
Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues - pdrummond
Last year I gave in to the temptation of doing my own startup and quit my job, just like many others have done on this site.  Since then, I’ve severely changed my lifestyle and reduced my living costs to a crazy low figure and worked my ass off for the last 8 months to achieve this:<p>www.openloopz.com<p>I have written more about it on Medium here: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;JN03yf<p>I knew from the start the odds were stacked against me. I’m almost 36, I have a family and I live in the North East of England where - without wanting to sound negative - the opportunities are few and far between compared to what I see on here.  When I made the BETA announcement, I knew no-one would just magically sign-up, but I watched and waited anyway and became extremely pissed off when it didn’t happen. “It’s been 2 hours - why haven’t I got 100 sign-ups already?”.  Silly really.<p>I used up all my savings to get this far and I don’t regret any of it (except maybe the weight gain, lack of a social life, and development of bad sleeping habits!). I wanted to prove to myself I can build a production quality app that I honestly believe in without bias, and I can truly say I have achieved that now.<p>But now comes the hard part.  I need to force myself to stop coding and start actually talking about OpenLoopz and trying to spread the word. I am the first to admit I am not very good at this. I am struggling to even write this post because I already know that probably no-one will read it.  But I just have to learn to get over that and keep going. Any feedback - good or bad - will be greatly appreciated, thanks.
======
idan
I read both your post and your website copy. The short version is: you're
failing to explain yourself concisely and effectively. I want you to succeed —
here's some critique.

I think I'm in your expected early-adopter demographic. I am a heavy user of
Trello, and this smells like a cousin of tools like Trello but with a very
different information architecture. I couldn't understand your product and how
it would be useful to me without actually signing up and using it.

An introductory blog post is great, but most people are going to discover your
product from your product's website. The copy there fails to communicate the
crux of your product in the first ten seconds. I'm awash in a kind of
marketing babble of your own invention. Loops? InnerLoops? Why should I care
about your invented terminology?

Start over with your copy — you've just started out, so it doesn't really
matter what was there beforehand. Cut it down to a short 'graf which:

1\. Explains what your product does in a concrete way. 2\. Shows me where and
why I would use it.

You don't need to communicate 100% of what you do or what your product could
do. You need to communicate your product's _most important self_ quickly. Stay
away from empty banalities about how more and more people are using your
product to keep in touch, because that is generic to the point of
meaninglessness. Focus on a use-case where your product excels and where you
can tell a compelling story. The fact that people could use the hammer you're
selling as a screwdriver doesn't mean that you ought to point it out.

Good luck! I'll be signing up and trying your product out.

~~~
blister
Yes, exactly this. I read a few comments here, went to your website, and then
sat there for a few minutes trying to figure out exactly what your product
was.

I finally broke down and created an account and was amazed by how nice the
interfaces looked. I like the idea of how your project is structured, but your
website really needs to do a much better job of showcasing what it is that it
actually does. Maybe even start out with a nice high-res video quickly showing
me what it looks like.

Very cool looking product, very poor front-page marketing. Improve the front-
page marketing and start getting active in marketing yourself (through blog
posts and the like) and I think you'll do fine. You're on the slow, painful
"acquire users" path now. Stick with it.

------
pdrummond
Holy crap! I wasn't going to come back here until tomorrow at the earliest,
then my own post popped up in my Feedly! Surreal. Thanks for all the
feedback!!! I'm still reading, but here are some quick responses from what I
have seen so far.

1\. I will update the openloopz.com asap - oversight on my part. Not sure how
I missed that tbh.

2\. The word "openloopz" was coined about 7 years ago when I first started
working on this "project" and 'z' was kinda cool back then ;-) The project has
changed a lot since then but the name became quite close to me and I put a lot
of work into the assets, so I stuck with it. I have considered changing it to
Loop and would love to do that, but it would be a lot of work and I was
focused on getting something out there as quickly as possible.

3\. The welcome page is a work in progress. I originally had something more
detailed with LOADS of screenshots and features, even a video with my own
voice (eugh!). But I was advised to focus on why customers would want to use
the product as opposed to focusing on features, and all the content became
obsolete when I changed the look and feel. Anyway, I will take all the
comments on board and revise the landing page - I agree it could be a lot
better.

Still reading... will respond to individual feedback separately.

~~~
ashleyp
I really like the concept and a bunch of the features but echo other thoughts.
Also, plzplzplzzplz don't keep something a bunch of people have said they
dislike because it came about years ago and you're attached to it.

~~~
codecondo
I agree. "OpenLoop" and "OpenLoopz" is enough to justify it.

~~~
ashleyp
I was speaking broadly and not actually directly about the name but using the
name as an example. :)

~~~
codecondo
Ok. I still think my view is valid in terms of what people are trying to say.
But yeah, what's best for business > being overly attached to something.

------
caidan
Unfiltered First impressions:

Your medium article is 50X better than your website. Your website is useless
for promoting your product. I don't like the headline font for your site, the
lack of screenshots, basically the lack of focus on a product that will live
or die on its usability and interface. I'm not a fan of the Z in openloopz.
Combined with the comic sansy looking headline font it doesn't feel polished.

The inventing of a new words ("loops") is to be avoided unless absolutely
necessary. You are now not only trying to tell a (very) mildly interested
reader about your product you need them to learn a new language in order to
understand it. This is an unrealistic cognitive burden for a sales pitch for a
todo app. I strongly suggest that you use the simplest possible terms in plain
language to describe the focus of your product, how it fits into the users
life, and what problems it solves for them.

Your post here is more focused on your personal suffering than on your
product. We are all eating shit to try to launch our companies, but too much
focus on that makes for a downer intro to your product. I'd try to separate
your moments of sharing the struggle and the moments of sharing the product.
Do you want people to be genuinely excited about it, or pity you? Which
emotion do you want to be a stronger first response?

Scanning further over your medium article (It's longer than a casual browser
will give it time, ie 5 seconds) I suggest you take whatever the salient
feature of your product is, maybe the hashtagging to create inline tasks and
put that front and center in a huge picture and font. I'm still not sure what
problem you are solving or who you are competing with, is it todo lists,
slack, what? Where does this tool fit in my life? I suggest you take a look at
the way that slack conveys information [https://slack.com/is/team-
communication](https://slack.com/is/team-communication) (notice even the url
hammers home their function).

I think that honest feedback is very imporant and that your main problem here,
which is something that affects us all, is that you are too close to the
product. You already understand it, you speak its language (invented words and
all), and you are now longer able to communicate it to the passing man in the
street. I suggest workshoping your pitch and language with fresh ears
constantly until you are able to get someone to understand the basics of what
it is and how it helps them in 10 seconds or less. All that said, I'm rooting
for you, best of luck!

