

Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com - dshingarev
http://planergize.com

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guiseppecalzone
It's took me over 30 seconds to figure out what the site does and I'm still
not 100 percent. If I were a normal user, I would have bounced by now.

Improve the landing page? Pictures and some points on what it does could be
helpful.

Good luck!

~~~
dshingarev
Thanks! We are working on improving a landing page with some graphics and
better explanation.

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Vindexus
The "Wedding Planning" button made me think that's what it did. I thought
"cool idea, they should show that in more places". Then when I clicked the
Categories tab I found out that that's just an example. Or I could be wrong
about that too, but that just highlights the point further.

I'd suggest putting a tagline beneath your logo that describes what you do.
Don't make it too marketesy, make it explanatory. "Helpful instructions to
common tasks" or whatever is better than something like "Plan. Do. Share.".

~~~
dshingarev
Totally agree with you, we'll have it fixed by tomorrow! Very helpful comment,
thank you. Yes, wedding planning is one of the examples what kind of plans you
can create with planergize. If you like a plan you can then "run" it and get
SMS/email reminders before steps.

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dwohlfahrt
Geez... with all the negativity on here (I realize he's asking for criticism,
but would it hurt to throw in a tad of positive feedback as well?!) I feel
obligated to tell you that I think what you've created, while it still needs a
bit of polish and refinement, is quite impressive and useful (especially made
me think of it's application for all those DIY sites). Granted I know jack
about Flash, but your plan player wowed the pants off me and performed without
issue in Firefox.

As for suggestions, I agree with most of the others that the landing page
could use some work in order to be more engaging and clear as to exactly what
the site does. Also, I think it really might help to change the background
image to something less cartoonish that comes across as more practical,
useful, and more visually representative of the site function... perhaps a
design incorporating various planning-related graphics such as arrows,
bullets, step numbers (1., 2., 3., etc.), times, clocks, check boxes,
percentages, etc.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing its progression!

~~~
dshingarev
Thanks a lot for your POSITIVE feedback! :-) And, of course, I agree with
regards to the landing page - it'll be ready by Monday next week. It takes
some time to prepare nice image that (we hope) will help to explain the
purpose of the website.

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stevenwei
I agree with the other comments saying that your home page doesn't describe
your product clearly enough. I disagree that showing a video is the best
solution. As a user, I don't want to waste my time watching a video until I'm
convinced that I want to investigate further. Instead, I would put a Top 5
showcase of some great looking plans on the home page. This also gives an
incentive for the users to create something that is really cool, so they can
be featured on the home page.

I think relying on Facebook Connect _only_ might be a bit iffy, unless you
absolutely require it for core functionality. In your case, Facebook adds some
social elements but the core competency of your website is building plans. I
might want to sign up to play with your site without using my Facebook
account. If I like it enough to recommend it to my friends, I _might_ be
willing to link it to my Facebook account later.

~~~
dshingarev
Thanks for your comment!

The reason we decided to use FB only auth is that we felt that in order to
provide the same feature set with FB and without it would require quite a lot
of duplication on our site. And the more social features we add - the more
duplication it requires.

For example, for a plan you can specify "friends only" visibility - and for
this to work we need to support friends lists in our app. We also use FB to
send SMS reminders (if allowed by a user) - and that's not the easiest and
cheapest thing to implement from scratch.

~~~
stevenwei
I'm not suggesting you duplicate the feature set that Facebook provides. If a
user wants to have those features, it makes sense to have them link their
Facebook account.

But I would probably offer a more basic version that doesn't have friend
lists, SMS reminders, etc, and let the user opt in to the additional features
only if they wanted to. Otherwise I think you might end up artificially
restricting the amount/type of users that use your site (e.g. people without
Facebook accounts or people that want to keep their Facebook data private).

~~~
dshingarev
Maybe you're right... We have to think about it more carefully. Thanks for
your feedback!

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Vindexus
Like others have said it's a bit confusing to figure out what it does right
away. I think a demo video might be in your best interest. I read this and it
was kinda helpful: [http://blog.procasts.co.uk/2009/03/why-screencast-if-a-
pictu...](http://blog.procasts.co.uk/2009/03/why-screencast-if-a-picture-is-
worth-a-1000-words/)

You could use Camtasia: <http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp> I tried out
ScreenToaster as it was free and it works pretty good:
<http://www.screentoaster.com/>

I see you don't have an FAQ page. May I humbly suggest my FAQ script side
project: <http://breezyfaq.com>

~~~
dshingarev
You sure can! :-) I'll have a look at it. We have a screencast, there is a
link on the how to page: <http://assets.planergize.com/planergize_demo.swf>

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imp
I thought the name was a take-off on "plagiarize". I was expecting it to be a
system where you enter a student's homework and it would do a search and tell
you if it was plagiarized. Sorry, I didn't actually try the service, but I
just thought I'd share my confusion with the name.

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Tawheed
You need to rip out your front page and add the following:

1) One tagline - "Easy simple way to create repeatable processes"

2) A video going through a use case

3) Example plans (the end product), featured on the page

4) Giant sign up button

~~~
sfennell
I agree, with all of that - I just want to emphasize the need to clear up the
front page. With all the text the same size I have a really difficult time
finding what I need, I had to click on the why page to figure that out (the
first line would be better on the front page : "Step-by-step instructions
along with videos and images Cook a meal as if guided by a famous chef
personally, get instructions when and what should be done with a recipe plan"
- A link to an example page would be great to - or some sort of slideshow.

