

Ask HN: Need help classifying my software - sdesol

I know it's a bad sign if you can't classify your software, but this is the situation that I'm in right now.  The problem that I'm faced with is it's designed to address a broad scope of problems associated with developing software.<p>My goal was to produce an out of the box solution that would leverage my expertise in designing and building software development environments.  I believe I have the right framework and the tools that I've implemented so far, does address a lot of the issues that I've encountered in my career.<p>The problem that I'm faced with now is trying to explain what it is that I'm offering.  It can be interpreted as a bunch of things.  Some may see it as an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool.  Some may see it as a collaboration tool.  Some may just see it as a replacement for a software control management web interface like Gitweb.<p>I personally want to describe it as an out of the box software development environment solution, but I don't think this will make sense for a lot of people.  Unless you have intimate knowledge with designing and implementing software development environments, this term will probably be as clear as mud.<p>I'm currently looking at positioning this as an enterprise framework, but I think this I may scare away some people.  Plus I want to emphasize that it's much more.<p>I've just finished creating a video that is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3FJ10V1_c8 which I hope will provide a bit more insight.<p>Edit. Make sure you watch the video in HD and if possible, full screen to see the smaller details.<p>If you were me, how would you tackle the problem of explaining a product that is designed to address a fairly un-thought of subject like ones software development environment ecosystem.
======
ismarc
So it's just a web based commit tracker? Unless there's a large number of
menus/menu items not shown, there's nothing new, fanciful or in need of
"categorization". If you call it anything but a "web based commit tracker" to
people who work with code very day, it's not that they "don't get it"...it's
that they're laughing at you when you leave the room.

~~~
sdesol
There is a large number of tools that I'm not showing. I just want to show the
framework side of things. Basically how easy it is for you to integrate it
into your own environment.

There is an indexer side. To put this into perspective, it takes me 12 hours
to index the the Linux Kernel Git repository on my icore 920 system with an
Intel X25-E SSD. The indexer is not parallelized right now, which is why it
takes so long but I figure it would still take 4 hours to index. So there is
more than meets the eye right now.

Unless you've designed software development environments for 100+ software
designers, spanning multiple continents, it's a bit hard to explain the other
implementation details and why it matters.

I appreciate your skepticism as it usually takes me a half an hour to properly
explain what it is meant to do. And this is only because the person
understands the pain.

To see it as just a Gitweb replacement is my problem because I clearly did not
show enough.

------
noodle
software development productivity tool? something generic to describe
something that does a lot.

~~~
sdesol
Unfortunately I think calling this will create an equal amount of questions.

~~~
noodle
if you're trying to sell a product, isn't this what you want, though? the open
door to talk more about your product?

~~~
SwellJoe
No. Describe something too generally, and too much outside of the scope of
existing understanding, and people will not only not be able to find you
(because they were searching for things they know and understand that might
solve their problems), the folks who accidentally do find you will move along
because they already tend to know what they're looking for, and a vague
description won't match that.

We know all about this problem. Our products cover a ridiculously wide array
of problems, and they're named a bit confusingly (historic reasons, and
several years too late to change), and we have a lot of problems with folks
not understanding what our products do. And, somehow we often end up getting
tons of questions about a very small subset of related things that we _don't_
do (at OSCON we heard "so how is this better than Nagios?" about 25 times a
day, and our products don't really compete or overlap with Nagios in any
significant way).

Be very specific. If it means you have several landing pages that cover
various aspects of your products capabilities, so be it. If it means you break
your product up into modules so that you can be specific about what each one
does, so be it. You cannot win if your product description is too vague for
people to know exactly what you do. People are looking to solve problems; they
are not generally looking to learn new things.

Besides all that, if you can't describe what you're doing in a few words, and
have most folks understand it, you are probably doing a lot of work you don't
need to do (yet). Focus on solving real problems that real people have. When
you have real customers, you will then find that they provide the guidance you
need to keep moving forward without losing your focus or your ability to
communicate with new customers. Reinventing an entire market, and rewriting
the language people use to describe things, is generally not something that
you can do solo.

~~~
sdesol
Thanks. That was really helpful advice.

