

Show HN: land that gig by making a great first impression. Feedback appreciated. - bullrico

http://impressar.io<p>Another 'scratch your own itch' MVP, bear with me.<p>I'm a long-time telecommuter, and my gig-hunting success depends on two critical elements: an email cover letter that is visually appealing, and a corresponding portfolio landing page with content tailored to that specific email. Last year I decided to automate this process, and after months of lost weekends and late nights fine-tuning it for public consumption, I'm launching my MVP, Impressario. Briefly, it solves these pain points:<p>* Collect and keep track of job listings in one place<p>* Maintain a set of email templates for specific job titles/requirements<p>* Be able to create and send out HTML emails (with images)<p>* Host and manage different versions of a portfolio (with custom domains)<p>* Track sent emails to gauge response<p>Thoughts / comments / feedback appreciated.
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binarysoul
This looks pretty cool. Tracking all of that stuff is a little messy, I
definitely could've used this back when I was on the market.

However, I see this as a cool open source application rather than a for pay
service. The problem is that if your service works really well... You're going
to eliminate your customers as they get gainfully employed thanks to your
site.

~~~
polyfractal
I (partially) agree about having a high churn rate on customers. I imagine
most freelancers will use the service less once they build up a nice portfolio
of clients, although I can still see a use for the occasional new client even
with a full roster.

I disagree about open source. Sure, it'd be a cool open source project - but
don't give it away for free yet. I'd change the pricing plan.

During your beta, find out what the average life time value of a customer is.
Do they use it actively for two months? Six months? After figuring out the
lifetime value, adjust your pricing accordingly.

If you find people using it hardcore for a month and then stopping, it makes
more sense to sell this as a "one-off" price instead of a low monthly. If
people use it chronically, you can keep the low monthly.

All that said, very cool service and I think I'll be one of your customers =)

~~~
bullrico
Thanks for the feedback. The churn rate is a concern, I'm hoping to discover
useful features to add that can make the app more enticing to keep around.

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tylerwl
You did a great job of making the How It Works section clear and appealing.

The one addition I would suggest for the Features page is what email address
will your customers be able to use? Will it be their own or an @impressar.io
address?

~~~
bullrico
They can use their own email address, although a temporary @impressar.io
address is built-in - just to add a layer of protection (against spam). If you
reply to the @impressar.io address, it gets shown in the Messages section.

~~~
tylerwl
Excellent. I would just add a line to the Features page like:

Custom email address - Promote your personal brand by using an @yourdomain.com
email address.

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jessepollak
Look awesome, I was just looking for something like this a couple weeks ago.
I'll definitely check it out. If email me at jpollak92 [at] gmail, I'd happily
send some thoughts your way (your email is not in your profile).

~~~
bullrico
Send them over to bobby [at] impressar.io. Response has been good so far, I'm
hoping people can make good use of it when the monthly "Who's hiring" thread
comes out next week.

