
Ask HN: Review my status board startup - pmjoyce
Geckoboard launched into private beta last week.  It's very much a minimum viable product in that it's a functioning product but there's still lots to do.  It's bootstrapped by me with the design and development outsourced to companies in the UK and Belarus respectively.<p>Geckoboard is SaaS status board that uses other services' APIs to collect and summarise key business information and display it in a way that's easy to understand and interpret.<p>Data from web analytics, server monitoring, project management, email marketing, CRM/helpdesk etc shown together on one dashboard to give a near real-time status on the health of all aspects of your business.<p>At the moment we integrate with about a dozen different API but more are being worked on right now and even more on the backlog.  I'd love to hear your thoughts and/or suggestions.<p>EDIT.  Signup instructions:
We're in private beta but you can bypass the private bit by using the invite code "HN" on the signup page (don't include quotes).
Link: http://geckoboard.com
======
daveambrose
I'm trying to add a Google Account for my Apps email, and the oAuth connector
seems to be broken.

Here's the output:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'OAuthException2' with message 'Request failed
with code 400: The token is invalid. ' in
/home/geckoboa/public_html/system/libraries/oauth/OAuthRequester.php:125 Stack
trace: #0 /home/geckoboa/public_html/system/models/gmail.class.php(195):
OAuthRequester->doRequest(0, Array, Array, Array) #1
/home/geckoboa/public_html/system/controllers/oauth.class.php(76):
GmailModel->getAccessToken(Array, '4%2FUvLUOZSga3M...', 'CVoQvrifDsxjv%2...')
#2 /home/geckoboa/public_html/system/base/controller.class.php(82):
OauthController->response() #3
/home/geckoboa/public_html/system/base/base.class.php(80):
Controller->execute() #4
/home/geckoboa/public_html/system/base/base.class.php(50): Base::routing() #5
/home/geckoboa/public_html/index.php(21):
Base::createWebApplication('/home/geckoboa/...') #6 {main} thrown in
/home/geckoboa/public_html/system/libraries/oauth/OAuthRequester.php on line
125

This is on Snow Leopard and Firefox 3.6.6

~~~
vyrotek
Broken for me as well on Chrome. I was going to report this but I thought I
saw a ticket on your site for it already. I'm guessing GMail and Google Apps
Mail behave differently with OAuth?

~~~
pmjoyce
That's exactly it.

------
pmjoyce
We're in private beta but you can bypass the private bit by using the invite
code "HN" on the signup page (don't include quotes).

Link: <http://geckoboard.com>

~~~
alabut
Hmm, I'm getting a "Invalid or expired invitation code" error - did you cap
the number of new accounts?

------
RossM
This is great! I had some penned out drawings of something like this but never
really took it anywhere. As a developer what I would really like to see is
some GitHub/Google Code integration - I want to know when a commit is pushed
etc.

Some other ideas:

\- RSS feed block

\- "Pings" - when a block is updated flash it yellow and fade to the original
colour over 5-10 minutes.

\- "Workspaces" - separate dashboards that suit different uses, for example a
build indicator, site-status and other monitors on one, support requests and
tweets on another.

\- Custom components - having a developer ecosystem would top this off.

I could see myself using this on a spare monitor or TV if some more components
were available.

~~~
barmstrong
Yep this is pretty funny because I seriously considered working on this idea
too and had a decent chunk of code written before moving on.

Your implementation looks great though. Do you mind if I ask what you used to
built the UI? It looks great, transitioning etc.

Also +1 on the GitHub integration.

------
enki
create a demo site. personally i wouldn't start entering passwords before
having seen a demo and being convinced that it'll be useful.

also a votebox (as in dropbox.com/votebox/) to suggest widgets would be nice.

~~~
pmjoyce
Demo site is a good idea - thanks!

We have a feature request forum where users can vote on ideas submitted by
other users. <http://geckoboard.zendesk.com/forums/176685-feature-requests>

~~~
dchs
If you were feeling bold you could create a demo site that displayed stats of
the app itself!

------
adamcharnock
Great work,very slick. Out of interest, can you provide any information about
the system architecture?

