
Show HN: My side project – Laps – Client, Project and Time management - kristaps1990
http://app.getlaps.com
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computerlab
Nice work, UI feels good. Some thoughts: I think in this space integrations
are key. For example, I would rather use my accounting software (Xero) to
create invoices, so just being able to have an Xero integration that creates
invoices in Xero would be more useful than Laps invoices, for me. Syncing
contacts with Google apps would also be big. I feel like a lot of time
tracking software (for example, Harvest) duplicates the functionality of
accounting software / CMS.

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kristaps1990
Thanks for your comment, yes i am thinking to add some import / export / sync
features, but currently I concentrate on finishing MVP - that means finish
projects and add basic invoicing.

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ashsidhu
Kudos to you buddy on getting it out. There's some hard-work required just to
overcome the resistance to getting up to this point. And it motivates me to
get mine out quicker. Thanks :)

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kristaps1990
Thanks! Yes - it is much harder as it seems @ the start. :) Good luck with
your project!

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rp277
When creating an account, if you use a short password it says 'Field name
should be between 8 and 200 characters'. I thought it was trying to tell me my
first name should be between a certain length at first, but it's the password
field.

Tried to create a project, entered project name and the expected income field,
submitting closed the modal with no errors, but no project appeared.

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kristaps1990
Hi, yes i am aware or not so good UX on validation process. But tell me more
about that project adding failure. Did the project show'd up when you did
browser refresh?

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azdle
I'm seeing the same thing. Doesn't appear after a refresh. The request
actually gets a 500 and a response of {"message": "INTERNAL SERVER ERROR"}.

Request: [http://i.imgur.com/DM10H46.png](http://i.imgur.com/DM10H46.png)

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kristaps1990
Thanks! This helped a lot, haven't seen that while testing. The thing is that
currently you have to create project for contact, if you don't have contact it
won't create project. Will be fixed asap.

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the_wheel
Typos:

"Never lose client! Easily add your client contact info, rates, links and
group them by status." Never lose _a_ client!

"Don't miss an update. Create free account!" Create _a_ free account!

"We want to build best tool possible. Create free account!" We want to build
_the_ best tool possible. Create _a_ free account!

Also, really love the design.

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kristaps1990
Big thanks for this, will update first thing @ morning! Glad you like design!
:)

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nacs
That background image (2000 x 3225px) makes the scrolling really laggy for me.
Please remove it or make it smaller.

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kristaps1990
Thanks, will optimise it.

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kowdermeister
Just one suggestion:

"Useful features coming soon"

this indicates that your service is not really useful at the moment :) I'd
rephrase it to something that points towards your vision. Or just replace
useful with: kickass, amazing, handy.

Do you see this as a competitor for toggl.com?

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kristaps1990
Yea thanks, will change it! You are not the first who is pointing that out.
About toggl.com - it is a well established company. Only way how i can compete
with them is build better things than they. Currently i don't even want to
think about competing, i just want to build something that people use and are
happy with it.

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chridal
Nice colours, logo and name! You should have a look at Toggl. I just love how,
in Toggl, you can start tracking something without creating a project first.

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kristaps1990
Hi, i am glad you like it - thanks! Yes i know toggl. Laps will have
possibility to track time that is not assigned to specific task or project.

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accomplice
Nice work! Honestly the design is fantastic!

I guess you are able to do this in your spare time if you are really good at
managing your spare time eh?

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kristaps1990
Hi! Glad you like it! :) Yes, but this initial stage took more than it should.
The hardest part for me is not finding the time, but staying motivated for
long time.

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bdukic
Nice work!

FYI: CTA button for creating an account under the "Useful features coming
soon" section doesn't seem to be working.

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kristaps1990
Thanks! Fixing that asap.

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bjorntheart
Great work on releasing your app!

I was clicking through your site and the reset password page looks like the
styling went wrong. It looks very different than the login and registration
pages styling. Please see the image.

[http://d.pr/i/17sOY](http://d.pr/i/17sOY)

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kristaps1990
Oh, thanks for showing this, will be fixed asap.

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whatnotests
Hi -

After signing up with Google, I get left on a page that says "Hmm..no
contacts? Lets fix that! Start adding now!"

What is a contact? - is that me? Is the hourly rate something I have agreed to
pay them? Is it what they have agreed to pay me? What if it's not hourly?

Some example there would be great.

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kristaps1990
Hi! This might help
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ug2IwNcKD0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ug2IwNcKD0)
! I did intro video on how i use Laps. I will record new video tomorrow where
i explain how projects work.

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ams6110
Time tracking and to-do lists -- a good sign that nobody has really done it
well is that people keep trying to recreate it. Or maybe it's just an easy
subject for people to use as a project.

This looks nice, but for me nothing beats org-mode in Emacs.

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fiatjaf
I think it is an easy subject for non-imaginative minds.

Not talking about this specific project.

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mosselman
Unpopular opinion it seems, but I agree. Not that it is a bad thing. It would
be fun to see statistics of how many people here have at some point in their
(probably early) career built their own time tracking/project management app.

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kevindeasis
The UI/UX looks slick! What tech stack are you using in the main app for your
front-end/backend? Who's your hosting provider?

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kristaps1990
Hi glad you like it!

React + Redux - frontend, Flask & MongoDB - backend, hosted @ digitalocean

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noir_lord
UX looks very slick.

What sets this apart from the plethora of similar tools?

EDIT: Also crate should be create on the homepage ;)

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kristaps1990
Hi! Thanks! Will fix asap! Let me know if you find something else!

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ianwalter
Looks nice but the parallax is really jerky for me (OS X Chrome).

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kristaps1990
Thanks! Will try to optimise it. If performance won't improve I will remove
it.

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the_wheel
Works great for me (OS X/Chrome). Very nice job all around.

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kristaps1990
Thanks for the info! On my mac works good too. But not looking cool if mouse
has sroll wheel. Will chek how to optimise that.

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palerdot
What stack are you using for backend?

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kristaps1990
Hi! It is Flask (Python) and MongoDB

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vs2
wow very impressive, how did you manage to do this in your spare time?

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hobo_mark
Creating a time management system sort of assumes that the creator is good at
managing time to begin with! ;-)

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mxuribe
Agreed, neat UI/UX!

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Malcx
>>While in beta Laps is FREE.

This suggests in the future you will be charging but as there is no indication
of how much, I can't justify spending any time to see if I like something that
might end up being too costly to integrate into my workflow.

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ttwal
I see this comment a lot on HN. It's a legitimate concern, but I'm curious
about what someone can/should do to alleviate that fear for you. Pricing
is....complicated...and for a side project that's still being developed, OP
may not have had time to think about it yet. Would providing easy export
options help? That way when pricing is announced if it's too high for you, you
can easily jump ship?

Just curious, because I've had the same feedback a number of times on my side
projects and I haven't figured out a good strategy to handle it yet.

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Malcx
I agree it's a tough one, especially on a side project. As time is my most
limited resource I effectively want to say "hey looks cool, come back to me
when it's out of beta and you might have a customer". If I could sign up to a
one time email notification for that, it would suit me fine.

Alternatively have a think about pricing plans and display them as rates for
beta users, guaranteed for the first 12 months or some such.

Exports are always useful, but I'm more concerned with the time spent
integrating a system only to potentially have to find and learn a new one.

Of course, none of these are reasons not to post a Show HN!

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gkr
UI looks nice.

