work together efficiently.

I absolutely appreciate your sentiments and believe me: we have a lot more we
are excitedly eager to do with this product. :)

------
jgeerts
Just signed up and the user interface isn't clear to me. The jumping left bar
is terrible, I don't understand how to use this (and I really wanted to for
some reason).

Put in more effort to make clear to your users how you want them to use your
site. I wasn't able with the starting version to make something appear on the
right side and the annoying left menu kept on jumping.

As it is now, I'm really not going to use this (even the free version).

------
michaeldhopkins
I'm using this with some projects and enjoying it. Overall I agree it's a very
fast way to know what everyone's doing. It is suited for a desk environment
since it is desktop-only. (It's closest to working on the iPad but has some
bugs.) The price seems a bit much, but we haven't fully ramped up usage and
we'd happily pay for anything working well for us.

------
doctororange
Hey cool! We're a team of two so I'll be trying this out for sure. Your
landing page lured me in perfectly. By the way, your <article> tags are
rendering with a white background-color, but I assume they're meant to be
transparent/#202020. I'm using FF 7.0.1.

~~~
adambrault
Yeah, suddenly border-image rendering changed in Chrome between versions and
Firefox got the short end of the stick. Sorry!

~~~
doctororange
Hm, maybe it's the border-image. For me, specifying `background-color:
transparent;` to `#home article` fixes things right up, at least in firebug.

~~~
adambrault
Yep, and then, if I recall (and without looking), it removes the background on
Chrome entirely (leaving it transparent and grey and unreadable instead of
white in the center).

I messed with it for a couple hours to get Chrome and Firefox to render the
same and eventually gave up and moved on to more important things, but it's on
my list to investigate.

------
tnahsus
I signed up, created a team, skipped watching the screencast/demo and can't
find it again. Now I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. The UI is just
confusing. I imagine you have spent a lot of time working on how it looks and
not on how it works.

------
ericingram
Overall very well done!

I agree with some of the sentiments here regarding launch page copy. I found
the repeated use of words like "awesome" a little annoying. I would cut it to
to basic "here's what it does and why it's better..." type copy and limit all
the hype text.

+1

------
kunley
Well call me incorrect by my team would laugh if I presented them a webapp
with sooo pink buttons.

------
sbecker
Screencast: <http://vimeo.com/31586105>

~~~
dereferenced2
Lol, this screencast is horrible. It's just one guy talking, but they edited
the cuts so close to each other that he's overlapping himself talking. I guess
it's "saving time" or "is stylish and cool". Obviously it was a conscious
decision on their point, but it's a horrible idea. I don't think I'd trust a
company that would put out something this bad as an official video.

~~~
ehutch79
it's apparently been deleted

------
noinput
just signed up and so far it's working great. really appreciate the _teams of
2 are always free_ mentality. didn't realize how many tag-team ventures i had
that actually make sense with this model. looking forward to giving this a
good run.

------
raghavsethi
I love the design! Museo was a great choice. Are you using TypeKit?

------
zbowling
This may be useful for our daily scrum meetings to document tasks.

~~~
fritzy
Howdy Zac! yeah, it's basically fallen out of our evolved scrumlike process.
We'll likely add more features and polish in that direction.

------
rickdale
Doesnt work on my safari, might want to add a version #?

~~~
Inviz
I confirm, this doesn't work in safari 5.0.3.

Lots of trace garbage in console, doesn't do anything when i type things in
and press enter.

~~~
adambrault
Wow. That's news to us. Thanks for the heads up.

------
BerislavLopac
I hate the word "automagically"...

------
FreshCode
Looks great, but less caps.

------
tommi
Yet another IRC copy?

------
jaequery
a confusing app ... all the way from the landing page ...

------
daodennis
Wohooo!

------
josscrowcroft
It's .... it's ..... it's beautiful! :O