Things i noticed:

* do you really need my pingdom password? * drop-down in pingdom setup process does not work on the iPad (can see the options, but cannot scroll) * I wasn't really clear on what the fields did on the last stage of the pingdom setup process * The text in the text boxes could do with being lighter, it doesn't really have enough contrast in comparison to the background and is hard to see * I am asked to choose the size of the widget without really knowing what is going to be appearing in it. I do nit have enough information to make the decision. Maybe always make the small type, with the option to enlarge later? Would shorten the process a little * nice work on the 2-step signup (getting my email then asking for the other information once the user has brought into the process)

Anyway, great work! We hope to be in your position soon with our startup,
<http://playnice.ly> </shamelessplug> :)

~~~
adamcharnock
Sorry about the formatting there! Those were supposed to be bullet points

------
sachinag
You need to go a bit deeper on Google Analytics. I can't get trendlines, just
numbers, and no ability to see goals. (This probably goes for a lot of
analytics packages, but we're using GA.)

Also, Flowtown and Wufoo would be nice - I believe they both have Webhooks, so
it shouldn't be that difficult to add.

That said, this is exactly something I've wanted for quite a while; congrats!

~~~
pmjoyce
Thanks for the feedback. We're purposefully shying away from trend lines and
analysis at the moment and only showing high level summary information that's
useful for right now. We don't want you to have to interpret, just to see what
a current snapshot of your business is.

I liken it to the dashboard of your car; if you have access to your key
numbers you can see any problems straight away:

    
    
      going over the speed limit? 
      oil pressure too low?
      how many miles have I done this trip? 
      are my servers up? 
      do I have a ton of outstanding support requests?  
      have visitors to my site this week jumped suddenly?
    

I'm all for analysis and agree it's an essential function of almost any
business but there are lots of products that can help you with that (see
<http://metricly.com> for an excellent example), but that's not what
Geckoboard is for.

------
keyle
Very nice UI. One big improvement could be a small graphic with instruction
when you get to the blank dashboard. At the moment it's looking a bit empty at
first impression (and that matters!)

Maybe provide a desktop version which is just a shell for the online site?
That is, using AIR or Prism or other?

Good luck, it looks like a great product.

~~~
pmjoyce
Agreed - user communication and flow management is lacking at the moment.

Hadn't considered a desktop version until now. What benefits does it bring
over and above the web app do you think?

~~~
keyle
Webpage tabs get closed, open, closed.. if this is actually updating all by
itself throughout the day, I could see value as running it like a desktop app.

The cost is minimal (to make a prism version for example) and it takes 0
maintenance, and some users which are not uber-geek enough to make their own
desktop version might see it as a big plus. "And it run on desktop too? Cool".

Also I could see it running a "public version" on a television hooked on the
wall for everyone to see the web app live. Just a thought.

You seem to have all your features coming along, I just wanted to bring my 5c
:)

Have some fun.

~~~
pmjoyce
Thanks for clarifying this. I'll certainly give it some consideration.

------
david927
It's beautiful. Great job!

It definitely needs those additional API's. And could you offer a simple full
list of all the widgets upon signup, where you could checkbox the ones you
want, instead of hunting one-by-one in a dialog? It would make it easier to
get started.

But I would definitely use such a service. That'll do pig!

~~~
pmjoyce
Yes, we could certainly use something to make things easier to configure your
initial dashboard. Thanks for the feedback.

------
DanBlake
I had the exact same idea. When I saw panic's dashboard, I thought "Man, If I
could make a script to do that for everyone, that would be awesome"

Granted I wanted to release mine as open source. Congrats man, It looks
awesome :)

See if you cant find a way to get server uptime in there. Maybe with a script
we throw on our server.

~~~
pmjoyce
Thanks for the compliments. I loved the Panic status board, just fantastic.

If you have a Pingdom account you can display your server uptime from there
right now. Otherwise, we will be implementing a "reverse API" for custom data
and external services to push data to your dashboard at some point in the
future.

------
losvedir
Oh, this is fantastic. I can definitely see myself using this, thanks!

One quick note: On the Beta sign up form there's a misspelling: "Acount"
instead of "Account."

~~~
pmjoyce
Thanks for the catch!

------
charliepark
UI suggestion:

I'm in the "add widget" pop-up. Currently, I select a widget, then have to hit
the green "select widget" button. I think that step could be eliminated? I
actually went through the different service categories on the left, and for
the ones that I wanted, I just clicked on the small gray box, and once I got
the green dotted highlight, I thought that I had maybe added the widget.

Not a big deal. Just a thought.

~~~
pmjoyce
Thanks for the suggestion and sorry the instructions aren't what they should
be. We'll address both.

------
kylebragger
This is really slick & feels especially solid, especially given that it's an
MVP.

I'd love to see Clicky integration.

Also, thoughts on pricing? Flat rate, per widget, other?

