
Asking for Feedback on Our Startup:  Coordinatr.com - drm237
http://coordinatr.com/
======
jmorin007
PG says to get your site out early and often, so thats what we're trying to
do. We're far from finished, but feel its about time to take the ultimate
test, and show the news.yc crowd.

Our Site: <http://coordinatr.com> is a site designed to give you the necessary
tools to quickly and effectively coordinate plans with your friends, without
any unnecessary garbage to slow you down. Check out our FAQ for more info:
<http://coordinatr.com/welcome/faq>

Please take a moment if you would to take a look at our site, and let us know
what you think. Thanks in advance for your feedback and/or criticism.

~~~
acangiano
Congratulations on all your hard work. It's a nice looking, easy to use site.
That said, here are a few issues.

1) It has a very silly name. The whole fad of misspelled words has run is
course. I think it automatically associates your site with the whole concept
of "yet another web2ish site", which simply won't last forever.

2) There is a serious lack of screenshots on the page. Show me what you do and
how you do it, before asking for my email. Also, a screencast wouldn't hurt.

3) The calendar doesn't automatically highlight what today's date is. I think
it should.

4) You don't seem to support Unicode. This is a huge mistake, which is quite
typical of American startups. I created an event on purpose with the name
"Questa è una prova". It got converted in an unhelpful "Questa ? una prova".

5) In the list of invitees, you cut the names down to the first part of the
email addresses only. So now all I know is that I invited "info", not info at
johnsmith.com.

6) In the profile area you only have settings in place for city/state/zip.
Again, very American centric. And it's a bad thing (TM).

7) In the confirmation email, if info@reddit.com invites info@ycombinator.com,
you send emails that look like this: Dear info, info has invited you to...

~~~
Prrometheus
Speaking as a human being rather than a L337 haxxor (or however the kids spell
it nowadays), I think a photo of happy friends hanging out on the front page
would be preferable to screen shots.

~~~
iamwil
That might make it seem kinda fake with stock photographs and all.

~~~
Prrometheus
Better “This feels fake” than “What the fuck does this do? Looks like they
want me to read the FAQ…”

------
davidw
Here's a way you could get people to start inviting without registering. You
let them go through the whole thing, and add their own address at the end.
They hit send, but the mail to the other people doesn't actually go out until
they've finished the registration.

That way, they're more invested in actually going through with it than if they
have to register to even get in.

~~~
tim2
Whether Front-loading or end-loading registration requirements is more
successful seems to hinge on which is greater: (1) the user's expectations
coming into the site (2) how great the user finds the site once he's using it.

If your site has a low value when the user signs up but this value builds as
he uses it more (eg. networking sites) then you're probably better off front-
loading the registration requirement. My experience.

------
dusklight
1\. Your name is so 2006. By choosing this name you immediately set yourself
up as an also-ran instead of an innovator.

2\. The first thing you did was ask me for e-mail and password. You did not
give me a chance to try out your service. You did not give me a chance to see
what it's about. You were unable to get me to type in my e-mail.

3\. Your site is all about people and social events -- why are you using
business-speak to sell it? Micro-events? Would a teenager or a college kid
think that a "micro-event" is a cool place to be?

4\. I didn't think your site was ugly until I read your "faq" asking why the
site was so ugly. Then I was like .. hmm .. I think he's right ...

5\. What determines if a user will switch from an existing system to a new
system? if (valueAddFromNewSystem - painOfSwitchingToNewSystem) >
(valueFromOldSystem * lazinessMultiplier), then people will switch. You have
no control over the values of valueFromOldSystem or lazinessMultiplier. Here's
my question to you: How do you think you are doing on the values of
valueAddFromNewSystem and painOfSwitchingToNewSystem?

~~~
jmorin007
Some people like the name because it actually relates to what we're doing.
Some people don't. If you have a better idea, we would love to hear some
suggestions!

I understand your concern about micro-events but micro-blogs seem to be pretty
popular, so we're thinking this is a good way to describe the area we're
targeting.

For your number 5, there aren't a lot of people using events sites right now.
Evite is by far the most popular, but no one is going to use it if they're
going to a happy hour tonight, thus we are attempting to increase the
valueAddFromNewSystem through exercises like this (user feedback) while
minimizing the painOfSwitchingToNewSystem by simplifying registration and
streamlining the process to get up and running.

It might also be applicable to add in an additional variable, which is
painFromOldSystem. Attempting to perform a task while being hindered by banner
adds and a confusing interface may go so far as to drive a person to a new
site/service. While we obviously have no control over that, that variable is
rampant in this market segment, so we like to factor it in to our decision
making process.