~~~
iron_ball
The Z thing is killer. It puts you in company with
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsez](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsez),
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratz), and
numberless rappers, none of which make a professional impression.

~~~
switz
While the name is not perfect, I don't believe it is as dramatic as you are
making it out to be

[http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz](http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz)

~~~
onion2k
If you're Joel Spolsky you can release a piece of software with any name you
care to choose and people will still take it seriously because you have earned
the respect of your peers. Other people who don't have decades of experience
producing exceptional software don't have the same luxury.

Fogbugz is a _terrible_ name and if an unknown developer had released it
there's a good chance too few people would have looked at it for it to get the
necessary traction it needed to succeed. It really isn't an example of
something people should follow.

~~~
mdemare
Also, people who can't pronounce voiced consonants at the end of syllables
(such as german, dutch, french people) can't help but hear it as FuckBugs.

"Ve still neet a buck trecker, I vas finking about Jira, or do you haef a
better idea?" "Yes, I recommend FuckBugs!"

~~~
onion2k
To be fair though, FuckBugs would be a brilliant name for a bug tracker.

~~~
thebouv
Let's build it.

In BrainFuck.

------
leftnode
I'll come out with a contrarian point of view: I think you're wasting your
time and certainly your money.

To have invested your life savings into this app which, uh, is really hard to
determine what it does seems silly to me - especially since you have a family
to care for.

Slack Meets GitHub Issues? Doesn't Slack already meet GitHub issues in that it
integrates with GitHub fine?

The fact that you need a very long blog post to explain exactly what this does
should be a warning sign that it's unfocused and released too late.

"It can help you manage everything from todo items to chat messages to blog
posts to photos to fully-fledged projects, photo albums and even mini social
networks! Really, the type of content you create is completely up to you."

That sounds like a nightmare to me, now I have to invest a lot of time to
figure out exactly how this thing works? Start small, focused, make one small
thing that does one thing well. Release it quickly, try to get a few people
using it (hopefully paying for it) and gather some of their feedback. Find out
how they're using it and what their pain points are. Grow from there.

I know you said opportunities where you live are few and far between, and you
clearly have the skills, why can't you build a production ready application at
an established company?

Finally, I'm being overly critical because I've been in a similar situation
before - you spend months building something, release it, and argh! why aren't
people coming? It's frustrating, I know, but your skills are better put to use
elsewhere.

~~~
nkohari
You spent 15 minutes looking at the beta version of a product, and you've made
the decision that the creator is wasting their time? Have you considered that,
having thought about it for months, they might understand the problem domain
significantly better than you?

What if the product actually has tremendous value, but suffers from a
marketing problem? That's a pretty easy problem to fix.

Rather than using your severely limited understanding to encourage the creator
to throw the baby out with the bathwater, you should focus on tangible,
solvable problems, or just keep your mouth shut.

~~~
weego
I don't know whether you really are just hedging your bets to karma farm or
whether you believe what you say but the author has stood up and asked what
people think. What on earth is the point of everyone on here going "oh well
it's not up to us to say what we think; he should just start stacking up debt
on credit cards and bank loans until it's finished and then the market can
dictate!"

That is the logical conclusion of your statement, and that notion is utter
bollocks. If in 15 minutes someone is convinced that the product is lacking
focus and vision then that is a valuable insight. It might just be that the
person reflects on whether his call to action is obvious enough and tweaks his
site to make it clear what his proposition is. Or maybe he has been holed up
for months by himself in a bubble and has developed something no one wants.
Rather sooner he finds that out than later.

This kind of namby-pamby "if you can't say something positive say nothing"
mentality that I see in replies does a massive disservice to this community
and people in it who risk much more than just a little bruising to their ego
(whether it be financial or career).

~~~
nkohari
1\. I don't comment often, and when I do, it's not to earn magical internet
points.

2\. I am _certainly_ not advocating diffuse positivity. If you knew me, you
would know positivity is not my strong suit. :)

There's nothing wrong with saying that the product seems unfocused or overly
complex, or suggesting that the creator focuses either the execution or its
messaging. That's useful, constructive feedback that the creator can do
something with.

There's not really even anything wrong with saying "I don't understand why
anyone would use this" \-- although that's not particularly useful feedback.

Jumping from these reasonable positions to "you're wasting your time" is where
I take issue. It's a dangerous leap of judgement that none of us can or should
make for someone else -- certainly with the limited understanding that we can
gain after a few minutes.

The creator seems to have come here to get feedback on the product, not for an
intervention.

~~~
roozbeh18
stole the words out of my mouth. probably with less grammar issues.

~~~
stevekemp
"fewer grammar issues" !

------
simonw
"If you build it, they will come" just doesn't work for startups. Your first
100 users will be won painfully, one at a time.

Think of your first public launch as the start of the development process, not
the end. You need to track down people who need what you've built (or need
something similar), talk to them in person, listen to their problems and make
sure your product solves them.

If you can convince 100 people to try your product and a decent proportion of
them turn into daily active users, you're onto something special. If you can't
do that, keep iterating or find a new problem to solve.

------
bshimmin
If I'm honest, I read probably 70% of the text on that page and I'm still
really not sure what it is or what it does. Words are good, but maybe some
screenshots or something would help.

~~~
lsjroberts
The medium article provides a nice bunch of screenshots and explanation -
[https://medium.com/@pdrummond/openloopz-beta-is-live-
fbe4c71...](https://medium.com/@pdrummond/openloopz-beta-is-live-fbe4c7127c6)

~~~
railsmax
Probably video tutorial, which explains how all things works may help even
better than screenshots

------
ryanmickle
I think the most sensational aspect of your Show HN is your story, so I'll
focus my comments there (seems like you're getting a lot of critical feedback
on the product, mine is just that I don't know how to use it). I've done
exactly what you have, betting everything, and then put the fruits of my work
out to the universe. I've racked up $80k in credit card debt. One mentor once
told me that if I was to start my own company, to be completely prepared for
$100k in debt and divorce.

But every single time it's been worth it, and I learned and grew in ways I may
not have anticipated. Maybe the product will succeed, maybe it won't, but
usually there's a great opportunity (consulting, job offer, realizations that
lead to the next thing, acquisition, friendships, other learnings, etc.) that
comes from building something you know is great. I expect that this will be
your story, so I just wanted to say congrats on your journey from a YC
founder, 34, and forever at it.

------
EpicDavi
Just a note: if you go to [http://openloopz.com](http://openloopz.com) (no
"www") it displays "Heroku | No such app". I'm guessing you mean to redirect
to the "www" subdomain.

~~~
evbots
yeah...heroku is weird about naked domains. you need to use a DNS provider
like DNSimple to set up your domain correctly with Heroku. Then your users
will be able to drop the "www". This worked for my side project,
konkourse.com.

References: [https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/apex-
domains](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/apex-domains).

