

Show HN: Stratos CMMS, web-based maintenance management software - phugoid
https://stratossystems.com/

======
phugoid
This is my solo founder startup.

It's a maintenance management system for people who maintain equipment,
facilities, or installations (from golf courses to oil rigs to buildings). All
these people need to schedule maintenance tasks, track repairs and
modifications, and keep an inventory of parts. My system is simple, and easier
to use than anything else out there.

I'm looking for any feedback at all, about the design, the idea, the execution
so far.

I'm struggling to get my first customers, which is unexpectedly difficult. I
know that it was a mistake to go this far without lining up a decent number of
potential customers. I've had some feedback and done one big pivot and a few
iterations; maintenance people who have seen it really like it; but that's not
enough to get the snowball rolling yet.

I've been focused on web marketing, particularly with Adwords. I'm quite
shocked and dismayed that it's costing me 4$ a click to drive traffic to the
site; I have to find another way. My focus right now is on improving organic
search ranking; once I make some improvements there I plan to start cold
calling...

~~~
ahmadss
a few thoughts for you:

1 - based on the tagline, the picture of the guy managing a server, and the 4
features you highlight, it's still really unclear what your software does, who
the target audience is, and what problem your software solves.

2 - your HN comment above does a better job of describing what you do but it's
not communicated on your site. the sentence about "all these people need
to..." is what your homepage should address head-on, instead of the various
technical tag lines you have on the homepage right now

3 - re: struggling to get the first customer - just wondering how you came up
w this idea and how you've iterated thus far if you don't have customers or
users. when you say maintenance people really like it... what does that mean?

4 - re: maintenance people - are you talking to the individual maintenance
man, the guy that is actually in the field doing the HVAC repairs, or are you
talking to the operations manager that sends out work orders? i hope you're
talking to the operations manager/facilities manager and not the blue collar
worker, since the former is your customer and the person who is going to give
you money.

5 - as for adwords - if you are bidding on the super generic term "CMMS", that
would explain why you are getting a $4 bid rate. but, i also suspect that your
"quality score" is fairly low and that also plays a huge role on your avg cpc.

6 - if i were you, i'd focus on on-page factors first, especially better
communicating your value prop to your identified target audience. once you do
that, then go out and find niche forums that facility managers, hvac
professionls, and the like hang out. get in the mix and start conversations
and ask them to use your software. once you have a few people actually using
this thing and they are integrating it into their workflow, you'll have a
better shot of converting these guys into actual paying customers OR pivoting
to something else OR iterating to create better tools.

~~~
phugoid
1\. I agree. I need to improve that. I think I just don't have the distance
from the project anymore to properly articulate it to someone seeing it for
the first time - I'll work on this.

3\. I've built a similar system for a previous employer, where I iterated the
design of the software for seven years! I have a really good grasp of the
domain, and when I saw what else was available in this market I knew I could
build a better product.

Colleagues of mine who work in maintenance love this new system (though
they're not the ones who would purchase it), and I've got one potential
customer (maintenance manager) who really wants to start using it; they're
waiting for corporate approval. But that's limited feedback I admit.

4\. Absolutely agree. Tailoring the message to the managers is something I
need to work on.

5\. I'm targeting more specific things than CMMS: I tried a lot of keyword
phrases and found that half a dozen of them like "Web Maintenance Software"
had decent click through rates of say 2% and higher. I'm absolutely new to
that game...

6\. Thanks for your very down to earth and focused advice. It's unfortunate
that the people I'm targeting don't have a big web presence. I'll keep trying!

