
My Startup - A node.js cloud hosting platform - 619Cloud
http://www.nodejscloud.com/
======
dreyfiz
Your writing takes all the sex out of it-that doesn't give me a lot of
confidence in your product. Heroku's copy is balls to the wall, yours is
putting me to sleep. I'll give you a critique based on my own prejudices, for
whatever it's worth:

Typos: "severs"; "your" should be "you're". Also, you have your own
capitalization scheme for "Node.js Camp", perhaps for emphasis? "Meet up" is
two words, not one.

Tone/confidence: Heroku's top billing is "rock-solid ruby platform". Yours is
"a node.js cloud hosting platform". Heroku characterizes itself reassuringly
as well as describing itself mechanically. "node.js cloud hosting platform" is
a dead fish of a phrase.

"COMING SOON!" When-ish? Why shouldn't I just bounce off your page?

"Provision servers; build node.js apps; deploy!" Deathly boring copy. You can
always tell when someone isn't smiling with their whole face, and the
exclamation mark at the end is a fake smile. Compare the confidence of
Sinatra's copy to the vague, insincerely jaunty feel of yours ("put this in
your pipe/and smoke it". <http://www.sinatrarb.com/>

What is "provision servers"? Is it like dynos or EC2 instances? I don't
understand what your technology is, and whether you're building a truly rich
app platform like Heroku or just a thin layer of UI on top of EC2. Heroku
really sells me on how cool their engineering is. Do you not talk about it
because you have nothing cool to talk about? If you do, you should really
start talking about what you're building.

"We provide simple, scalable, and powerful node.js hosting for node.js
developers in the cloud." A vague, limp snoozefest.

"Developers should focus on hacking cool node.js applications, let us handle
hosting, deployment, and scaling." This is insincere and it reads wrong. You
sound like you're out of touch, trying to appeal to the cool kids with stilted
language.

"Dedicated Cloud Servers": so is this actually an application platform? It
doesn't sound like it.

"Git + SVN Integration": your target market probably isn't using svn.

~~~
ericflo
Wow, I don't know how to say this other than that I disagree with almost every
single thing you said. You're really advocating that he emulate the hubris,
overzealous, wannabe cool tone of "put this in your pipe/and smoke it"?

Building a product like this doesn't mean cargo-culting the culture of other
successful products in the space. It means building a solid technical
foundation, a considerable amount of devops, an incessant focus on ease of
deployment, and a few early success stories.

~~~
Klonoar
For what it's worth, I actually agree with him. His edits actually entice me
to give two shits about what the product potentially offers me.

You do understand how marketing works, right? Nobody ever said it's pretty.

------
joelg87
I wish you the best of luck, I think the success of Heroku certainly indicates
something similar is needed for node.js (although perhaps they will do
something there soon anyway..).

My main concern is your name. Heroku can move towards node.js because their
name doesn't tie them to any single technology. You might want to change your
name so you can consider other technologies.

------
Klonoar
It's a nice page design and all, but on top of the solutions provided by
Heroku and Joyent, there already exists NodeJitsu, which seems pretty solid.
Are you offering anything different here? Seems like a bit of "me too"
syndrome.

<http://nodejitsu.com/>

~~~
robinduckett
I hate to be a buzzkill but none of these seem to have launched yet, are you
in nodejitsu's private beta?

------
frisco
I bet we're going to see a bunch of "Heroku for X" now that they've set a
precedent. I'm not sure that's a bad thing; it's a great idea.

------
jdp
Does this mean you'll be doing an offer HN? ;) We've been getting spoiled
lately. I definitely want to give you a guys a try, see how you stack up
against Joyent's node hosting.

~~~
619Cloud
Yeap, we will have a private beta with HN peps getting priority.

------
mwill
My first thought was 'Looks nice, sounds dull' You need to make your service
sound like it stands out from nodejitsu or heroku, even if you already have a
more comprehensive service, it doesn't sound like you do. Crank the hype up to
11.

Aside from that its great to see another node.js hosting related startup on
the scene, I hope to give you a try sometime in the future.

------
michaelbuckbee
I wonder if a concern they had was Heroku already moving in the direction of
node.js support.

~~~
619Cloud
Funny you should ask, this was actually a question that Robert Morris asked on
my YC application. I don't view Heroku as a competitor. In fact, I believe
they announced that they abandoned their node.js experimental hosting.

However, Joyent really has a leg up on node.js hosting, and seeing as they
employ Ryan Dahl and just basically bought node.js, it could be difficult to
gain market share, but I believe there is room for others to play.

~~~
cmelbye
Actually, Heroku has 1,000 people running node.js apps on their platform. The
first phase of the experiment is over, but they're releasing the new version
of it next year apparently.

[http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2010/9/20/an_update_on_herok...](http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2010/9/20/an_update_on_heroku_node_js_support/)

~~~
619Cloud
I stand corrected, but still feel Joyent is the major player at the table with
four aces as of now. Plus, it will be interesting to see what salesforce.com
does with the direction of Heroku.

------
ra
If by denied you mean rejected, then good on you for getting on with it
anyway.

------
jack7890
fwiw, I love your landing page design.

------
chriskelley
Like the landing page - but you've got a typo!

Under the Dedicated Cloud Servers headline: "Scale severs up and down on the
fly!" Should of course be "servers", not "severs."

Good luck with the new endeavor!

------
erreon
Is it scary to think that Heroku is aiming at Node.js? I'm not sure if I'd be
scared or if it'd convince me I'm going in the right direction.

------
shorbaji
Do you think the fact that you proposed a cloud hosting platform was part of
the reason for rejection?

By the way, the landing page design looks great!

------
thomasswift
I signed up, I look forward to giving your service a try in the future!

------
azrealus
Why do you think you got rejected? It seems like a really good idea.

~~~
jpcx01
Doesn't it seem a bit "me too"ish? Seems like a super crowded market with
extremely capable competitors. Heroku was able to sneak in since they were the
first company to offer a service like this for rails. With Joyent's amazing
no.de platform, I can't imagine any business deciding to base their
infrastructure on a tool that a couple developers just started and doesn't yet
have stable funding or a proven business.

Just my 2 cents. The landing page looks great. Hope they can pull through.

~~~
barfoomoo
Not an RoR user but wasn't Engine Yard there before Heroku? I am assuming
Engine Yard and Heroku offer something similar. I might be wrong.

~~~
jpcx01
EngineYard was doing uber expensive fully managed rails hosting at the time
Heroku go started. Wasn't till over a year after Heroku launched that EY
launched their alternative (Solo->Cloud->??). Pretty good tools, but fairly
different than Heroku. They focus on managing EC2 instances instead of
Heroku's "Dynos" (small abstracted chunks of easily scalable server
resources).

To me EY seems like a much better version of Linode + install scripts that are
targeted to Ruby users. Heroku seems to me more like Google's AppEngine,
except much more expensive and without the autoscaling.

~~~
puredemo
Isn't it a little strange selling a company for $212M that is essentially just
reselling EC2 with a better UI? Maybe it's just me..

------
robinduckett
Your submit form doesn't seem to work in Firefox 4.

------
GrahamHolborn
Goodluck Justin

------
risotto
Pricing?

