
Show HN: Strongarm – An Incident Response Platform - stephendicato
http://strongarm.io
======
kevin
I felt like it took me too long to figure out what exactly this is and who is
the ideal audience this is for. pg writes about matter of fact answers here
really well:

[http://www.ycombinator.com/howtoapply/#matteroffact](http://www.ycombinator.com/howtoapply/#matteroffact)

    
    
      “One test of whether you’re explaining your idea effectively 
      is to ask how close the reader is to reproducing it. After 
      reading that sentence I’m no closer than I was before, so its 
      content is effectively zero.”
    

One thing I personally try to find when I go to a site’s page is the one
sentence I could easily memorize and repeat to someone else and feel like the
most interesting person at the dinner table. That sentence is usually the
foundation for any word of mouth growth.

When I read the three paragraphs you’ve laid out for me, the STRONGARM all-
caps branding on jargon is overwhelming. So intense. It’s like you’re…strong-
arming me with your brand. Sorry.

I did find it weird that your homepage sign up form is basically a way to
prefill out the real sign up form.

This—>

[http://cl.ly/image/0K411O3Z3E3K](http://cl.ly/image/0K411O3Z3E3K)

Goes to this->

[http://cl.ly/image/2z2Q0t2S0F1A](http://cl.ly/image/2z2Q0t2S0F1A)

Did it create the account between steps or did you think asking for a third
thing on the page was going to be the actual dealbreaker for conversion? I
just can’t follow the logic. Just let me in! There’s not enough stuff on the
site information-wise and I finally say, “Okay, sure…I’ll give this a try.”
And then you make me jump through more hoops…like this:

[http://cl.ly/image/1z3R0m1E0E1j](http://cl.ly/image/1z3R0m1E0E1j)

And then you give me more text to read:

[http://cl.ly/image/3b3P451p1I3k](http://cl.ly/image/3b3P451p1I3k)

And then FINALLY…I see how this works:

[http://cl.ly/image/1J2p0o0s2H0o](http://cl.ly/image/1J2p0o0s2H0o)

It’s the first time I understand that this uses DNS to do its magic. When I go
back to your homepage, I see that you did mention DNS once, but it’s lost in
all that text and jargon that I skipped.

[http://cl.ly/image/2n0d3A1a0M1o](http://cl.ly/image/2n0d3A1a0M1o)

For your setup instructions…just show me the text. Don’t make me click to
expand them. As I read through it, I realized that the first step is just
getting my DNS setup. If that’s the case, make that easy to find…hell, maybe
you don’t need me to create an account at first. Can you protect me now and
have me claim it later for notifications and dashboard access?

More importantly, show me this stuff way earlier:

[http://cl.ly/image/40090t07442k](http://cl.ly/image/40090t07442k)

That stuff is the meat of what you ACTUALLY offer to me. Don’t make me go
through all that above just to get to here. I only made it because I’m
reviewing this on purpose.

Here’s a quick suggestion: on your site go through an example or two of
threats Strongarm protects against. A How it Works page would be great.
Considering your audience, they’re going to want to know the basic mechanics
before they start routing traffic through there. The content you have on your
site isn’t enough to make anyone feel confident doing what you want. To make
them feel confident, show them the future explicitly.

~~~
stephendicato
Thank you very much for taking the time to register and give us this feedback.
It's invaluable to us, especially at this stage.

Regarding the homepage sign up form and registration process, our intent was
to lower the barriers of entry. I think we went too far technically and missed
the mark explaining our value and how we achieve it.

We will focus on getting the "how" and "why" upfront. We integrate with your
DNS. We provide easy, automated threat intelligence directly and through
partnerships. We protect you and your data.

Do you have any advice on testing different markets?

Enterprises generally are the ones that know they need to care about security,
but also tend to be most resistant to change. Home users might not care, at
least not enough to change their network settings, or they may not know how. I
suspect our ideal customer is somewhere in the middle, but how do we start to
test this?

We are struggling with getting users to our landing page. Do you have
recommendations on how to help with that?

Again, thank you for taking the time to help.

~~~
kevin
Start by talking to your potential users directly and manually going through
it with them side by side. You'll learn from what it takes to do it in person
and hopefully you'll incorporate that into the site through that process.

My bet is that this is going to be the kind of thing that will tend to grow by
outbound processes faster than through inbound DIY signups.

~~~
stephendicato
That fits with our plans. Thanks again for the feedback!

------
stephendicato
I'm a co-founder at Percipient Networks and we are extremely excited to get
feedback from HN!

I wrote a short post about the vision for STRONGARM on our blog. It should
give a little more context.

[https://percipientnetworks.com/blog/strongarm-incident-
respo...](https://percipientnetworks.com/blog/strongarm-incident-response-
platform)

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. Thanks!

