

Ask HN: Review my startup - www.JetDeck.co - fallingmeat
https://app.jetdeck.co/hn
A CRM for business jet brokers.<p>While the industry may sound glitzy, multi-million dollar aircraft are most often sold with notepads and 30MB of hi-res email attachments. There are no such things as 'cloud data', 'analytics' or 'mobile apps' in the space and any software that is built for business aviation reeks of 1995.<p>JetDeck is a modern contact and inventory management application to fix the low-hanging fruit problems in an aircraft broker's day-to-day operations.
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fallingmeat
A CRM for business jet brokers.

While the industry may sound glitzy, multi-million dollar aircraft are most
often sold with notepads and 30MB of hi-res email attachments. There are no
such things as 'cloud data', 'analytics' or 'mobile apps' in the space and any
software that _is_ built for business aviation reeks of 1995.

JetDeck is a modern contact and inventory management application to fix the
low-hanging fruit problems in an aircraft broker's day-to-day operations.

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ftwinnovations
My immediate advice would be to get rid of that little google ad bar that
looks like a navigation. It's both confusing and sneaky, even if (maybe?) that
was not your intent.

Other than that, I was completely confused as to what I was looking at until I
read your description here in the comments. Sounds like an interesting biz,
though I don't know anything about that to comment one way or another!

~~~
citricsquid
I've never understood the people that put adverts on projects like this.
Adverts work at scale. If you have 100,000 people viewing your website every
day people are willing to pay good money for access to that audience, if that
audience is 100 people the cost of advertising to them is pennies.

If someone puts 100 hours into building something like this it's clear they
intend on it becoming a legitimate business, this means every single person
that visits at initial release is someone that _could_ be a customer or
_could_ help the site reach the goals set out by the creator. Anything that
can potentially jeopardise this (poor functionality, making it look amateur --
adverts) is pointless. Trading potential success for the advert revenue
adsense will bring from a HN post (most posts about the HN traffic bump talk
about ~10k page views, so let's say that generates $10 in revenue with a small
advert bar) is nonsensical. It'd be better to go and pick pennies up from the
street!

There was a person that posted their Youtube channel on reddit a few days ago
and they wanted people to review it and give them pointers. I decided to check
it out, so I clicked to their channel and was made to watch a 30 second pre-
roll advert, I decided that 30 seconds wasn't worth it and closed it. The
channel could have been amazing; I could have been the person that watched
their video and shared it with my network and that could have triggered great
things, but because of very silly short term thinking they lost that.

~~~
fallingmeat
I agree. Since this was mainly a usability test, it's good to know how
horrible an ad bar will be. The message has been loud and clear so far.

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tomburke
I like to colors and the layout. It's simple to navigate and all the data is
very clear and easy to read.

A few minor things...There's no way to edit an action. You'd have to delete
and re-add if you made a typo or forgot the date. To be consistent, you might
want to add a button to the "Delete Spec" link; all the other actions look
like they are buttons.

I was also slightly confused with the ad links, but now that I refresh the
page, it looks like you took them off already.

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Magenta
Usability test failed, because what looks like a main menu is a bar of ads.
That is just going anger anybody who feels they have been fooled into clicking
an ad. I suggest removing it asap. You're going to lose people from your site
before they have even looked around

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leetrout
Have you considered adding a web gallery? I wasn't expecting the full size
image to download when I clicked on it...

That may just be me but I would rather have the original hi-res download be an
option.

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seagreen
Just FYI, the "Welcome Hacker News User" window doesn't work well on my phone
(Android 2.7.3, Cyanogenmod, default browser). It only lets me see the right
half of the text, and I have to scroll over to see the close button. It helped
that I already knew where it was, but if I hadn't been to your non-mobile site
first I might not have found it.

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slake
I'm a bit confused. Is this a seller's screen or a buyers screen or is it the
same for both? Is the "My Deck" basically my inventory? And if I add it in
there is there marketplace sort of screen where I as a buyer (Not that I'm
buying a million dollar jet tomorrow - maybe next week) would go and find
what's available?

~~~
fallingmeat
It's a broker's screen. The middle man. Buyers and sellers would never see
this. However, the buyer _would_ see the spec that is sent (which is not part
of this demo).

The concept demonstrated here is to enter and manage my aircraft for sale and
the contacts associated with it (from a broker's perspective)

~~~
samstave
FallingMeat is a HORRIBLE name for a jet seller....

With that said - you need to put in some example inventory to show both buyers
and sellers what they would really see with a fully populated listing.

Show how after entering all the features of a jet - comparable FEATURE
listings come in and tell the poster the pricess for that inventory (you could
monetize this feature)

Need to make it easier to select MFR such as engine maker... i.e. select an
angine after selecting known manufacturer.

Also - your engine would be FAR more powerful if you preload model configs
from various manufacturers. So, i can ladder through a product list based on
selecting a particular manufacturer.

The key to success here is in doing all the leg work to get the data from all
the suppliers.

Link this info to maintenance records, charge fees for scans to this..

Call it AIRFAX - carfax for airplanes.

Or if you prefer, call it Flightr.com --- a domain you can acquire from me if
interested...

~~~
fallingmeat
Great point on the example data. Although I disabled emails from the HN test
account linked to here, you can get an idea of what the 'purchaser experience'
would be like from the JetDeck homepage (www.jetdeck.co) and clicking the "Try
a Demo Now" button. This is a link to a demo of what the customer actually
sees after a broker has entered the data in the JetDeck portal:
<http://www.jetdeck.co/specs/4425542.php?name=Sam>

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mbreese
You might want to put some limit on what other people can upload... especially
for a demo. I mean, it's been a while since I've seen the Goatse.cx guy...

Edit: offending content has been removed (Sorry that you'd had to deal with
all of that).

~~~
fallingmeat
...likewise

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modo_
So, a super nit-picky thing on the login page is the "Made Simple" text on the
top right. It's styled too similarly to a link. I definitely had the urge to
click it and I'm sure others will

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nyddle
Highlighted text (Close More Deals, Beautiful Aircraft Presentations etc.) is
perceived like links, a different color would be less confusing.

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slashedzero
Just an fyi, you link to app.jetdeck.co, which is a lot more confusing when
you're not first given the information at jetdeck.co.

~~~
fallingmeat
yeah, good point. that was a rookie mistake

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halayli
How are you planning to reach your customers?

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fallingmeat
Great question. There are actually very few customers for this app. I have
worked in this industry (as a broker, for an airframe mfg and now a guidance
avionics mfg) for a few years and know many personally. Enough to build it
'virally'. So short answer: email and assisting the converts to invite others.
Of course, the standard tools apply as well, but it's a very small niche for
sure.

The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is the market data that will be
crowd-sourced, not the size of our user base.

~~~
halayli
Sounds reasonable. I figured you got to be in the industry to pick this niche.
Good luck! :)

