

Ask HN: Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke - JangoSteve
http://www.leadnuke.com/

======
officemedium
I'd recommend making the design a little more "welcoming". It's very bare and
plain - makes the site look cheap which reflects on the service. I'd also
recommend simplifying the information and features on the home page - try to
really get across what your app does, what it will help us do, and why we
should use it, as quickly and easily as possible.

~~~
JangoSteve
Thank you very much, I definitely agree with trying to simplify the
information and features on the home page.

I actually had a much different design at first, but it seemed too busy and
not clean enough. For the redesign, I went for a much clearer and minimalistic
approach. I suppose it's a matter of taste really, can't please everyone :-)

~~~
aw3c2
Make sure to be careful with fonts. Currently there are many different colors
and fonts. I would try to reduce that. The monospaced typewriter font looks
very bad to me, it has that nervous jitter. Makes it look a bit unprofessional
to me. Warmer colors would help. I wish I was a designer and able to help, but
I can only give this criticism. Take it if it has a use, ignore if you think
it does not!

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jordanf
First thought: your logo looks like an envelope stuffed with excrement.

Also, my eye is drawn the the sad faces on your landing page. Without reading,
it looks like a feature list for your product, not a comparison. It took my
awhile to figure out that I had to click to see the good.

~~~
mos1
Until I read this comment, I didn't notice it was clickable at all. I was just
really confused about the message.

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icey
I think it looks pretty good over all. You might want to put a video demo on
the front page or something. There's a lot going on in your front page; I like
something that succinctly tells me what the product is and why I should be
using it.

~~~
JangoSteve
Thanks, I actually had a demo video, but the quality wasn't that great and it
was with the old design. I was going to go through and remake the video if
there was any interest at all. If there isn't, then I wasn't going to waste my
time.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G75KhTQWyDA>

In the meantime, here is the demo video I had... do you think I should put it
back on the homepage? Would it serve to help sell the app or drive people away
because of the quality?

------
Vindexus
The home page doesn't really tell me what it does. It's all marketing style
corporate speak that I don't really understand.

You should really change your tagline to be more of a description of your
service than a marketing phrase. "Since cold leads don't fit in the microwave"
tells me nothing about your service.

"LeadNuke is the missing link in your existing sales pipeline; it helps you
kick-start the sales process."

That doesn't really tell me anything either.

"LeadNuke is a streamlined process that helps you find, track, and follow-
through with news articles, blog posts, and RSS feeds from your industry,
turning them into meaningful sales leads. LeadNuke helps you generate
qualified leads and initiate a dialog with prospects who actually need your
product or service."

This also doesn't really tell me much.

I looked down your home page further and I'm guessing this is some sort of
email marketing service. You should definitely use the word email in your
descriptions so people know that's what it is.

~~~
JangoSteve
All that marketing style corporate speak is because it's a product aimed at
the marketing people. I agree about the tagline, that was me having a bit of
fun.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Even so, consider simplifying it thusly: _LeadNuke helps you generate
qualified sales leads from online news articles and feeds_

If this is what it really does, it would have explained it to me immediately.

------
jrockway
I read that is Pb-mining. I thought it was a new World of Warcraft-like game.

Incidentally, cold lead fits in the microwave.

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NEPatriot
Here are my $.02. Great idea. Warms leads are very valuable and if you can
help you have a winner. Your voice came out very well.

I am wondering why the videos are hidden on the pricing page? I'm a big
believer in showing the video up front so I can take 2 mins to decide if this
is for me. I'd also recommend a shorter video that highlights how you take an
rss feed and turn it into a lead in order to demonstrate value.

Once I've determine this product could be of value to me, then I might want to
get details about how it works.

------
og1
I also thought the name was referring to the element. One thing I think should
be changed is the section that compares "Traditional Email Marketing" vs. "The
Lead Nuke Way". I don't think most people are going to realize that you click
to view the information for "The LeadNuke Way". And with how the headings are
setup it looks like you are saying your service has Low Conversions, Wasted
Effort, and Risk of Spamming.

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teye
Tell me exactly what your product does in the tagline. Make this sentence
shorter and sweeter and put it center stage.

 _LeadNuke is a streamlined process that helps you find, track, and follow-
through with news articles, blog posts, and RSS feeds from your industry,
turning them into meaningful sales leads._

------
shpxnvz
Sounds interesting, and I was about to sign up for a free account to give it a
whirl until I saw that the basic (and even some paid) accounts have no
security.

I know that some well-known companies get away with this, but to me it says
that you believe security for my personal information is something to be
bartered for. As soon as I have to start wondering under exactly which
circumstances your company is going to try to protect my data, you've lost my
trust.

Of course this is only my personal opinion, but for what it's worth I won't do
business with anyone who treats my security as an option.