~~~
kylebragger
Also, Buffalo didn't happen to design it, did they?

~~~
pmjoyce
That's 2nd vote for Clicky.

Yes, Jason from Buffalo designed it (I've credited him elsewhere in this
thread). He totally got it and did an amazing job IMO.

------
tansey
5 second review:

I visited the site, read the headline (good job there), and then clicked the
thumbnails to see larger images of the status board. It is very confusing that
some of the images are snapshots of panels with an X in the upper right hand
corner, but you have to click off the picture for it to close. Maybe make it
so any click closes the picture?

~~~
pmjoyce
Yes, that's annoying. I glossed over this in testing but I'll make sure it's
seen to.

------
HyprMusic
I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I knew what you were doing with my Pingdom
password (e.g. securely storing it), and if you used an input type="password"
when entering it.

Also, I'd would be cool if I could choose to show only stats from Gmail with a
certain label. That way I could show stats about unanswered ticket/support
emails.

~~~
pmjoyce
I totally understand and appreciate your concerns and I hope to re-assure you
that your authentication details are being stored encrypted as per industry
standards.

User privacy and security is of utmost importance to us, without trust we're
dead in the water. Where there are options to use OAuth we only use OAuth, and
for each API we aim to use the strongest possible storage solution.

We don't allow you to change connection details for an account meaning that if
someone gained access to your dashboard they would not be able to see your
connection details.

We can certainly change the input box to a password type to reduce the risk
from over-lookers. We'll put it in the next drop.

Please let me know if you would like to discuss any of this in more detail.

------
Plugawy
Any reason why I can't sign up with my real name (which contains non-ascii
characters)?

Come on! It's XXI century.

~~~
pmjoyce
No reason other than an unacceptable bug. I'll make sure we fix this and
please accept my apologies.

------
AmberShah
I really like this idea and the look and feel/usability of the app. I like it
so much that it would be homepage if it had the metrics I needed, but it
doesn't have them right now.

Here are the stats I want to see: 1) MailChimp - it only has campaigns. Right
now I am more interested in seeing the number of people on a certain list 2)
FeedBurner for my blog's RSS feed 3) Karma for various sites where I am active
(like <http://duckduckgo.com/karma.html>) 4) For twitter, I want to see number
of tweets, replies, etc, not rotating tweets 5) Bit.ly (not sure if the API
lets you do that though) 6) UserVoice

------
paolomaffei
Care to list which APIs you integrate with? Just to decide if I want to check
it or not

~~~
pmjoyce
Sure, this ias the list as it stands today. More APIs are being developed as I
speak.

    
    
      Basecamp	Project Management
      ChartBeat	Web Analytics
      Clock
      Email	 
      Get Satisfaction	Customer Service
      Google Analytics	Web Analytics
      Highrise	CRM
      MailChimp	Email Marketing
      Pingdom	Server Monitoring
      Prefinery	Beta Management
      Text	Custom Alerts and Messages
      Twitter	Social Media
      Zendesk	Customer Service
    

Edited for formatting. Edit 2. Removed Calendar from the list, it's not quite
ready yet.

~~~
Plugawy
Any chance for adding own data through REST api?

I'd be nice to see output of my custom monitoring daemon sent as JSON to your
service and displayed in the Dashboard.

~~~
pmjoyce
This is a big thing for us and something that will definitely be included.
We're working on a design for that at the moment and I hope it won't be too
long before we can include it.

------
revorad
This is beautiful. I've just played with it for a few minutes. Only comment so
far is have defaults wherever you can, instead of asking the user to fill in a
value. For example, "label" for the email widget can be "email" as default
instead of blank, so that it doesn't fail when i just want to add it quickly.
I can always edit to relabel it. In a similar way, you could probably reduce
the number of clicks it takes to add a widget.

Fantastic idea and pretty good execution so far. All the best!

------
il
This would be absolutely huge if you integrated with other affiliate
networks(especially Linktrust and DirectTrack API). I know a lot of affiliates
who would pay good money to have all of their stats in one place. Your major
competitor would be statsjunky.com, which is an expensive desktop based crap
tool.

------
alttab
Do you install this in the local network and tie into the Apps people use, or
do you run this as a cloud service?