Good point about the FAQ. We were attempting to have a light hearted,
entertaining FAQ, but it isn't coming across that way to most people.
Definitely looks like some revisions are in the future.

Thanks again for the recommendations!

------
amackera
I like the instant feeback thing on the left - very slick!

My only complaint is that it forces you to sign up if you want to view the
event details. I can do this with Facebook already.

I'd like to see more details in the "You're invited..." email. That way I
could invite people like my parents (who vaguely understand email, but not how
to sign up for this kind of service) to quick & easy events.

Forcing a sign up to see the event's message board, or something, might be a
good compromise.

Site looks very nice! Very uniform design style - I don't love how all the
headings are lower case, but that's probably a personal preference thing.

~~~
lowfat
Yes that instant feedback thing is slick! But I thought it said facebook - and
I got a little jaded. It must be me.

~~~
thorax
I saw that, too, for some reason.

------
dzohrob
I'll briefly preface my comments with the fact that when I've submitted sites
to YC in the past, people have tended to focus on superficial things (IMHO).
Maybe because it's easier to do that in a short span of time.

You've got a nice start, so take all of my comments with a grain of salt, of
course:

\- The front page is generally boring (screenshot? at least a photo of happy
people?). I think other people have touched on this.

\- There are too many things to click on the front page. Why are there two
links to the "about" and "faq" pages? Are these the elements that you want
people to focus on?

\- In the same vein, there's too much text in general. I think engineers tend
to overestimate the amount that people actually read on the web. I don't think
you need to "dumb down" your site -- it's just that showing, rather than
telling, tends to communicate more.

\- The "create event" page is snazzily designed, but ultimately seems more
like work than like fun, and it's one of the core interactions of your site.

\- You can purchase contact importing scripts online for less than $100; I'd
recommend it.

\- Random: why have a FAQ if there aren't many users to A Q F? My experience
has been that I nearly always guess incorrectly the questions people might
ask.

\- Why is the "logout" link under "Profile"? I had to click around awhile to
find it.

\- There's a lot of talk of "friends," but how much do you want to integrate
social-networking features into the site? The more friction you have for other
people to use the site (eg, if invited people have to "sign up"), the less
likely they are to use it.

\- General thought: How do you plan to differentiate yourself from Facebook,
Renkoo, Evite, Skobee, and many other startups who have tried (and mostly
failed) to solve the problem you're solving?

Congrats on launching and best of luck.

~~~
jmorin007
You bring up some very good points, most of which we have been concerned with
and have been debating about as well.

Quick Question: \- In terms of too much text, are you referring to the about
us and FAQ pages? Or was that an "across the board" comment?

We're taking the approach of a little goes a long way. A lot of sites inundate
you with content and functionality...they give you a pneumatic nailer when all
you needed was a pushpin. We're trying to give you a pushpin and maybe some
picture instructions. As you pointed out, many other sites have failed at this
already, so it's key for us to receive and closely analyze user feedback to
see if this is indeed the correct approach to be taking.

Thanks again for your candid feedback...it is greatly appreciated!

~~~
dzohrob
I was speaking in general terms, but the specific thing that brought that to
my attention was the welcome notification -- the yellow box filled with "stuff
you can/should do" after you sign up. My hunch is that it would be
intimidating to new users -- there's too much text and perhaps too much
ambiguity as to what's the next step.

It sounds like you guys have a good attitude for improving the site -- my only
other suggestion is to log every single action users take, and base your
product changes on such data, not on hunches like the one I offered above. :)

~~~
jmorin007
Completely agree about too much wording. Eliminate half of the words on the
page, and then cut the remainder in half again, right?

We're trying to walk the fine line between an intimidating amount of words and
not having enough content to accurately convey what we want to say. The
welcome and all other wordy areas could definitely use another once over.

Thanks for the response!

------
edw519
Ditto almost everyone else's comments, especially about registering first.
I'll also add my (highly personal) opinion about something else:

There seems to be a disconnect between the appearance of the site and the
verbage. The design is excellent: simple, straight forward, and very
professional. Build by pros who will be around for a while. Something I
wouldn't hesitate to adopt.

Then words like "garbage", "vespa with tassles", and "kick in the pants" make
me wonder if this is a bunch of script kiddies with a hobby. I know that makes
it light-hearted and cute, but after a while, it just gets tiring (and risky
to you). Just my 2 cents - who knows, maybe others like that.

Great job! Keep us posted.

~~~
jmorin007
You're right, that was trying to be light hearted about boring topics.
Definitely worth modifying if it's coming across in the wrong context.

Thanks for the feedback!