~~~
hugs
Are naked domains generally considered "something you shouldn't do" these
days?

~~~
michaelbuckbee
For most cases they're just fine and many people feel quite strongly about
wanting a naked domain without an "extra" www subdomain.

So, DNS A records point to IP addresses. In the specific case of Heroku (and
maybe other PAAS providers), tying your site to an IP address makes them less
fault tolerant as they can't do things like shift your app between
availability zones if one blows up or something.

------
leereeves
You might have a hidden diamond for team collaboration here, but after reading
more than most potential customers will, I'm not sure exactly what it is.

I'm not a fan of the to-do/chat combination. There just isn't a lot of
intersection between the things on my to-do list and the things I want to chat
about. Who wants to chat about their grocery list? Who would contact their
family about dinner plans with this instead of a phone call, text message,
Tweet, etc. just because they can easily save a to-do item? Perhaps this has
other uses.

Consider extremely detailed user stories. Who might want to this? A software
product manager communicating with the technical team about features and bugs;
a high-school student and her study group; an extended family planning a
vacation together?

What would they share, and how does this tool help? Why would they use
something new instead of a phone, e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, preferred
existing group to-do list app, or a thousand other tools? What are their
favorite colors; favorite words; turn-offs?

Kudos on what you've done so far. And remember, even if this fails as a
startup (most do), it certainly demonstrates your skills. Hopefully it will
open doors.

Oh...and don't bankrupt yourself working on this. That would just be crazy.

------
pdrummond
Hello everyone!

Wow, yesterday was surreal! :-) I’d just like to say a massive THANK YOU to
everyone who has commented on this so far and to all those who sent
encouraging messages of support via email as well. It really makes a
difference.

I honestly didn’t expect anyone to notice my post and with all the unexpected
traffic that came from it, the servers caved in unfortunately! As soon as I
noticed, I increased the capacity on Heroku and everything should be working
fine now. So a big sorry to anyone who couldn’t access OpenLoopz yesterday -
please try again!

I also want to apologise for the tone of my original post. I wasn’t looking
for pity and I definitely didn’t want to give the impression this has been the
worst time of my life or that my family have been seriously affected or
anything tragic like that. For the most part this has been an amazing ride and
my family have been behind me 100%. I had enough savings to be comfortable
financially throughout (up until now at least!) so it wasn’t as bad as all
that. I’m not saying it hasn’t been tough because it has, but for the most
part it’s been a very positive experience and great fun!

I am a programmer who sucks at marketing and I know that more than anyone, so
all the harsh feedback is more than welcome! From this feedback I now have the
missing piece of the puzzle and I feel like I can finally do the landing page
some justice. You guys make it sound so easy, but when I am staring at a blank
screen, trying to think of ways to get the message across about a project I am
so close to and know inside out, I always come up blank. But that’s no excuse
- I just need to stop coding and start learning some new skills so Challenge
Accepted! ;-)

So thanks again. I’m going to focus on the landing page today and hopefully I
will have something much better to show all you very soon.

~~~
kmcd
> I am a programmer who sucks at marketing

That's the mission critical bug that will kill your business ;)

Read these three books ~many~ times:

-> The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

-> Traction by Gabriel Weinberg

-> No B.S. Direct Marketing by Dan Kennedy

Then split your overall time 50% dev, 50% marketing.

Plan B: keep an eye on the contracting market in your area of expertise ...

Good luck!

------
tiffanyh
@pdrummond

Some feedback, all related to solely to the frontpage web site of
www.openloopz.com:

1\. openloopz.com doesn't resolve (heroku error message), only
www.openloopz.com.

2\. there is no clear message stating what your products does (I'm still
confused) besides simply stating that it help people "communicate better and
get things done quicker."

3\. Is the product still in "BETA"? What does that mean nowadays in 2015?

4\. When I click on "Pricing", how do I sign-up? When I click a plan (e.g.
Basic, Premium, Business) - nothing happens.

5\. I don't understand your pricing strategy. You have free, you have $5/mo
and then you have "contact us" which implies to me super expensive. How do you
go from $0/$5 to super expensive with no middle ground?

6\. I'm confused, is the product ready to be used or not? I see that I can
sign up for a $5 plan (under Pricing tab) but I also see I can provide my
email address when the product RELEASED (under the BETA tab). So which is it
... is the product available today or not?

7\. What the heck is a "loop". I read the "What is a Loop" but am still
confused.

Please don't take my comments as being harass. I'm simply trying to provide my
personal opinion on how you can be successful (which I believe all of us at HN
want).

I fundamentally see a complete lack of focus on the homepage.

I'd suggest you reconstruct the homepage to be more focused, something more
similar to [https://campfirenow.com/](https://campfirenow.com/) where you get
a quick screenshot of the product. The home page is simply (mainly all "above
the fold"). Sign up and pricing is clear. etc.

All the best. I wish you well.

------
user_0001
Good luck, I used to live in the NE of England (hence why this is the first
Show HN I have actually looked at.

Maybe is all the front page HN traffic (or my slow connection). But after 30
seconds of waiting for the page to load, I was greeted with a..... blank page.

 _sigh_ maybe it was a timeout, or maybe I really must allow JS to see
anything on the page. Maybe this is just me, this annoys me and if a site
won't display SOMETHING without JS I leave, but a fellow NE Englander, I will
make an allowance.

Anyway, am another one man shop, so don't really need a communication tool.
But did the same as you couple of years before, no actually a few years ago
now. Quit job / in the 30s / with family to go out on my own.

As you said STOP CODING AND START PROMOTING. It is hard the knockbacks hurt,
but whore yourself to all potential customers. You do know who you potential
customers are, don't you? Find where they are and do all you can to get them
on board. If it is a forum, offer some respected members full free access,
people like free things, get them to talk about it.

Learn marketing / seo. Yes it is the spawn of the devil and all marketeers
should kill themselves, but you have mouths to feed, morals go out the window.

Again, good luck

~~~
randomsearch
> Yes it is the spawn of the devil and all marketeers should kill themselves,
> but you have mouths to feed, morals go out the window.

I understand the sentiment, but really -- is it impossible to market something
without being immoral? I think it is. Lots of startups have provided great
products that help people get their work done or make their lives easier.
Marketing can just be the process of letting those people know that the
product exists, and why it's useful, right? Not all marketing involves
brainwashing kids into buying fast food, etc.

------
sankho
Take the "How it works" section of your Medium post - _Particularly_ the
excellent screen caps - condense the text, and then make this your homepage.

Reading takes more time for me to understand what your product does than
looking at pictures.

~~~
city41
yes but when you do it, put more effort into the screenshots. Create realistic
conversations, realistic todo lists, etc. Realistic context can really help a
user understand the app better.

------
nzealand
You should spend some time watching folks use your site.