~~~
pmjoyce
It's a cloud service at the moment. I have no philosophical objection to it
being self-hosted and it could be something we look to in the future but no
plans yet.

We're working on a design for a reverse API to allow users to plug in their
custom data.

------
nudge
This looks fantastic, congratulations!

You might want to remove this weirdness at the bottom of the front page:
"Start GOOGLE ANALYTICS<\--> End GOOGLE ANALYTICS<\--> Start CHARTBEAT<\-->
End CHARTBEAT<\--> Start ZENDESK<\--> SupportEnd ZENDESK<\-->"

~~~
pmjoyce
Thank you. I figured if it was something that you were going to look at
throughout the day or even put it on a large screen in the office (as one of
out testers is doing) then it has to look decent.

It was actually designed by Jason Reynolds at a company called Buffalo based
in Brighton, UK (<http://builtbybuffalo.com/>). I've used them before and was
really happy with the result.

Thanks for spotting the "Start End" weirdness, will fix it.

------
grigory
Fantastic app! UI is particularly well done, great job.

Small number of currently present APIs definitely is a let down, but I suppose
that will change soon?

I would love to have ability to create multiple "pages", for monitoring
different projects - so that their widgets don't overlap.

~~~
pmjoyce
Yes - we're ramping up the number of APIs, this was just the bare minimum
required to get it out there and hear what people needed.

And thanks for the multiple pages suggestion. Certainly something we'll look
into!

------
pjmurray
I am not sure if it is possible (as my programming experience is very limited)
but an API for this so, rather than continually having to provide support for
other services, you outsource the development to the community!

------
iaskwhy
I wanted to work on something similar so I'm very curious about the pricing of
this app. If it's not what I expect I might consider trying to work on it with
a different approach so it wouldn't be just a copy. :)

~~~
pmjoyce
Pricing is still to be finalised. It will come from a conversation with our
users. I want it to be reasonable and affordable.

------
agaton
Wonderful! This is EXACTLY what I requested in a HN post here just a month
ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1441770>

~~~
pmjoyce
Glad to hear it. Although I have no idea how I missed your original post,
sometimes I feel like I spend all of my time on this board!

~~~
agaton
as a little request, it would be awesome if you could connect to
salesforce.com in some way, so we could have a widget with sales numbers

~~~
barmstrong
Yep - I would anticipate this sort of "leaderboard" to be a big use case.

------
jergason
Some weird behavior when I open a new browser and try to go to
<my_account_name>.geckoboard.com. It would be nice if that went to a login
page and then took me to my account.

~~~
pmjoyce
Spot on. We want you to be able to log in from here as you expected. This
functionality is included in the current sprint.

------
jarin
That is awesome, both because it looks great and also because I was going to
build something similar and now I don't have to!

If you could add Clicky and Recurly support I would be your best friend.

~~~
pmjoyce
Thanks! I'll add Clicky & Recurly to our feature request forum. We don't have
any finance APIs integrated yet, this is certainly something we're looking to
address.

------
mcdowall
Great Work, we created our own custom Status Board a few weeks ago but this
definitely rocks. Will be using this in the near future on other projects for
sure! Great work.

------
pjmurray
Well done on launching! find the bootstrap/outsource combo very interesting -
surely this is somewhat of a oxymoron What's your background if you don't mind
me asking?

~~~
pmjoyce
No problem, I'm more than happy to share :)

It is sort of an oxymoron but it I've managed to get it working for me. My day
job is as an ETL developer specialising in building data warehouses (usually
Oracle) for the purposes of MI. I run my own company and contract for large
multinationals mainly in the financial sector in the City of London and
usually on 6 month contracts. I don't get a lot out of the job except the cash
so I've always developed other things on the side

I started building apps that scratch my own itches about 6 years ago.
Sometimes I'd develop myself and sometimes using external help sometime a
combination of both. I don't spend a lot on luxuries and so the income I make
in my day job has allowed me to roll the dice with a few larger ideas in the
past but nothing really took off.

As soon as the light went on about this idea I wanted to do it right and put
aside a certain amount of money to get it where it is today - I know enough to
make me dangerous but wanted a proper job done so outside help was essential
and I had built up a certain amount of cash since my last project. I don't
have limitless resources but by my calculations I have enough to continue the
push until it starts making money with some contingency, development continues
full speed.

Let me know if you would like to know any more.

~~~
pjmurray
What was your motivation for getting it done right from the start, rather than
bootstrapping it yourself first for proof of concept/profitability? time
constraints?