I had a really difficult time just getting the gist of what you are doing
there but was really put off by the large block of over sized text on the
front page.

~~~
dshingarev
Thanks, I agree, we'll have it fixed by tomorrow.

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hackoder
Very nice, I like it. I agree with the others that you could improve the first
impression- Have a nice big tagline that captures what you do in one sentence.
I can see this as being very useful in lots of domains (think disaster
recovery etc). You could pitch it to businesses even (thought the current look
is too casual for businesses) to use this as part of their risk management
process.

I stress the point of businesses because you have more money-making potential
there as opposed to individual plans.

~~~
dshingarev
I'm working on this side as well. Applicability in business environment was
the reason I got funded a year ago by Enterprise Ireland (Irish state agency
working to support commercialization of research, among other things)

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listic
Why did you decide to use Facebook authentication? Do you have plans for
symbiosis with Facebook? Why have the user create a Facebook account instead
of account in your startup?

~~~
dshingarev
We actually had our own authentication initially, but later decided to use
Facebook Connect. We are using some part of data and features available on FB
to provide core functionality, e.g. we use friends list for access control, we
send SMS and email reminders through FB. We publish short stories on your
activity on your wall (if allowed). And we have plans to put more social
features, utilizing FB infrastructure. Many people already have FB accounts,
so we decided not to ask people to fill in all these fields one more time.

------
Maciek416
Interesting idea.

I think the copy on your landing page needs some work. In particular, the
intro paragraph ("Planergize is an online service that ..") seems a bit
muddled. I wasn't sure at first whether your site was about plans, or about
wedding planning (given the badge in the top left). I think you should easily
be able to summarize what your service does without getting into the details
of how you construct plans.

Good luck with the site!

~~~
dshingarev
Thanks for your comment - we are working on some nice graphics explaining what
we do at the moment. And I agree - it is boring and doesn't work well...

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kyro
This might not a big issue, but I think the phonetics of the name are a bit
off. I didn't quite know how to pronounce it, and realized when I clicked
through that it's probably meant to be read as planner-gize. This could be a
problem for word-of-mouth marketing as people would probably assume it's
spelled with two n's. Plannergize.com seems to be taken already, but something
like PlannerMake.com is available.

~~~
nhebb
I had the same reaction. Instead of a common word misspelled on purpose (e.g.,
"tumblr"), it looks more like a typo in the product name. Also, at first
glance I want to say "plagiarize" because it's the closest real word my brain
associates with those letters.

Other issues: \- You have categories with no samples. \- There is no back
button support. \- There is no mouse wheel support within scrollable panes. \-
In detail view, I couldn't figure out how to get back out to higher level
views.

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zarski
I like the design of the landing page and the main graphic. I am getting tired
of seeing the standard "browser screenshot" graphic on landing pages. As for
the copy on the landing page I also couldn't discern quickly what the
application was about.

~~~
dshingarev
Thanks, we are working on the better version of landing page - with better
explanations and some graphics.

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megamark16
The plan viewer was a little flaky for me as I scrolled along the timeline.
All the bouncing around seemed to detract a little bit (at least for me), but
than that's just a first impression, I might get used to it if I used to
service a lot.

~~~
dshingarev
Thanks a lot for your comment! We will improve it. I just thought it would be
nice to have something moving on the screen :-)

~~~
megamark16
Well, I'm guessing you put some work into getting things to bounce around like
that, so don't take anything out just on account of me :-) My own work is
noticeably lacking in flare, but I certainly have an appreciation for the work
you've put into this.

~~~
dshingarev
:-) Thanks for that!

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gibsonf1
I just tried connecting via FB and starting a plan - the system seems to hang
after I create the plan and won't let me get out of the message to click on
the timeline to start. Any thoughts?

~~~
dshingarev
Try reloading the page. Can you tell me what browser do you use?

~~~
gibsonf1
Ok, it's working now :) I'm using Google Chrome 4.0.249.89 unknown (38071)

I'm curious, once you publish it, why can't you go back and edit it again? (I
know of almost no plans that don't get revised during the process)

~~~
dshingarev
We are trying to build a system with reusable plans - where a plan is
essentially a step-by-step instructions plus timing data. So the idea is -
somebody creates a good plan - like a recipe, or first 10 weeks of life of a
child - and then many people should be able use it. So master plan should
remain the same, in our opinion. On the other hand, you can change positions
of steps, add/remove reminders and if you are not satisfied with the plan
completely, you can duplicate it and create a new one based on existing. We
are not trying to create yet another project management tool - it is more of
tutorial with timeline, reminders, images, videos and reusability is the main
focus for us.