------
dkokelley
The site looks good. I don't know if these things were covered already, but I
went through and made a list of things that I would change. I sent it to you
on the "Feedback" form too.

Notes on Coordinator:

Home page after login: Text says "Sorry, you currently don't have any events
listed."

No reason to be sorry. I would change to: "No events listed (or, You haven't
planned anything yet!). Click here to add an event!" or something that
provides a way to change the fact that there are not yet any events.

On creating an event: The date box doesn't have a default date shown. I can't
see what today is. Maybe make the current day show up a different color or
have days in the past grayed out.

On friends: Longer names get extended past the box representing friends,
instead of wrapping or adjusting.

Contact Us link at the bottom of the page should bring me to a page with forms
to fill out, not attempt to open outlook or whatever program I use for email.
If I want to email you with these, provide your email address on the "Contact
Us" page.

Last thing, the pages don't have a "What's next" button. Meaning, After I add
friends, I'm brought back to the page to invite more friends. There's no
"Thanks for adding friends. We'll let you know when they accept. Here's the
button to go back to the home page."

~~~
jmorin007
Just read your feedback from the site, but thanks for the follow up! The
calendar stuff is getting fixed ASAP, as are the friend names. We will be
following up on the other items in the coming week.

Thanks again for taking the time to provide your input. Please let us know if
you have any other suggestions as you continue to use the site.

------
webwright
Show, don't tell.

I kinda get what you're doing, but a screenshot or infographic would quickly
communicate if it was worth the user's time.

I'm not sure whether I think a big "sign up" button would be better than the
two big form fields you have from a conversion POV... But it'd be easy to
measure/test. Given most of the big boys have a signup button, I assume your
way would convert less well.

Having a different color for strong tags is a bad idea. They look like links.

~~~
jmorin007
Absolutely agree. The strong tag css has been changed.

We'll look into the rest of the suggestions. Thanks for the feedback!

------
ichverstehe
Uh, People really need to get over that Flickr-style of naming their products.
In particular with long names. It just looks stupid.

Good luck, though.

~~~
davidw
What alternatives would you suggest?

~~~
falsestprophet
Coor.di.na.tr!

------
h34t
I went to your site, skimmed the FAQ, skimmed the "About" page, and I still
don't know what your service actually does or looks like. All I know is that
you think email is bad for coordinating "micro-events", and so I'm guessing
that somehow you're going to help me organize my micro-events without email
(which is a problem I didn't know I had).

I know _what_ you're going to try and help me do, but I have no idea _how_ ,
and until I see that it's a _how_ that actually makes my life easier, I still
haven't seen a problem in my life that needs to be fixed by you.

Would like to see screenshots or something.

Just my $.02, probably nothing original. Best of luck to you.

~~~
drm237
Thanks for the feedback. That's probably the most common issue people have
mentioned and it's something we're going to address very soon.

------
marrone
My first impressions of the site were good. I like the design. I found it
funny that one of the first pages I hit was the FAQ where you downplayed the
design.

Anyways, the ui looks and works pretty slick. My only complaint was that when
my form submission failed the error message was kind of small and initially
below the fold, with no error indications above the fold. Otherwise I thought
the site was really well done.

~~~
drm237
Thanks. What page was that error on?

------
pchristensen
I just set this up to coordinate a local user group and I've got to say it's
pretty nice. Looking through these comments, I can see they've incorporated a
lot of the feedback. Here are some observations (turned into its own blog
post):

[http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/using-
coordinatr-t...](http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/using-coordinatr-
to-run-a-user-group/)

------
myoung8
Beautifully designed, except for that damn feedback button. Why is everyone
copying what I think I first saw on Draftmix?

It's not easy for people to read sideways.

Put it at the top or bottom of the page so users don't have to cock their head
to one side. This seems like a curse of knowledge problem---you and most of us
on HN already know what it says because we've seen it before. That doesn't
mean it's easy to use, though.

~~~
jigg4joe
quick followup to the feedback button, the 'Let' in 'Let us know...' is cut
off when viewed in Safari. Cut off meaning covered up by the feedback block.

~~~
drm237
Good to know. Thanks!

------
dskhatri
Kudos for the nice simple styling and layout! A few minor points:

\- would be great to highlight today's date in the calendar

\- I don't know about the general populus but I never allow any site to import
my gmail/yahoo contacts. The address book also links to plaxo. Can't you
implement an import yourself?

\- would be great to add a google map widget

~~~
jmorin007
Great comments, thanks!

\- Updating the calendar date item is on the top of the list of things to do.

\- The address book uses plaxo for now, but plans are definitely in place to
replace it with our own import mechanism.

\- As for the google map widget, we currently have a mapping feature using
google maps if you enter in a location for each event. Is this what you are
referring to?

