

Ask HN: Review my startup - Lean Designs Website Builder - matt1
http://www.leandesigns.com

======
jasonkester
I tried to click past the signup form so that I could try it out, but it gave
me this:

    
    
      10 errors prohibited this user from being saved
      
      There were problems with the following fields:
      
      Password can't be blank
      Password is too short (minimum is 6 characters)
      Password is too short (minimum is 6 characters)
      Password confirmation can't be blank
      Login can't be blank
      Login is too short (minimum is 3 characters)
      Login use only letters, numbers, and .-_@ please.
      Email can't be blank
      Email is too short (minimum is 6 characters)
      Email should look like an email address.
    

Or, translated:

    
    
      These 10 arbitrary barriers just cost us a potential customer.
    
    

You guys offer a Free plan, fer cryin' out loud. _Let us try your thing
without filling in a form_. It looks like a cool product, but it's 2011 and
people stumbling in off the Internet have zero attention span and zero
tolerance for hassle. If I can't get to a working demo with a single click
from your homepage, I'm gone.

And so is a hefty fraction of your potential userbase.

~~~
matt1
Thanks -- a demo of the export tool is definitely something I'd like to
implement, but doing so would have postponed the launch by a week or two. I
made the decision to launch without it and that's that.

Appreciate the feedback as it helps me prioritize what to work on next.

~~~
dpcan
You have to think about whether this person would ever actually become a
customer of yours.

From my experience, you could spend the next couple weeks building a perfect
sandbox for people who will NEVER buy your service, or you can leave the login
restrictions in place, and the people who may actually become customers will
certainly take a few minutes to get in there.

If they don't have the time to create a simple login, they may become real
support nightmares anyway.

\- They won't take the time to read instructions.

\- They will think they can do things they can't and the service doesn't even
provide.

\- They are the people who expect EVERYTHING for free including your help.

Don't just jump on this. Remember, you are in charge. You know the service you
are providing. This person already complained about something FREE, how much
more of that do you really want to deal with?

~~~
jasonkester
For the record, this person makes his living selling a few services in the
same space as the original poster, and has been in the exact same position of
having launched a product and watched tons of potential users bounce away
because the "try it now" button asked for a single username and password.

I also run a service that gets 100% of its business as a result of people
converting from free trials to paid users, and the biggest lesson I've learned
from that site is that the more people you can put into the top of the funnel,
the more come out the bottom. It's not a matter of getting more trial signups
at the expense of a worse conversion rate. It's a matter of the conversion
rate staying constant and income going up in direct proportion to how much
friction you can remove from the signup process.

~~~
dpcan
:) I didn't mean to offend you, so sorry. Your services appear to be SaaS, but
I don't see much in terms of a design tool in your list.

My company needs a tool like what he's providing, and I had absolutely no
trouble with his sign-up process.

~~~
matt1
Hey, can you shoot me an email? I'd like to ask you a few more questions off-
thread.

matt@leandesigns.com

------
atacrawl
Don't be afraid to charge people money for your service! Your free plan is way
too generous. Personally, I would replace the free plan with a working demo,
so people can kick the tires. But definitely lower the free plan to one
design.

I think you need to address the line that says "Requires an HTML5 compliant
browser." For one, it's not clear enough whether you mean the _builder_ needs
HTML5 or the _output_ requires it. In any event, I think you should frame it
by telling the user which browsers will work -- those are terms they'll better
be able to understand, especially considering you're aiming for the market of
people who don't know what they're doing online.

Anyway, there's my two cents. Good luck.

~~~
dpcan
I completely agree. With a service like this, I think someone would know
instantly whether or not they were going to use this service in the future,
and having the option to do 3 designs just delays the inevitable - that they
will pay. BUT, having 3 designs also gives people time to forget about the
service.

In my opinion, instead of $19.95 per month, I would rather buy design "packs".

\- $19 for 10 designs

\- $49 for 100 designs

\- $99 for 300 designs

\- $499 for 100,000 designs (you're good to go plan)

~~~
matt1
I'd venture to say that for most people 10 designs is more than they'll ever
use. You could pay $19 once and use the service forever (because you can just
delete your old designs if you ever hit the limit). At least that was my
reasoning for choosing a SaaS model, which I admit has flaws too.

One idea that someone mentioned was to buy usage time.

You pay $19 and get access to the tool for a month. Or you pay $99 and get
access for a year.

That way if you only use it periodically you're not locked into a recurring
plan. It's ghetto SaaS, but a few folks said they'd prefer it.

~~~
dpcan
It's just got to be dead simple.

