

Rate my startup: Ask My BrainTrust (Business Brainstorming Tool) - Tawheed
http://askmybraintrust.com/c/b

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skmurphy
Who is behind this company? I would expect an "about page" or a blog post that
gives your background and commitment level. You are asking for money and
offering to store confidential information, prospects will want to know more
about you. See

    
    
       http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2007/09/17/startups-should-sign-their-work/
       http://www.plansphere.com/blog/?p=624
    

How do you differentiate from a regular wiki service (e.g. pbwiki,
CentralDesktop, Zoho)?

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Tawheed
Wow -- I can't believe I missed this one.. Sounds like we need one of these:
<http://37signals.com/about>.

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sga
With respect to the visual aspects of the landing page, I quite liked the
initial screen (title, visual slide, etc. look good). As I scroll down, I also
like the concept behind the image vs image check mark for highlighting the
strengths of your offering but I would strongly recommend improving the
images. Nothing wrong with stick figures but I would redo them and make them
more crisp.

~~~
Tawheed
Thanks for the great feedback. The stick figures are definitely something we
want to fix, but it keeps getting de-prioritized on our list ;)

~~~
ErrantX
just a note (as someone mention the images) they appear "broken" position wise
on Chromium (running on Fedora 11).

The second image in each sequence is dropped under the other.

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ErrantX
What kind of market do you see here? What features are offered over using a
private forum?

I have to admit the idea doesn't "turn me on" all that much; but then I can
see the appeal (though I think the pricing is way high).

On the presentation side of things: the sign up page is somewhat confusing
with the cheap plan being placed above the others. I actually missed it for a
second. Also you have several spelling mistakes hanging around.

~~~
Tawheed
We're seeing a couple of markets here, the "business advisory board for the
business owner" market being the most pormising one. It's too early to tell
which ones will pan out.

This really falls into the category of "Forum 2.0" -- except we offer a fully
hosted solution, no pain to set up, and most importantly, a much better user
interface for having meaningful private discussions with the people you trust
the most.

It also introduces the element of consensus building through voting, which
Forums have no concept of today -- making your discussions not only a healthy
debate but also one that is productive and helps reach an informed decision.

~~~
alttab
This would be useful - if it was free.

This feedback is of course just my two cents, but as a serial-entrepreneur I
can't see this being useful after the first month. Otherwise, if a tool like
this can be used for all decisions, its basically an asynchronous net-meeting
with voting, which isn't anything other software (even the new disappointing
Google Wave could do this), but certainly not for $20 a month.

I initial impression is this is something you wanted to build - and thought
that because it was a complete idea that could be followed through on that it
would convert into a good SaaS. A complete idea is necessary, but not
sufficient.

I also think people hit the nail on the head - the privacy issue is huge. If
people have their next super-awesome start up idea, they certainly aren't
going to discuss it on a web application. They would be handing over their
idea to the developers (have you given them a solid reason to trust you?), and
even unintentional exploits/loopholes/bugs could expose the business IP of all
of your users.

The UI/site looks very well put together. The designers definitely have that
department down. But overall it seems like you're trying to sell a solution to
a problem that's either already been solved for free many times over, is not
that big of a problem, or providing only marginal organizational value-add for
your price.

Again, just my 0.02, good work so far!

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ashishk
Interesting idea, although I would personally prefer to use Gmail, as I often
do when asking a handful of friends for advice.

Small bits of advice: I don't love the idea of giving up my card for a free
trial - that seems a bit much. Also I'd recommend FB Connect so that it's
easier to get my friends on board.

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sebg
Your Forum appears to be blank with only one piece of information in it from 5
months ago. I would perhaps seed it with FAQ questions that users have asked,
or take it off for now. The fact that the only post is really old would lead
me to believe that the site isn't improving.

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mishmax
privacy is an issue here (as with any SaaS tool). I guess the developers
behind this tool would have to be part of my brain trust too.