~~~
dskhatri
Aha.. cool.. I see the map now! Another suggestion: Coordinatr would be a
great app if all my friends were regular users. However, I am guessing that a
lot of people would rather use their regular scheduling tools (Google
Calendar, Outlook Calendar) to keep track of events. Those calendars don't
have as rich a feature-set as coordinatr but are still the first point of
schedule tracking. Anyway, my point is: coordinatr can really set itself apart
by somehow integrating with these calendar systems (something like how xobni
attaches itself to Outlook, but something simpler)!

~~~
jmorin007
We're definitely going to integrate with Google Calendar and are currently
looking into integration with Outlook and other commonly used calendars. Great
recommendation..thanks!

------
run4yourlives
I see in the FAQ you guys compare yourselves to email. I was thinking your
real comparison is the phone. I'm not sure why I would use this service
instead of just phoning someone.

Perhaps I'm not the target market though. Otherwise, good luck to you. It
looks like you put a lot of hard work into this.

~~~
drm237
Have you ever said to someone "a bunch of us are heading to _____ for _____.
You should come."? This is the kind of situation we're targeting. If you can
easily inform everyone you want to at once, we've shaved a good bit of time
off of your phone calls.

~~~
run4yourlives
That's just it though... rare is the time when I want to inform "everyone I
want to" to come out for drinks in a casual setting.

One or two people max is the norm for a casual get together. Again, I think
this is where I'm not in the target market... as you get older, your desire
for large groups of people wains.

:-)

~~~
drm237
Good to know. Are there ever times when the phone is inconvenient to use? For
example if you're at work, are you free to call your friends and arrange a get
together or is that frowned upon?

I'm not trying to convince you to use our site! I'm really interested in your
demographic and if there's any value we can add to a situation like yours.
Thanks again for your feedback.

~~~
run4yourlives
No. The phone is always convenient. More so than the internet. (And I have a
laptop and work online all day)

I'd see value in maybe an sms service that could hold all my buddies
numbers... that might be worth exploring... so I could, say, sms your site
with "drinks after work @ cheers" and it would forward that to the "Drinking
Buddies" list.

~~~
jmorin007
That functionality is actually very close to being released. We'll keep you
posted on when it's available for use. Thanks for the feedback!

------
jaf656s
The site looks good, but this wouldn't make 'micro-event' planning any easier
for me. I just text my friends. I only make one message and send it to my
'friend' group. You would have to improve upon that for me to sign up.

I understand this is early stage, so this is basically food for thought.

------
marcus
Nice job, 3 comments

1) If I fill a time in 24 hour format for example 23:00 you need to parse it
correctly and understand its 11pm.

2) Let me add users to an event I already created.

3) Let me add people's IM instead of email. Especially critical for events
that are in the next few hours as emails aren't always checked as often.

~~~
jmorin007
All great suggestions...thanks for checking out the site!

Just an FYI, once you create an event, if you edit it, then you are able to
add more friends.

------
nextmoveone
Registered, when putting in contact info you should go ajax with it, cause I
put in all my data first and then anticipated that it would still be there if
I clicked "Add [formofcontact]".

Other than that, it's a cool concept ( i had a similar idea ) and it's very
well executed/designed.

------
dkokelley
Here's an idea for increased contacting functionality.

Let the event manager call a certain number and record a message for the
invitation, then have it call everyone and play that message. That way, you
have an advantage over picking up the phone and calling people one by one.

------
conorh
Screenshots. A picture is worth a.. you get the idea. Three or four nice
screenshots of your interface on the front page, or at the top of another page
(how does it work, FAQ etc.) Not having those was an immediate turn off for
me.

~~~
jmorin007
That's starting to become a recurring theme. Will definitely look into it.
Thanks!

------
axod
Bad name. Taking a long word and removing the last vowel just doesn't work.
It's not snappy enough, and hard to remember/spell. Unlike flickr it doesn't
sound like a brand, it sounds like "coordinator.com" was too expensive.

------
soundsop
Agreed with others on having to provide an email address right away. I think
it's better to build some trust with the user first, by showing them your site
before asking for an email address.

Good luck. I hope you kick evite's butt.

------
sloppyjoe
I like the look and feel of your site. Creating an event is pretty easy.

------
simplegeek
You should do _fields required_ on the client-side, it now requires the
complete server round-trip. Edge-case but still :)

Btw, congrats on launch.Cheers:)

------
hooande
The ShareSpace tag is brilliant. I don't know if you came up with that
yourselves or were inspired by another site, but either way nice work.

~~~
jmorin007
Thanks! Other people actually came up with the concept, but we came up with
the name.

------
DaniFong
The moire effect in the background is distracting.