Sit down with a few friends new to this system, and silently watched them use
it for two minutes. Get them to think aloud, and ask questions when they are
silent to better understand what they are trying to do and what they expect.
When they ask you how to do something, you ask them how they think they should
do it.

I think you really need to see this for yourself. Users are often consistently
blind. When you see 2 out of 3 folks struggling with the same thing, it needs
to be changed.

-Is the first thing users want to see a search box? -How quickly do users figure out how to use the system for something useful? -How quickly do users figure out why loopy is better than sliced bread? -Do users struggle to find a way to get rid of the welcome message? -Are users able to progressively find the more complex features the more they use the system?

------
dabeeeenster
I look at your website and have exactly zero idea what it is. You start with
Why. Don't start with why, start with what!

WHAT IS IT!? Is it like Slack but self hosted? I need screenshots. Are there
companion apps? Show me.

------
nickpyett
I like the idea of "chat is your to-do list, and your to-list is your chat",
but you're website doesn't communicate this, I had to try it out to really get
what the product was about.

It's annoying that I can't delete the first loops from Loopy.

I also think the app needs an easier way to navigate between loops, rather
than relying on the back button.

I think the user list is not very privacy focussed, I remove it for a username
search instead, rather than just listing everyone.

It looks really polished though and I think you have proved the fact that you
can create a web app by yourself.

Have you made a pitch deck yet? I've done a bit of fundraising in the UK.

Good luck from a fellow northener!

~~~
m_mueller
"chat is your to-do list, and your to-list is your chat"

OP, I think this phrase, or something like it, should be front and center of
your communication effort. IMO it describes your product better than all the
stuff I've read in ~5min on your sites.

------
tkimmel
First off, congrats on shipping! That's a big step.

As others have suggested, I think you need some serious help with positioning
and messaging. I showed up to your site wanting to try it just because it was
new (early adopter stereotype), but I couldn't tell what it is.

The Medium article is better, but I think you'd be well served to partner with
someone who is really good at branding and messaging. This isn't just about
window dressing, it goes a bit deeper than that.

For example: you need to show me one painful problem your product solves
within 2 seconds of me coming to your homepage. When in consumer mode, I don't
really care if you're solving ten painful problems - just show me one very
clearly and I'm almost sure to kick the tires on the product. A strong
branding & messaging partner will intuitively know how to help you do this for
your product, in addition to providing a more user-level view on how to talk
about it.

I _think_ you have an interesting idea here after reading the Medium post. If
you can help me use Slack as a to do list and you're solving that single
problem really well, that's definitely something I'd pay a monthly fee for.

That said, while I would gladly pay SaaS-level monthly fees for sexy todo
integration in Slack, if you make me learn an entirely new vocabulary to do it
(loops and whatnot), this cost alone immediately prices out my interest.

------
svieira
A few thoughts:

I like the setup - the layout is very nice, and once you get _used_ to the
concepts involved it becomes much easier to see what you can do with it. That
said, "Loop" is not the word I would use to describe the main unit of content.
It is not intuitive at all, which is a large part of the problem - I think
"Stream" is a clearer name (or "Feed" if you prefer the FriendsFeed style of
things). That also means you don't need "Bundles" for saved searches -
everything is a "Stream", some of which are "pinned" to the sidebar.

I _really_ like how composable streams are - the use of tags makes it easy to
merge content across streams, but by not _requiring_ the use of tags you make
it easy for me to jump in and start adding content.

Tags with values is a _genius_ idea - want to add ratings to your photos,
simply add `#rating:{n}` - then create a stream of your favorite photos by
simply pinning a search for `#rating:>3` ... awesome! I could also seeing
using this for triaging bug reports, assigning priorities to #todo entries ...
very elegant.

I will be adding more thoughts into @loop feedback stream as they come to me.

One last time, nicely done - and good luck with your next iteration!

------
ericfontaine
"Open" to me leads me to think it is open source, but it isn't. I suppose
common folk may not have that presumption. But I don't even think "Open" is
descriptive to what your product does (other than maybe how it is quick to
open). Loop is fine, as it express to me how you can be "in the loop". If you
are getting rid of the Z or thinking of other names, I suggest using parts of
another commentor's suggested tagline: "chat is your to-do list, and your to-
list is your chat" for the name: e.g. "ChatToDo", "TagToDo", "LoopToDo",
"TagChatDo", or even simply "InTheLoop" is better. Something along those lines
that is more direct, specific, & descriptive than OpenLoopz, so that an
uninitiated potential consumer has a bit of an idea about what it is your app
does before even considering to click your link.

(Regarding the www., I was another of those who just visited the naked url,
and I immediately thought negative thoughts like, it's down, and almost didn't
try again. You should atleast redirect the naked url to a valid url or landing
page.)

------
shanemhansen
Some constructive feedback. Don't place a 5mb image served over s3 on your
home page. [https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/olz-
web/welcome/masthead-...](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/olz-
web/welcome/masthead-dark2.jpg)

------
taylorscollon
'Your marketing page sucks' is true, but not useful or insightful.

My suggestion is something like: 'Your chats, to-dos, and project management
-- free, and in one place.'

That is compelling enough that I might sign up and try it.

Contrary to some of the advice on here, I would not try to explain how this
product works in any great detail on the homepage. This is because it seems (I
haven't tried it) like a complicated tool.

Focus on building a solid onboarding process that walks users through the
usage of the product. This will be more useful to your users than any video or
screenshots.

This is all without having tried the product or knowing too much about the
space/your ideal users, so take it with a grain of salt.

------
developer1
I created an account, which is apparently more than half the people commenting
here were willing to do (most people apparently took one look at your landing
page, didn't understand the product, and closed the tab).

1\. The first page after logging in says "To get started, type something in
the Edit Box above and hit ENTER when you are done. Everything you create here
will be visible to you and I because we are the only members of this loop."
The last point on the page says "If you have any questions or feedback, just
add a note in the Edit Box above and I'll make sure I forward it to the right
people!"