~~~
JangoSteve
That's an interesting point of view. I didn't really put much thought into
security, because nothing in this app contains secure information really
(besides perhaps the password to login).

It wasn't so much a matter of your security being an option, but rather a
matter of the intended customer type. For instance, the only information that
could realistically be considered to need security in this app is the specific
leads you generate/contact. However, the only companies I've ever worked for
or with that consider their leads to be top-secret are large corporations.
Hence, the reason the subscription level that includes enhanced security is
the "Corporate" account.

But I can see your side as well.

~~~
shpxnvz
_the only information that could realistically be considered to need security
in this app is the specific leads you generate/contact_

How about payment information? Should I expect an unencrypted form submission
when I hand over my credit card details? My password gets submitted as plain
text and emailed back, will my credit card number be handled the same? From
ten seconds on the landing page, and looking at the insecure signup form, I
can't tell - and that's probably not what you want your potential customers to
be worried about.

I'm not trying to be negative, and from the looks of it I don't think you can
actually provide a credit card anywhere on your site yet so you still have
time to sort it out, but _please_ give some serious thought to basic security
before you start asking people to send you their credit cards.

~~~
JangoSteve
HECK NO! Anyone who allows payment information to be transmitted unencrypted
should be prosecuted and fined at the very least.

That's not really part of the functionality of the service, though, so I was
assuming that wasn't the security you were referring to... the actual payment
method has nothing to do with the level of subscription.

I don't have anywhere for you to enter credit card info at the moment, because
I haven't actually hooked up the merchant account yet. I see no need to spend
$50/mo on something (merchant account for LeadNuke) unless it's pulling in
more than $50/mo (that's the lean mantra at its finest). However, after this
post, it looks like I'll have to get that part operational.

I know you're not trying to be negative, it's certainly a big deal. Web dev
(including security) is what I do for a living, so no worries.

------
JangoSteve
I'm very interested in seeing what everyone's take is on my new webapp, as I
don't think I could ask for any better feedback than from the people here.
It's far from complete in terms of functionality, but it does essentially what
I needed it to do. I'm currently using it for both of my companies, and have a
few friends in the area using it for their companies as well.

I figured I'd throw it out there to get a feel for how useful people think
something like this may be. If it is, in fact, useful to some, then I can
start putting more time/effort into developing it further.

------
bryanh
Cool concept! I like the idea and just signed up. Will definitely give it a
spin and give some deeper insight.

The design is sparse (almost in a good way). If I were you, I'd think of some
ways to tighten up the feel. Rip off some other webapps' design features
(header/footer style). I know this is sort of a "feeling it out" run so carry
on. :-)

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jsm386
It seems that your 2nd to last how it works image ('Turn leads into sales')
implies that you're pulling The Federal Reserve out of a CNN article as an
example of how the app works to generate one type of personalized email. Maybe
you want a more realistic example? I know it's not a big thing, but it just
struck me as a really odd example.

~~~
JangoSteve
I totally agree, and that is one of the first details I'll fix if the app
proves viable for anyone other than myself and friends ;-)

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prodigal_erik
The phrase "(less) risk of spamming" doesn't sit right with me. If I don't
have an ongoing relationship with the recipient, nor do I know for a fact they
have solicited such messages, I am _definitely_ spamming, not merely risking
it. Then again, your target market might not believe they're doing anything
wrong.

------
swombat
I read through most of the first page and I'm still not quite clear what this
app does. Where does it get the leads from? Do you have to generate the leads
yourself? If so, is this basically a CRM tool? (in that case, why call it
something else?)

~~~
JangoSteve
It's more of a plugin for CRM's than a CRM itself... it fits in between the
general market and your existing CRM. I.e. it helps you filter out warm leads
from the general market, so you can initiate contact with them and then funnel
them into your CRM.

It helps you keep track of random leads you come across, and it also imports
leads from any RSS feed that you feed it. This includes Google Alerts, job
posting boards, etc. The idea is that eventually, it will have the ability to
crawl the web on it's own so as not to need a Google Alerts feed.

It also keeps track of how many useful leads come in through each feed, so
that you can decide which feeds to keep and which ones waste your time.