~~~
drm237
You're the first to mention that one. Thanks for the feedback.

------
tim2
Is there a sample event that we can see for helping us evaluate your site?
Everything I've seen so far looks good.

------
kingnothing
Seems like it might be a good idea, but having to register just to see what
it's all about is rather off-putting.

~~~
drm237
Agreed, and see some other replies for our approach. We thought that by
minimizing the registration requirements to just an email and password, we are
making it as painless as possible for now until we can get a better flow in
place. Thanks.

------
pkarnig
i like it more than evite for sure. there are some little issues but i am sure
you will work those out. some of the UE needs work like adding info to the
profile. no biggies though. i am looking forward to see how the event ID can
be use to show fotos, vids, friends, etc.

~~~
jmorin007
Thanks for the feedback! What exactly did you not like about adding info to
the profile? Any other suggestions you can make?

Let us know what you think of the sharespace page once you get some content
tagged.

------
monkkbfr
This is an EVIL site. It sucks in your gmail contacts without even asking for
confirmation. And I can't delete my account once I create it.

These guys are potentially HUGE email spammers (why else would they pull in
emails without asking) and NO PROFILE DELETE??? Hello.. look at what happened
to Facebook when they tried to pull that crap.

STAY AWAY from this site.

~~~
drm237
Wow...slow down. You didn't like that after you clicked the "Done" button, we
thought that you were done? And no, we don't currently have a way to delete
your account, but NOTHING in your account is currently public! We will have a
way to delete accounts in the future, but we need to figure out what to do
with the events you've created, comments you wrote, etc. So settle down, and
if you have specific concerns, let us know and we'll work with you.

------
Prrometheus
You spelled "coordinator" wrong

~~~
drm237
wow...thanks...that's really embarrassing...

~~~
Prrometheus
Ha, I’m sorry. The name annoyed me too. However, keep in mind that the average
web user probably has only heard of one “noun+r” website: Flickr. If you can
withstand the heckling from the in-crowd, you probably don’t need to change
your name, unless you think up something awesome.

~~~
drm237
Don't be sorry, I thought your post was funny. It's good to see a sense of
humor when providing the feedback. I was going for the same humor but
apparently it's not coming across that way...

We do face challenges from this domain name and we're still open to possibly
using another. If anyone does come up with something they think is better,
please post it!

------
alaskamiller
so it's renkoo but with a better tumblr-inspired design. that's pretty nifty.
definitely need to add on more features but this looks great.

~~~
drm237
What do you think we need to add? It's certainly not done, but I'm curious
what everyone thinks is missing and what they would like to see added. Our
goal is for it to always remain lean and fast so some "features" will
ultimately be sacrificed to keep it simple.

------
omarish
Great work. Do I have to register to use it?

~~~
drm237
Yes, for now, you have to register. We tried to make it as painless as
possible though, so try it out!

------
pibefision
I like it. Design is great!

------
lowfat
Love the design!

------
utnick
any plans for twitter integration?

~~~
drm237
I'm not sure how we would integrate with twitter. What are you thinking we
could share between the two?

~~~
utnick
allow me to be alerted of events i am invited to, rsvp to events, and create
events over sms, let all of my twitter friends see that I am attending X event

could be a good way to spread virally if people see in their twitter feed
'susie is attending X ( coordinator.com/event/X )'

doesn't necessarily have to be twitter

just some kind of sms integration would be nice

if u really want to be the evite of small events, i don't want to have to go
to my browser to create an event, if me and joe are chilling at a dive bar,
hey lets make this a coordinatr event. sms is the easiest way.

~~~
drm237
Good points, and we're building out sms as we go. We already have the
infrastructure to accept input on specific events so we'll be turning that on
in the not-to-distant future. Creating events from sms is a little more
tricky...

------
curi
you bash email (which i like, don't see what's wrong with it) but i didn't see
how you notify my friends instead of by emailing them.

personally, i'm only really available by AIM and email. maybe the target
audience includes cell phone users and you send text messages or something? it
should say how you contact ppl near the top of the FAQ.

~~~
jmorin007
Our intention is not to really bash email, but say that it is not the be all
and end all for coordinating individuals. It's a great tool to use in
conjunction with other means of communication for conveying our message, which
in this case is event information. We should probably emphasize all avenues of
communication that we support. Thanks!

~~~
curi
you compare using email to plan things to drunk driving, so i think that
counts as bashing.

it's your decision if you want to market yourselves that way, it could be for
the best, i dunno.

glad to hear you'll add details about what communication you use.