Which is it? Private testing ground or feedback form? This isn't a good start,
confusing and contradicting your new users.

2\. The default/showcase loops are annoying. I don't want my account to be
cluttered with tutorial content. An intuitive interface and clean
documentation should be enough.

Worse, you cannot delete these default loops. I spent 10 minutes simply trying
to remove the tutorial content without receiving "not found" or "permission
denied" errors. Turns out you can only remove the shortcuts from the menu, not
the loops themselves. I imagine this is because you implemented these as a
single loop shared across all accounts rather than importing a copy of these
loops per new account. Bad implementation - why are you presenting me with the
functionality to delete the loop only to prevent me from doing so?

I would not clutter every new account with tutorial content. A new account
should be perfectly clean so I can start using it, rather than wasting time
trying to determine what are core pages vs. tutorial content. Also cannot
remove the annoying "Loopy" page.

3\. The transitions and animations are not cool. They are very distracting and
slow down the use of the application by several factors. You said this project
started a long time ago, and the way the UI tries to be fancy in my face seems
to confirm this. An animation on every single mouse click is not acceptable
since 2010+.

4\. The hassle of just trying to kill the tutorial content imported to my new
account, coupled with the in-my-face transition animations wasted the full
amount of time I invest in trying out a new web app. The initial process
frustrated me and chased me away from checking out the real product.

Sorry, I spent 15 minutes reading the landing page and exploring the first
steps after logging in and got nowhere. That is too much time spent trying to
evaluate a product and not seeing any progress.

------
bengali3
$5 a month for premium makes me think theres not much value behind it,
multiply by at least 10.

remember, "expensive = good" see cialdini -
[http://goo.gl/9vvE8S](http://goo.gl/9vvE8S)

add some testimonials to add social proof

read up on lead funnels. i'd wager you'd be better to offer the $5 premium
accounts via email to your free members (after they've used the product) than
showing the low price on your homepage.

if a tool is awesome, it's invaluable. once its invaluable, it can afford to
become less awesome (see salesforce)

add an email capture tool like drip to get contact with folks who want to
follow but arent yet ready to commit.

Best of luck!!

------
bobbles
Put this line on your website:

"OpenLoopz puts communication first. Imagine a chat app like Google Hangouts
or Facebook Messenger where — as you are chatting away - you can create a new
todo item directly in the conversation simply by adding a #todo hashtag to
your existing chat message. Or maybe it’s something that you want to be
reminded about later? Just add a deadline directly to the message. The user
interface updates in real time so you can watch as new Loops arrive and users
make changes to existing Loops."

Or something similar. it actually tells people what the product does

------
pnathan
Quick scan:

Oh, it's like Google Wave. Cool, ish.

other thoughts:

Does it integrate with LDAP/AD/SAML or other sign on solution? If _yes_ , then
it can be a enterprise candidate, probably. If no, then, "aargh".

The FAQ is almost unreadable in my (OSX Safari on widescreen monitor) browser.
Literally.

If you can swing an experienced someone to play Product/Marketing, you'll
probably be in a decent spot for information management type people (PMs,
admin assistants, etc). I /think/ the tech has possibilities, but I am not
really a "make a new account and play" kind of person.

------
tixocloud
Congratulations! I'll try out the app today as well. I'm in a similar position
with you as well (i.e. family, closer to 30s) so I very well know what you're
going through.

You've just pointed out that now comes the part about communicating what
OpenLoopz is all about. Once you've done that well, you'll see the beta sign-
ups come through. They may not necessarily buy from you just yet but keep in
touch with them and learn from their user interactions to improve the product.

One of the hardest things is landing the very first customer. But it's not
impossible. Good luck!

My early thoughts: Based on the website, it's not fully clear what OpenLoopz
does and how it does it (i.e. How will it make me communicate better and get
things done quicker?). You got me somewhat hooked on "communicate better and
get things done quicker" so now, tell me can I achieve it with your app. Since
a "Loop" is a new concept, you'll need to explain it but keep it subtle - as a
user, my point is to communicate better and get things done quicker. If a
"Loop" helps me do it, great. If not, I'm not really interested in what a
"Loop" is.

I'd focus on trying to serve 1 customer segment at the moment. Having multiple
price packages for multiple customer segments will be tough to serve because
all their needs and demands will be quite different.

------
desireco42
I hate to show you this, but looks like app I already use, Mammoth
[https://mammothhq.com/](https://mammothhq.com/) :) I like the concept.

------
Mahn
Design wise it looks fine, but I feel the page doesn't do a very good job at
explaining what it is and why should I be interested. I got it after reading
the blog post, so I would suggest to condense that information and make it
glanceable/scanable in the main page (that is to say, the visitor should be
able to understand what is it and why is it useful without having to read
much).

Take a look for example at the landing page of stripe dedicated to bitcoin:
[https://stripe.com/bitcoin](https://stripe.com/bitcoin) — in less than 10
seconds I can get what is it about (and even how to integrate it) and I didn't
have to read or watch a video. That's more or less what you should aim for so
completely new visitors can go "oh, this cool, I could use it, let me signup".
As it stands right now, your copy (keep friends in the loop, communicate
better and get things done quicker) isn't very compelling to get someone to
sign up.

Also, what is your target group? For example, do you expect the product to be
used mainly by developers and makers? Because in that case the main page
should be tailored to speak to them (the current copy, imo, doesn't, too
generic to get a dev excited).

Does the name need to be OpenLoopz? To me the z there makes it sounds like a
product for kids and not very professional. Personally I'd consider going for
another brand if it's possible at all.

Resolving these issues won't get you users and customers overnight, but I
think it'd put the product in a much better position to start.

------
aps-sids
My 2 cents.

People have really short attention span these days. If I can't figure out what
OpenLoopz does in 10 sec, I'm probably never going to use/sign up for it.

Try to work on it. Good luck :)

------
unltd
the loopz seems to be a cool concept. Still I'm not sure what problem you are
solving:the website doesnt help me to understand anything and only the blog
post helped.

btw I'm in a similar situation : 34 with 2 kids + one on the way and I'm
almost out of money after investing on my 2nd startup. You shouldn't see this
as a desperate situation but as a challenge with an opportunity to focus on
what really matters ( in your life and in your company ). Good luck ;)