The reason I keep commenting is because I want to be your customer. This tool
is exactly something I would need throughout the year.

For example. Today. Our company just received approval back on a graphic
design for a new site that has a homepage and an inner page format which are
different.

Now, we have to turn it into a CSS/HTML layout that we can plug into a
WordPress theme.

I want to use this tool right now, but I don't want to commit to $20 per month
AND I don't think I want to pay $20 just for the 1 design AND I was frustrated
with the fact that I couldn't get those blocks to line-up side by side which
will be required for this particular design.

You see, when a design is created and approved, this tool MUST be able to work
with that design. I don't see many instances where I will use a layout editor
then try to squeeze a design into it and hope the client approves.

------
matt1
Hey guys -- I'd love to get your feedback on Lean Designs, a new web design
tool for web developers.

Some of you might be familiar with jMockups [1], a high fidelity mockup tool
that was the precursor to Lean Designs. The overwhelming feedback that I
received was that people wanted the ability to export their mockups to
HTML/CSS. Lean Designs is the result. For additional details, check out the
Lean Designs blog [2].

Thank you all for your feedback along the way; the app wouldn't be what it is
without your direction.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829657>

[2] [http://blog.leandesigns.com/2011/04/introducing-the-lean-
des...](http://blog.leandesigns.com/2011/04/introducing-the-lean-designs-
website-builder/)

------
random42
Do a demo video showcasing the application, so that users can get idea whether
the product meets their requirements.

Compelling offering otherwise.

------
splatcollision
You should show the interface of the editor on the marketing pages somewhere.
Also, the "view the source" links don't work for me in Safari Mac.

~~~
matt1
You can see the editor a bit on the homepage, but yeah, it's hard to see. I'll
probably add a "Tour" section at some point, where I'll definitely include
more detailed screenshots.

Re: view the source -- got it. It's a shame that Safari doesn't support it; I
removed it for now and will look at alternatives later. Thanks again.

------
mgkimsal
Not sure if I'd given my feedback on jmockups earlier, but this is the sort of
thing I was wanting jmockups to be.

Monthly pricing - I don't know how often I go through periods where I need to
design sites, so paying $240/year for the few times I'd need this is a little
on the steep side, but I understand others might want/need more.

The core system looks nice - congrats.

EDIT: couple of thoughts:

change "examples" to "templates", then have an 'examples' link later with
examples that people have built using the tool.

lastly, I'm slightly confused by the diff between a 'layout' and a 'mockup'
(and then I also have 'designs' that I did). This is still confusing to me.

~~~
matt1
Howdy -- pricing this is an area that I need help with so thank you for your
input.

Examples to templates. Great idea -- done.

Layout vs mockup vs designs: probably not as clear as it should be; agreed.
Layouts are high level (regions and text only) and you can export them;
mockups are detailed and you can't export them. Designs are mockups and
layouts. I'll work on the copy :)

------
cjkundin
Does the builder require a HTML5 browser or does it output HTML/CSS that
requires a HTML5 browser? I'm guessing the former, but that wasn't clear to me
from the homepage and I'm not sure you want more text there to
describe/confuse the user... Actually, I might even leave that off. Your
number one goal is to get them to click the button. The more committed they
are, the more they'll stick with it and maybe download chrome just to use your
product.

~~~
Maro
You should explicitly list which browsers your app works on. I use FF4, is it
HTML5 compliant? I don't know.

------
jefflinwood
Hi,

You've obviously put a lot of work into this, but what's the advantage of
using your lean designs web site builder over Boks (a free Adobe Air App grid
builder) for Blueprint CSS?

Also I like that you've left your jMockups code in as the high-fidelity mock-
up builder, but it might confuse new users who aren't familiar with the
history behind jMockups.

Hope this helps!

~~~
matt1
Hey -- I agree that the whole jMockups & Lean Designs app in one is confusing.
Without spinning Lean Designs off into its own app, supporting the high
fidelity mockups (though not marketing it) seemed like the best option for
now.

I haven't tried out Boks, but it may be a viable alternative to this. Long
term you'll be able to design an entire site with Lean Designs, which I don't
think any other tool does well right now. On that note, are there any features
that Boks doesn't support that you'd like to see with Lean Designs?

~~~
jefflinwood
Boks gets you to the same point as Lean Designs - a grid-based layout you can
customize. I run into problems taking the layout from Boks and making it not
look flat - rounding corners, adding shading, using good fonts, picking colors
that go well together - all the little tricks that make a well-designed page
look good.

What if you integrated with Adobe Kuler or a similar color-picking tool to
generate a CSS file?

