

ASK HK: Review my startup: NextCoast, a total web CMS. - adambourg

Please review my startup, NextCoast. Essentially it's a full CMS
platform that does Social Networking--as in your own private social
network, an easy CMS, blogging, Mobile Web (in development) and online
collaboration<p>Right now our target market is small-medium businesses, giving them
tools to do everything from a small scale website through our CMS to
collaboration with the social piece of our application.In the future
we will be expanding to professional companies, offering a fully
integrated CMS with social, collaboration, and CRM.<p>What are your thoughts on our site, our approach and our software?<p>Thanks in advance for all your help!<p>Link: http://nextcoast.com/
======
jefflinwood
I don't think small-to-medium businesses will know what CMS, or a next-
generation web application are.

Is your web site powered by your software? If so, I'd suggest that your
software support SEO-friendly link-paths like Drupal or Wordpress (bringing
that up because they're on your front page)

From what I can tell from your web site, you're offering turn-key hosting for
people who don't want to set up and run their own Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal
sites - instead they'll use your software? I think the problem is that your
web page is using jargon you understand, not that they would understand. I'm
guessing that your customers will 1) not want to think about web, they want to
run a coffee shop or whatever 2) want guaranteed pricing (which you offer,
which is great) 3) a good design - do you do graphic/web design as well, or
are you working with someone? 4) Want someone local. Where are you? Your
tagline could be

My opinion of your software is that you've recreated Drupal, which is fine,
but there are so many modules available for Drupal that you'll always be
playing catchup.

Hope this helps, you can criticize one of my web sites if you want :)

------
trevelyan
The description above is clearer than the website. The picture of the iPhone
makes me think you are a mobile software development company. Why does the
iPhone screen read "Lewis Direct"?

The text links at the top ("Home", "Social", "Website", "Mobile") aren't
spaced far enough apart for me to parse them as different links. Coupled with
the "Web Social Mobile Monetize" text in the header graphic they create an
overwhelming impression of jargon which dissuades me from wanting to read the
actual text. You could probably link to most of those pages from a single
"about us" page and keep the main page cleaner and your signup funnel more
focused.

Nobody reads these days, so I think having such a mass of text is a bad idea
front and center. The stronger bits of the page are further down.
Unfortunately, everything below the green bar rolls offscreen on my 13 inch
Macbook, so the immediate impression is simply of a lot of text in a fairly
unreadable color scheme. The strongest explanation you have is ("Web + Blog +
Social") imho, although you might want to double-check that the wording
resonates with your target market -- people might be very clear that they want
a website rather than a blog and calling your system a blog might put them
off.

Most powerful inducement to checking out the CMS would probably be seeing it
in action. Drupal lets people play around with a live version that gets reset
every now and then. Could you do something similar, so that people can see and
play around with what they'll be buying?

All suggestions intended constructively. Good luck with the business!

~~~
adambourg
You can go to sign up, and get your own site to play with for free.

------
theodore
Site: Typography is inconsistent and hard on the eyes. Spacing is off. I'd
recommend looking into a WooTheme.

You don't show us what you've actually built.

I clicked on "Mobile" and instead of an actual mobile app, I saw a traditional
website crammed into an iPhone screen.

Approach: I can't speak to your engineering capability, but from a product &
marketing standpoint (1) you're probably trying to do too much, and (2) you
should look at investing more in design/usability.

------
revorad
Adam, firstly thank you for building this. There is a real need for this. As
many others here will point out to you, your website is not delivering your
product message or value proposition. However, that's a separate concern from
evaluating the product itself.

Overlooking the problems with the site copy and design, I went on to sign up
to try it out. It took me a couple of attempts to register. I'm not your
target customer, but even so do you really need to know your customer's date
of birth? Finally, when I click on the link in the registration email, I land
on a page which says before I use anything, I must contact an account
representative. My login is failing even though I'm pretty sure I'm using the
correct username and password.

If as a techie, I found your site hard to navigate, it's going to be nearly
impossible to get non-techies to use or buy it.

I understand you are building a difficult product, but there's a lot of
research to be done to catch up with the latest developments in this space.

For starters, please see <http://www.weebly.com> for a well-executed version
of your idea.

------
notahacker
As far as I can see _get your social network website running in the time it
takes to make coffee_ (adapted from one of the sub-pages) is your core value
proposition, and it should be in big letters on the home page instead of
generic phrases like "leap-frog your competition and be a leader, not a
follower" and sentences listing technologies.

Much of your text reads like it was written for search engines rather than
humans to read, and your screenshots and examples could be a _lot_ more
attractive.

Looking at the price points you're looking to charge, paying a professional
designer and copywriter would be worth the money here, assuming the end
product is fit for purpose.

------
guynamedloren
Far too much text on every single page of your site. I clicked through them
all but didn't want to spend 10 minutes reading just to figure out what you
do. Fix this with a big, catchy headline along with a short 2-3 sentence
description of what you do and a video or screenshots of your software.

------
guynamedloren
Clickable: <http://nextcoast.com/>