~~~
tixocloud
Would you be interested in connecting? I'm looking to connect with
entrepreneurs with families who are still trying to make it all happen.

~~~
mbrundle
Likewise. I'm also mid-30s with 2 kids, and I'm currently pivoting from a
science career to a software developer one. I'm currently deciding whether to
go down the self-started startup route or get a normal job, and I'm blogging
about my experiences at [http://www.hacker-dad.com](http://www.hacker-dad.com)
. Combining parenting and startups presents a set of pretty unique challenges,
and I'd love to find other parents who are grappling with them, figure out
what it takes to overcome them, and then share the results with the community.

~~~
tixocloud
Thanks for the link. I will check it out. If it's fine with you, I'll drop you
an email tonight and we can connect?

~~~
mbrundle
Sounds good!

------
alessioalex
You need to adjust the content on the first page of the site to match some
things from the blog post, describing what it is. It would be great if you
could add screenshots / gifs so people can quickly understands what it is.

There are too many apps created that say nothing on their landing page, and it
feels frustrating for users when they cannot find / understand "what is
this?".

Best of luck!

------
nferrero
This image is blocking the rendering of your website 5.0MB is really long to
load on mobile devices. [https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/olz-
web/welcome/masthead-...](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/olz-
web/welcome/masthead-dark2.jpg) First it should be compressed better. Then it
should not block the rendering of the page

------
qeorge
Congrats on launching this! The site looks nice.

Some feedback:

1) $5 for the Premium Account is too cheap. There is nothing that is $5 a
month that I want to use for my business. Its a signal that this is probably a
hobby. Make it free or charge a real price (at least $29/month, but $49 is
better). If its not worth real money, you should reexamine the value
proposition.

Amy Hoy says you need 500 people to pay you $30 a month, which seems about
right to me. At $5/month, you're going to need 3000 people paying you every
month! That's really tough! Don't do that to yourself!

2) You _have_ to explain what this does, succinctly, right at the top of the
page.I read your site, and your Medium post, and I'm still somewhat confused.

How about this headline instead:

Improve Your Accountability With OpenLoopz: Public, threaded, shareable to-do
lists.

Anyway, congrats again on launching! And keep in mind that 90% of the readers
of your HN post do not have anything in the wild for which people could
actually pay them money, so you're way ahead of the curve. Keep going!

------
pkwitbrod
The site was pretty confusing. In fact after I left the top I couldn't find
where to sign up again.

I also couldn't get back to the homepage without logging out.

Everything about the marketing has been said before. Work on the branding and
work on the content etc.

About the app itself: I REALLY like it. It has potential.

There are some UX aspects that need looked into. Making the UI stand out more.
Making it easier to get back to the loop list from an inner loop. Cut down on
what loopy says all at once. People don't like walls of text.

Make the first login interactive look at how duolingo does it
[http://www.useronboard.com/how-duolingo-onboards-new-
users/](http://www.useronboard.com/how-duolingo-onboards-new-users/) (I'm in
no way affiliated with that site but it gives an overview of duolingo)

Keep it up. I really like it! Hopefully it will work out for you I would/will
use it but without a better tutorial I can't send it to my boss and say "we
should use this." Hopefully someday!

------
ricardolopes
Looking at that page it's hard to understand what the product is about, or why
should I care. Above the fold I can read:

"Keep your friends and colleagues in the loop!" "Every day, more and more
people are relying on OpenLoopz to communicate better and get things done
quicker."

Which doesn't tell me what the product is or does. Reading the why section:

"ACCESS AND SHARE ALL YOUR CONTENT IN ONE PLACE" "IMPROVE COMMUNICATION WITH
FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES" "INTEGRATE WITH YOUR FAVOURITE APPS" "ULTIMATE CONTROL
OVER YOUR DATA"

I continue to have no clue about what the product is. I just know that I can
integrate it with apps, control its data, etc.

So my suggestion is to focus more on the copy of that page. What is the
product, at its core, what does it do and why should I care?

Good luck with it (sorry if this comment sounds too negative, I'm not trying
to attack, just to provide what I think is valuable feedback for
improvements).

------
drdoooom
I spent a lot of time on your site & the medium article trying to understand
what it does. I wouldn't have done this if I didn't read your HN post, so I
really did try and understand it. Right now it seems like this would create
more work for me than reduce it. Just my thoughts. Good luck though!

------
robalfonso
Definitely seems like an interesting idea, I like what you are trying to do
here.

One thing you might want to do is update your dns so that your app also
answers on openloopz.com.

Currently you receive a heroku message stating "There is no app configured at
that hostname. Perhaps the app owner has renamed it, or you mistyped the URL."

------
thebouv
Some of this you've already heard in other posts, but since I'm figure you're
hungrily looking at all these posts to help yourself out, I'll give some
bulleted advice at the risk of repeating:

1) Get an editor. You may be a great coder, but you're not the best
copywriter. Neither am I. So I don't write my own product copy. It will do
wonders for your product's image.

2) Video / screencast / visually show me the product without having to sign up
for Beta. I'm busy and words take too long to read.

3) This might be nit-picky, but the name really puts me off. It's the Z, man,
it hurts.

4) Does your software solve a problem? If so, can you explain the problem to
me in two sentences? I still don't understand as I don't use Slack, even
though I know what it is.

Best of luck to you. I hope to hear about your acqui-hire or buyout soon
enough.

------
stellar678
I guess I'm kind of late to the party, but I wanted to share a view of what 40
people looked at during the first few seconds on your landing page:
[http://imgur.com/feTONXk,fFUUXCD,WCs9oJG](http://imgur.com/feTONXk,fFUUXCD,WCs9oJG)

Personally, I think the design and UX are quite beautiful, and I find the
basic mechanic of OpenLoopz to be very appealing. That said, I think your
challenge will be how to pitch such an open-ended product in a pithy and
engaging manner. Like some other people on the thread, I wish I could have
seen the product in action before signing up and verifying my account (whether
a video demo or an actual demo).

Disclosure: I work with the company that made the eye tracking images. Happy
to talk to you if you find them useful, or if they bring up questions.

------
camel_Snake
Very cool! I really prefer how the medium article explains the functionality,
though I think other commenters here have voiced the same opinion.

I think you should use the demo page to tell a story. Instead of pictures with
'demo1', 'demo2', etc let's have a family planning a vacation. There's a group
chat about destination and everyone is posting airbnbs/hotels they find. Then
there's a loop for items list to see who's bringing what. Oh, did Cindy say we
spent too much at restaurants last year? Let's have another loop so we can
plan who's cooking what for dinner as we take turns for the week. May as well
create a shopping list so we can get all the ingredients for the week in one
or two goes. etc...

You could have a series of these to show off the product.

Good Luck!

------
hewoco
Side-point, but hopefully relevant. I helped out at the Techstars London demo
day and after bugging the managing team on one of the prep days, we were able
to find out what they saw as some issues unique to the UK and the one they
always saw was "too much code, not enough talking to customers" \- they've had
start-ups apply with over £2 million spent, and a stunning product, but with
no real customer input thus far or dveloped target market after.

My fear, though I hope I'm wrong, is that openloopz will be another one of
those failures created by our apparent 'Original Sin' as a tech community.

~~~
tchock23
I wouldn't consider that unique to the UK. That's a common problem throughout
the startup community (I'm on the teaching team at an accelerator here in NY
and it's the same way).

It's just more fun to build a product than it is to talk to customers before
touching a line of code...

------
hxmc
You could have validated this idea (for next to nothing, I might add) before
quitting your job and investing all of your savings.

There's a lot of good reading out there around how to do what you've tried to
do here in a safe and sensible way that doesn't waste time and your own hard
earned money, but you seem to have ignored all of that. I suggest you purchase
a copy of [http://theleanstartup.com/](http://theleanstartup.com/)

I genuinely wish you all the best of luck, but the way you've gone about this
seems to me to be very, very foolish. Reckless even, given you have a family.

~~~
pdrummond
I already have the leanstartup and I have read many, many books on the
subject, but I didn't do all this just to start a business. Of course, I
_want_ it to become successful, but this project means more to me than that,
so I didn't need validation before starting on the journey. In a way, I was
scratching my own itch. This is something I will use on a daily basis, and if
that's as successful as it will ever be, then it was still worth it.

Seriously, I apologise if I make out in my post that this has been the worst
time of my life! It wasn't the intention. For the most part it's been an
amazing ride, and I had enough funds to be relatively comfortable while doing
it (once I got used to the adjustments).