~~~
mgkimsal
FWIW, Boks doesn't seem to come with any templates at all - I think that's a
real value-add with leandesigns.

------
Sakes
I like it a lot. I am working on something similar, but you definitely have a
better distribution plan than I have. Good luck to ya!

------
vinautomatic
Matt looks good I just signed up - I'll have time to tinker around with it
this week. Very promising. I'm very interested in these tools and your
competition (psd2cssonline.com, divine, etc.) in this field. I just moved away
from Boston to Florida after 25 years but I'll be up there frequently and
maybe we can catch coffee and chat.

------
bgriggs1
Have an actual designer take an hour and spruce up your design. If your target
audience is designers light on coding (and likely high on aesthetics) a
quality design will go a long way in getting them to stick around.

------
BasDirks
I like your idea, but be "warned" :D -> I'm building something like this for
free. (And there are many others who are getting into these kind of website
apps). Sent you an e-mail.

~~~
matt1
I'm not too worried - we'll see in 10 years who still exists :)

~~~
BasDirks
I sure hope you will, it's a great concept.

------
aksbhat
I tried it and found it really useful.

It is especially useful for people like me who aren't very well versed in CSS.
I guess you should market it as WYSIWYG CSS template builder.

~~~
matt1
Thanks, glad you found it useful.

The tool as it exists now is a template/layout builder, but long term the goal
is to export complete and styled websites. A kind of automated PSD2HTML
service that doesn't suck. Marketing it now as a website builder vs a WYSIWYG
CSS template builder serves that end.

------
sklivvz1971
I am confused: is it a mock up tool? I don't see any design in the examples,
just mockups. You should make more clear what is it that you are offering.

------
MatthewB
Good idea in theory but I won't sign up to try it out for the first time. You
should give a sandbox to play with but to export make a user sign up.

------
saturdayplace
I've had this EXACT idea brewing in my head for a while. As fodder for the
eternal debate: execution matters. Time to get off my sorry tail.

------
volandovengo
Nice job! This will make building sits a lot faster :). I would love a demo
video on the homepage rather than needing to try it out myself.

------
bhousel
Wow, that's a very good idea.

If anything, I think you might be able to charge more. I think 3 free
designs/month is very generous.

~~~
matt1
Thanks -- I've received a lot of conflicting advice for how to price the app
and honestly I'm not sure what direction to go so I'm leaving it as is for
now. Might change it down the road (grandfathering in existing users)
depending on the feedback. Thoughts?

PS: It's a three design limit period (not per month).

~~~
dave84
The wording on the Sign Up & Pricing also lead me to believe that it's 3
designs a month for free.

How about pay as you go pricing? I'm not going to pay monthly if I only need
it every now and then, but I'd happily pay $15 per design on a non-recurring
basis.

------
frankdenbow
Nice job. More templates and integrate some color scheme templates and you've
got a winner.

------
edw519
_It appears that your browser does not support LeanDesigns._

Wow, one of the few "Review my startup" posts for something I'd actually use,
and I hit a roadblock on the first click.

I understand that you want to use the latest and greatest technology, and do
you part to drag the rest of us kicking and screaming into the 21st century,
but does mounting a roadblock in front of legitimate prospects really serve
your best interests? Is HTML5 a "must have" or a "would be nice"?

I on a work desktop right now, so I'll have to wait until I'm on my own later
to try this out...if I remember. Sigh.

~~~
matt1
Hey Ed -- what browser are you using? Most modern browsers with the exception
of IE8 should work; if not there's something wrong on my end. The majority of
my market uses an HTML5 compliant browser, so it hasn't been a major issue in
the past.

I would love to get your thoughts though. If you don't remember, you can
expect an email from me later today :)

~~~
jasonkester
Why not simply support IE8? It's not any harder than, say, supporting FireFox.

Cross browser stuff is really really easy now that you don't have to worry
about IE6 anymore. Give it a shot.

~~~
matt1
Yes, it is harder than supporting Firefox.

Lean Designs makes _heavy_ use of the canvas element and it would be
impossible to implement on a browser like IE8 that doesn't support it. There
are libraries like excanvas which help, but they're very limited (no
toDataURL() and the like).

In order to support IE8 I'd have to severely limit what the app can do. Since
this isn't an issue for 95%+ of the people visiting the site, it doesn't make
sense to support it.

------
boundlessdreamz
Will you be adding more css frameworks like blueprint ?

~~~
matt1
Maybe; depends on the demand.