Obviously you have made some assumptions as to how long profitability will
take - something I presume only comes with experience.

Not to over step my mark, but what magnitude of savings is needed to fund this
sort of development? I ask this as I have recently started work on my own
project, and am curious if my savings are even ballpark to consider
outsourcing it.

------
ApolloRising
Anyone have a metricly.com invite code that was mentioned in some of the posts
below? Would like to compare to the dashboards mentioned here.

------
mgornick
Wow, great work on the MVP. I'd like to see PivotalTracker and Chargify added
to the widgets down the line. Overall amazing job.

~~~
pmjoyce
Thanks! I'll add both of those to the feature requests forum. We're actually
using PT for Geckoboard development so it would be useful for me too!

------
pclark
What did you make the UI in? looks really nice.

I find the text really hard to read when configuring a widget.

Also, uservoice support :)

~~~
mkuhn
Wanted to complement you on the design as well, looks really nice! Just one
issue, the background is flickering on my Laptop's screen (Lenovo T510i). No
of to explore your solution some more.

~~~
pmjoyce
Thanks, although full credit for the design has to go to the designer Jason
from <http://builtbybuffalo.com/>

We'll look into the flickering, could be to do with the repeating background
image.

~~~
charliepark
Just wanted to let you know that I'm getting a flickering on my laptop as
well, a MacBook Pro, using Firefox 3.6.6.

------
gutini
Do you mind sharing who you outsourced development to and how you went about
finding a developer?

------
ApolloRising
Your los angeles time conversion in your clock widget is incorrect, it is one
hour behind.

Fantastic idea and UI

~~~
pmjoyce
We're working on daylight savings support right now, should be there soon.

Thanks!

~~~
ApolloRising
No problem was just trying to help. I really like it and I hope you add on
more key google analytics indicators like conversion rate, number of sales,
etc.

~~~
pmjoyce
Cool - thanks for the feedback! Feel free to drop me a mail (email in profile)
or add something to out feature request forum at
<http://geckoboard.zendesk.com/forums/176685-feature-requests> if there's
something you would like to see.

------
kristofferR
Great work!

I would probably start using when Aweber, ActiveCollab, Feedburner and
HyperTracker are supported.

------
atlbeer
Bug note: The "What is this?" button doesn't work

Mac OS X: 10.6.4 Chrome: 5.0.375.99

No errors in Javascript console, sorry

------
rmason
Did you decide to limit signups by making the buttons invisible in Internet
Explorer?

------
jeb
Really nice. Needs plugins, so my specific business needs can also be aded.

~~~
pmjoyce
Looking forward to hearing what you need so that it works for your business.
We have a fairly lively feature request room over at our help and support
forum (<http://geckoboard.zendesk.com/forums/176685-feature-requests>) or feel
free to shoot me a mail (see profile).

------
dchs
This is way too pretty to be a minimum viable product - great work!

------
oziumjinx
Reminds me a bit of metricly.com.

Any plans to include Google AdSense stats?

------
zaph0d
Amazing app. Need more plugins/custom APIs.

------
denisu
looks cool so far. one little bug: mail adresses with a + are dedected as
invalid, they are not.

~~~
pmjoyce
Thanks, I'll make sure this is addressed.

------
jwinter
I'd like to see GitHub integration.

~~~
pmjoyce
Me too, we're hoping to get this in soon

------
LaPingvino
rss support like the twitter-ticker would be nice as a basic need for a system
like this...

------
djb_hackernews
looks great. What was the inspiration?

~~~
pmjoyce
Discussions here about status boards and, of course, Panic's internal status
board.

------
unwantedLetters
I know this isn't going to concern you TOO much, but I thought I'll add my
comment anyway.

I'm on a Fedora X86_64 box running Firefox 3.0.11 (with no flash, but I don't
think your site needs it anyway), and whenever I click the "Add a Widget"
button, I get an error.

I provided the browser/OS details to help narrow the problem.

The screenshots make it look like it'll be a great app. Congrats on getting it
out there.

~~~
pmjoyce
I'm pretty concerned about this and would love to dig into it a bit more.
Could you mail me paul at geckoboard.com with the error message and/or any
other details and I'll look into it straight away? You're right - you don't
need Flash.

~~~
unwantedLetters
Email sent.

Cryptic Subject: Error details.

(So check your spam)

------
tkahn6
This is awesome! I will definitely be using this.