~~~
tchock23
The advice to "scratch your own itch" is fine if you're building a hobby
project. If you intend to build a real business then doing at least some
"validation" (I hate how entrepreneurs use that word, but that's beside the
point) is critical.

Even just talking to 10-20 people is better than nothing. Hindsight is 20/20,
but hopefully anyone reading this reply takes a moment to do that before
coding anything.

------
mangeletti
"... to communicate better and get things done quicker" could literally mean
"we provide 5 Hour Energy and megaphones for the office". Tell the visitor
what you do, more specifically (not too much detail - just enough so that
people have some idea).

I think your website looks nice, though. Whatever you do, resist the urge to
redesign it (regardless of feedback herein). __Do __focus on getting your
first customers through guerrilla means, and refine your website slowly over
time.

Final, bike-shedding note: Get rid of the animation delay in your scroll-the-
user-down navigation.

------
abathur
As an aside, cheers to @pdrummond for taking some frank feedback in stride.

------
there4
On first glance, the marketing site is clean, tidy, and professional. Nice
work there! I'll try out the app today. In the meantime a couple of things I
looked for: A screenshot or demo and a help site for support.

The red introductory price text feels a little out of place. It's left
justified when the rest feels centered, and I feel like it could be a better
callout with improved formatting. It may be a British spelling, but I saw
misspelled 'occassional' in the Beta section.

Best wishes with the project it looks promising!

~~~
icefox
Reading the main page I am not sure what it is. Is it a chat application? What
would be the elevator pitch? The story you would tell someone about how it is
inevitable that all chat clients would do X and how openloopz does it today
(todo lists?) What is the problem it solves? Or how does it help me make
money? Maybe that is in the FAQ, but from a marketing perspective I stopped
reading after the Why section (also the big black bar under made it look like
the end of the page).

------
philbarr
Want to do this sort of thing myself one day. So many congratualations on
getting it out there!

Which is why I'm so sorry when I say: I read a bunch of the text on there and
I don't know what it does. I'm no marketer either, but I highly recommend
Start Small, Stay Small for the basics on market research and marketing. You
could read it in an afternoon.

You need (at a minimum):

\- screenshots

\- testimonials (I think you just make them up)

\- a BUY NOW button. It's _after_ that you tell them it's a Beta and get them
to put their email address in.

------
juliann
You should allow people to sign in using its email, i've tried multiple times
to sign in and got an error til i realize that i had to use my username.

------
dchuk
Every software landing page that lacks a screenshot of the actual software
being sold completely baffles me. Just show me the thing please.

------
campesino
I really recommend MIT's Entrepreneurship 101 course on edx.org, it taught me
a lot about finding your end user, which is what you're doing now.
[https://courses.edx.org/courses/MITx/15.390.1x/3T2014/info](https://courses.edx.org/courses/MITx/15.390.1x/3T2014/info)

~~~
mrchess
Is there supposed to be some sort of content on this page? I don't see
anything?

------
mrchess
My feedback:

1\. No idea what this does, even after logging in and clicking around.

2\. It wouldn't load for me at the start/seems VERY slow. Saw some comments
about a 5MB file... maybe that is it?

3\. "Slack meets github issues" means nothing to me! Who is your target
audience? Those both seem like dev tools, but it looks like you're hitting
consumers?

Good luck!

------
whiskypeters
Low hanging fruit: localize your marketing site for US english. I know it
sounds silly, but language matters and is proven lift conversions.

Research: [http://www.nngroup.com/articles/american-vs-british-
english-...](http://www.nngroup.com/articles/american-vs-british-english-for-
web/)

------
magic_beans
I read the first couple paragraphs of your medium post before I got bored. Way
too much unnecessary content.

THIS IS ALL ANYONE NEEDS TO KNOW: "create a new todo item directly in the
conversation simply by adding a #todo hashtag to your existing chat message"

That is what separates you from Slack or other todo apps. LEAD WITH THAT.

~~~
magic_beans
This came off harshly. I REALLY LIKE the hashtag feature. I'd LOVE that in my
productivity apps. I think it's really cool but for you're not promoting that
aspect on your site. You should! Also, screenshots on the site would be ideal.

------
city41
Good luck with the project! Just thought I'd point out there's a fair amount
of competition out there. Not just Slack, but Flowdock for example, which
offers very "loop-like" functionality as well. If you've not looked into
Flowdock, it'd be worth it to check them out

------
ryanmarsh
Forget all the people who say "the solution already exists" plenty of people
have built successful businesses by building a solution that already existed.

I did have a hard time figuring out what your app is. Work on the copy and you
might see a better response.

------
alsdifu3
Lots of advice here. I would also check out other Show HNs to get a feel for
how other people present and talk about their product.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9145007](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9145007)

------
EC1
The site is terrible. I have NO idea what it's supposed to be. Github is
mentioned twice, in tiny lettering.

Your blog post is what your homepage should be. If I'm a first time customer
coming to your site looking at this, I close it and move on.

------
artursapek
Can someone explain to me the apparently common obsession with creating to-do
lists and chat programs? I can't figure out why so many people devote this
much of their time to building to-do lists.

~~~
DougWebb
Developers tend to have a lot of activities and tasks they need to keep track
of, and it's too much to remember. So we all wind up making lists: on paper,
on whiteboards, in text files, in email, in apps. These lists always start out
being fairly simple and manageable, but they also always grow into an
unmanageable mess.

Being developers, we wind up blaming the record-keeping tool for the
unmanageable mess rather than our own habits. That leads us to think that if
we could just create a better tool for keeping track of our TODO list, our
lives would be easier to manage, and maybe others could benefit from the tool
as well.

Of course it never seems to pan out, because what we're trying to manage is
our (work) lives, and our lives cannot be represented as a simple task list.
There's a lot more nuance and complexity to it. And that's why we end up with
a million different implementations of simple TODO lists.

~~~
artursapek
That sounds very plausible. Thanks for the insight.

------
magic_beans
I read throughout your whole site. Way too much content. I still don't know
what the product does or why I should switch from Slack to OpenLoopz.

The z in the name is not great. OpenLoop would be so much nicer.

------
CheckHook
As others have said, your website is not very informative but I signed up
after reading your Medium post.

I really like the project and think it has a lot of potential but could do
with some polish. Well done!

------
flyingrocks
Hi, sorry, my first impression is it's nothing I couldn't do today simply with
email, that would require everyone I'd want to communicate with to sign up en-
mass.

