

Ask HN: Silo, project management for software web app - What do you think?  - ollierattue

I've built a team with perfectly complimentary skills. We're applied for an incubator. We're going LEAN. The marketing website (MVP) is online - http://getsilo.com - we're collecting emails and have two companies onboard for early stage customer development and feedback. We're building a V1. Things feel good.<p>I'm keen to get thoughts and feedback about the website, whether the problem and idea is clear, and get a guage gauge on the demand. Do you share this problem? Are Basecamp and Pivotal tracker letting you down?<p>Many thanks for your time, Ollie Rattue.
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eranation
I think all project management SaaS have let me down so far, Pivotal I think
is much superior, the issue is that all of them are around tasks and
timelines, a project is so much more than that. If I need to put my
documentation elsewhere, and track bugs elsewhere, this is just an overhead
(pivotal as example, I stopped using it for bug tracking and moved to Jira)

As a feedback, I would at least change the bootstrap default colors, it's
starting to look like all startups look the same...

And in my 5 seconds attention, I didn't quite get the main basecamp killer
feature, but I liked the notion of the trees. you got my email...

By the way, would be happy to hear your thoughts on <http://flashissue.com> if
you send newsletters and think it's too painful and takes too long

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ollierattue
That's great to hear that there are others out there who are dissatisfied with
exiting project management tools.

It's interesting that you mentioned Pivotal trackers bad bug tracking support.
One of the major issues I've experienced is that project management tools are
great for new features but don't work so well for handling bugs. Silo is
planned to have three main features 'Fix, Build, Maintain' which all work in
slightly different ways. And your're right if you have to use a second tool
then the benefit of the first is radically diminished.

You're also right in that the 'basecamp killer feature' isn't clear. Why am I
going to switch to Silo? The marketing website needs to work a lot harder to
convey the benefit. It is somewhat abstract at the moment. We need to really
hammer out the product before we can really sell the killer features and
benefits.

As for <http://flashissue.com> \- I love the tagline 'Do you hate creating
newsletters?', it instantly caught my attention and got me listening. However
I couldn't then quickly work out what you were offering. My advice would be to
move the in-app screenshot in place of the generic 'man and help' image which
although catching doesn't tell me anything about Flash Issue. I'd also add
more and clearer explanations to the screenshot as it's still tricky to work
out what the product does.

Thanks for your time.

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duiker101
I am not entirely a sure what i am looking at. Give me a list of defined
features and/or at lest some screenshots. it's hard to evaluate something when
it's only "abstract".

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ollierattue
Completely understandable. You're right, it is very abstract at the moment. My
attempt was to define the problem and map out what a solution should look
like. We are very early stage and work on v1 has only just started. I agree
screenshots and examples need to be added. However I'm wondering features are
best or whether sticking with 'benefits' is a better approach e.g. 10,000 mp3
vs Your whole music collection in your pocket. Thanks.

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marcomassaro
Ollie

Can you explain how this is different than (and why yours may be better)
<http://www.bugherd.com/> <https://sifterapp.com/>

I've seen some others but can't remember them

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ollierattue
Thanks for posting those links. Those two applications are purely bug
trackers. Silo is designed for all stages of software development "Fix, Build,
Maintain". Basecamp and Pivotal tracker treat these three activities in the
same way. Silo functions differently for each and I believe this is the USP.

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sidcool1234
<http://getsilo.com/>

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ollierattue
Thanks, my post didn't link. Thought it auto-linked...