~~~
flyingrocks
Also, there's a bias on HN (and the world in general but here in particular)
against giving real, polite negative feedback (note downvoting without
comment).

------
crabasa
Going to openloopz.com (no www) serves up a Heroku error page.

------
matude
Much has been covered by others, so as a designer with 10 years of experience
my recommendation would be to change the logo into something cleaner.

------
marcamillion
When I registered, the URL in the email had the port number in the URL (i.e.
openloopz.com:443/confirm....).

Pretty sure that's a bug.

Other than that...Good luck!

------
talltofu
Can you add the explanations on medium to your website. Currently, I have no
idea what a loop is based on your website

------
reitanqild
Small feedback: link to google+ returned 403

So far looks very close to something I'd like to create/use myself.

------
rmetzler
I don't get it. What is it? Could you just present a video of you using your
product?

------
Skowt
Good on you for going at it and pushing through. Chin up and keep moving
forward. :)

------
buro9
It would help to see a demo.

------
mrewheels
good luck! code time is over and now business time begins. trim down the intro
so someone can understand it in 10 seconds.

------
eignerchris_
Lots of people leap before they have a parachute because the plebeian view is
that entrepreneurs take risks. The reality is that good entrepreneurs manage
their risk neurotically. It doesn't help your situation now, but always start
these endeavors as night + weekend projects. Manage your risk. Test the
market. Get 5 paying customers, _then_ start thinking about quitting your full
time job.

So, some feedback...

From what I gather, OpenLoop a tool for me to organize information and/or
projects, generic enough to be used across many verticals and company orgs. It
sounds similar to Trello or Basecamp. And that's OK. I'm not sure if my view
is accurate, but that's what I feel like you're trying to sell.

"Show, don't tell". Go look at trello.com. Go look at basecamp.com/tour. As a
potential customer, I want to see screenshots of the software before I signup.
I want to see what's different. I'm asking myself "is this worth my time?"
Show me a gif of OpenLoop in action. Or make a short screencast (with actual
video of the software, not a high-level animation) and stick it right in the
hero. Put up a demo at demo.openlooopz.com. Automatically wipe/reimage the
account every night to keep out spam and vulgarity. Let people play with it.

Explore verticals. Are there verticals currently using OpenLoop really well?
Project Managers? Nurses? Accountants? Is it really great at bug tracking?
Highlight those on your website - "Project Managers use OpenLoop to Deliver
Great Products", "Squash bugs quickly with OpenLoop". Build some dedicated
landing pages for those verticals and buy some FB ads. Measure
pageviews/signups and see who is most interested.

Testimonials or Case Studies. Talk to people currently using OpenLoop and ask
them for a quote to put on your page.

Blogs. Setup a tumblr in 15 seconds and start blogging about how people are
using OpenLoop. Publish guides on popular workflows. Publish ways you're
different than your competitors.

Refine your copy. People generally don't read large blocks of text. I could
tell you were struggling to describe your product because the first item in
your FAQ is "What is a loop". Ditch the copy and show me the software.

Ditch the "Slack Meets Github" tagline. Perhaps you only used that here. But
it didn't help me understand the product.

Naysayers come and go. Don't give up, but make sure you're providing if that's
your role. If you're out of fuel (money), time to do a contract gig to earn
some more runway. You might even have to go back to full time work and do
OpenLoop on the weekends. There is no shame in that. If you can, take a 2 week
break from anything OpenLoop related (perhaps a contract) and spend time with
your family. You'll come back refreshed and find yourself with tons of new
ideas for ways to market/advertise, new verticals to research, better copy,
etc.

Best of luck to you sir!

------
sarciszewski
Neat. I'll give this a shot this weekend. :)

------
danudey
Fundamentally, your website doesn't remind me of any problems I need solved,
and that's why I don't know if I want it. Check out Slack's promo video. The
first half of it is talking about the catastrophe that is collaboration these
days. The reason that's great is because people who have this problem have
_already told themselves the first part of the story_ about _their own
organization_. When the team is talking about how much of a clusterfuck their
communication is, potential users are nodding along and saying "Yeah man,
that's what my life is like right now", and then - surprise! - Slack is the
answer for them, which means maybe it's the answer for you too.

Whenever I see anyone making a pitch I recommend this talk to them:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action/transcript)

The basic idea is pitch to people's emotions, and not their logic. For
example, this paragraph is awful:

> _With OpenLoopz, you don 't have to worry about the implications of sharing
> your data with us. You can download your own dedicated OpenLoopz Server
> called a Pod. If you wish, you can either download and configure your own
> Pod or you can let us do all the hard work for you. Either way, once your
> Pod is set-up, you will have complete control over where your data is stored
> and who can access it._

Blah blah blah. It kind of goes back and forth. It explains this feature, but
it doesn't _pitch_ it. It also positions 'sharing data with us' as something
'to worry about', which is not an implication you want. I'd write something
like this, personally (but I'm awful at this):

"Your data is important to you, and we get that. Whether for compliance,
privacy, or retention, if you need your data stored in-house we can help. Set
up your own Loopz on-premesis, or we can do it for you, and you'll have
complete control over where your data is stored and who can access it."

It dispenses with the wishy-washy "Hey, you could do this. Or not. But
whatever, anyway, here's a thing." language and gets to the point.

Likewise:

> _OpenLoopz seamlessly integrates with all your favourite apps. Are you a
> software developer who wants GitHub code commits to appear in your
> conversation or project as you work? Maybe you are a manager looking to keep
> all your personal and professional appointments /tasks in one place? With
> integrations you can truly keep all your data in one place, including data
> from external apps!_

"You use a lot of services, and checking them all is a pain. OpenLoopz can
integrate with other services to bring all that data into one place, saving
you time and simplifying the flow of information. Github commits for
developers, <some kind of task management system e.g. Asana> milestones for
project managers, and <specific calendaring service, e.g. Google Calendar>
events for management, all in one place so you never have to miss a thing - or
repeat yourself twice."

The main difference here is that your pitch starts out with "Hey, integrate
your stuff", whereas my (kind of bad) one mentions a specific pain point and
then goes on to solve it.

Then you can have a specific page that goes into detail. Tell me what
integrations are already available, and how I can build my own. Tell me what I
have to do to host my own service (is it an app? a VM? a docker container?),
and what it does (can it integrate with my LDAP/AD/Kerberos/CSV file
database?), but leave the technical aspects out of your first pitch.

So yeah, that's my input, for what it's worth. Maybe it'll be useful.

------
CmonDev
I wish people did not spend their own money on start-ups, it's so sad :(.
Learn from Silicon Valley.

~~~
onion2k
There's nothing wrong with bootstrapping. Plenty of small/medium businesses
don't go for VC (unless you count straight up debt like a bank loan, which I
don't).

