

Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback? - sandeep45

Hello. My name is Sandeep, and I&#x27;m the cofounder of FeatureKicker.  As a developer, I have built many features. Many of them were a waste of everyone&#x27;s time. I built FeatureKicker so we can &quot;make something people want&quot; instead of software that sucks.<p>We&#x27;re applying to YC W2014, and we&#x27;d love your feedback on our application: docs.google.com&#x2F;document&#x2F;d&#x2F;1kv_Rgr4-y9wvrOxwZdTevhW-r-i5pktUBcw6t0ufazY<p>Give it to us straight.  We&#x27;ve got thick skins.<p>-- UPDATE --
CRAP! Looks like we exceeded Google Docs&#x27; max number of concurrent viewers.  Here&#x27;s our application on Tumblr: startupsthehardway.tumblr.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;63091956854&#x2F;featurekickers-yc-w2014-application
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sjtgraham
I'm not sure about the "hacked system" answer, I don't think it demonstrates a
novel insight used to identify something exploitable. It's obvious that pure
graft and time will let you sell a lot of raffle tickets, but would you still
have won if your competitors deployed an equal amount of effort in the same
way? Did you win because of a unique insight that yielded a competitive
advantage, or did you win because your competitors didn't care enough? That's
not clear.

That said, I do think it demonstrates some ability to hustle. Here, what
you're really doing is getting HN to write, or rather optimise your YC
application. You're exploiting the vanity of HN, i.e. everyone wants to look
smart by providing an ingenious comment. You synthesise the best into your
application, and make off like a bandit. That would be a pretty novel hack in
itself. :)

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sandeep45
Thats great feedback. Thank you :)

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sixQuarks
Your competition: "Our strongest competitors are customer apathy and DIY
solutions that are cobbled together."

the fact there are no competitors gives me pause. That's actually not a good
thing.

\--------------- "Assuming we obtain 4500 customers within 5 years, charging
an average of $1000/mo, we expect to earn $54M in annual recurring revenue
from our products and services."

\- this is waaaaay too unrealistic IMO. Any company willing to pay $1k per
month for this would probably just build the feauture themselves, no? I don't
think large companies are your target market. \-----------------------

\- dejamore: I love the video \- dealonaire.com link didn't work

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JRFuentes7
dude, awesome feedback. thanks! Especially re dealonaire.com. We'll fix that
ASAP.

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JRFuentes7
Here's a quick overview of what we do:

Our product helps software teams “make something people want.”

When teams build or improve software, they crave data to inform their
decisions, but calling, emailing, and surveying customers falls short. Product
teams can’t afford to get this wrong given limited and expensive engineering
resources.

With FeatureKicker, a team can quickly add a “call to action” for a new
feature on a website. When a user clicks on the experimental button, our tech
opens a modal window and gets user input on the new feature.

Similarly, teams can get feedback on existing features of their website, so
they can improve their product.

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mrgreenfur
Honestly, I think it's a cool widget! It doesn't sound nearly big enough to
get a 10x return on VC though. How big is the market really? I watched your
intro video and came away a bit underwhelmed: Can't someone just replace this
with an analytics event of "clicked" and extrapolate that only people who want
a feature are clicking on that feature?

Have either of you worked on product teams before? Do you have feedback from
product teams? Usually this isn't a problem of competing features, but usually
of "will people use this" at an entire product or project level. MVP is how
most people I know attack these things.

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JRFuentes7
"Honestly, I think it's a cool widget! It doesn't sound nearly big enough to
get a 10x return on VC though."

I hear ya... we worry about that sometimes. But then I think about what PG
says re "it's our Altair." We gotta start somewhere.

How big is the market? There are 5M product managers in the US, according to
LinkedIn. Assuming 13 PMs per company, there are many, many companies that
should be using this.

I don't think you could or should replace our tech with a click event. I'll
agree that 404 tests are a good start... but they lack qualitative data and a
rules engine. I believe that's an inferior customer experience.

We've interviewed 100+ product teams at this point. We're getting good
feedback -- especially re "getting data on existing features."

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arethuza
I actually think this is a pretty good idea. However, could there be some way
of having these "proposed" features turned off by default and giving users an
option to turn them on? Otherwise, as people have commented, it might cause
frustration as people try to use features that aren't implemented yet.

Could you have a view for end users so you can see all proposed new features?
Sort of crowd-sourced product marketing...

Edit: What about letting end users suggest completely new features this way?
(e.g. allowing them to draw on a screenshot of the page and say "I want a
button here that does XYZ").

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sandeep45
Arethuza: Thanks for your feedback.

We have a rules engine, which can be used to really fine tune when and how the
feature experiments are shown.

For example, you can setup so 1\. feature experiments are only shown to a
customer who has logged in at at least X times. 2\. You can control so they
don't see an experiment after it has been seen once by them. 3\. You could say
that if they have seen 1 feature experiment, then they shouldn't see another 1
for X days. 4\. You could also only show to X percentage of your traffic. 5\.
And many more rules.

I like the idea of being able to crowd source ideas. It would be a great
feature for me to "kick" and see what customers say :)

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arethuza
No problem.

BTW One question that I think anyone considering an investment would ask is:
"Do you use your own product to collect data on features for your product?".
:-)

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sandeep45
Arethuza: Absolutely. I have been "kicking" every feature my co-founder has
brought to me, before I build them. Recently he told me build a feature which
shows a google map, with customer thumbs up displayed by locations for a
feature. Before building this thing, i "kicked" it by putting a mocked maps
image with a button on top saying "enable report". Within days it was clear
that this feature was not a top priority.

Also I use FK to monitor our existing features and ask feedback on them. I
love that now i don't have to write 4 lines of code to monitor 1 line of code.
FeatureKicker's no-change solution to monitor and get feedback on existing
features rocks.

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6thSigma
(I'm not involved with YC, so take this with a grain of salt.)

I think the idea is really cool and I can see how useful it could be for
companies, but do you have evidence that users actually give feedback via your
method?

I'm trying to look at this product from that side of the equation, and I could
see me getting frustrated that clicking "Sign up with Google+" doesn't
actually do that. If you have evidence showing that users are willing to give
feedback, or have some type of insight regarding that, I'd definitely include
it in the application.

Goodluck!

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sandeep45
6thSigma: Thanks for your feedback :). To answer your question, with our beta
customers, we have shown the feedback overlay more than 1K times and have
gotten a 60% feedback rate.

We think this is because we ask the right person, the right question at the
right time. Its the right person, because this person clicked on the feature,
its the right question because the question is about the feature they clicked
on and not their age, gender etc. and its the right time because they are in
the app, just clicked on the feature and at the height of their curiosity when
it comes to that feature.

In regards to frustration, we believe this is a valid theoretical concern, but
in practicality with our 27 beta customers, we haven't yet had anyone
complain.

We think this is because our customers are using this in a "logged-in"
product, leveraging our rules engine to control how often the feature
experiment is shown and to who.

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6thSigma
If I were you, I'd get rid of the "right person, the right question at the
right time" bit in the application and include "we have shown the feedback
overlay more than 1K times and have gotten a 60% feedback rate."

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JRFuentes7
Cool. Can you go a bit deeper and tell us why? As in, why is that more
compelling to you?

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RyanZAG
I'd think it would be because "right person, right time" would be what
everyone else would be saying, while "1K times and have gotten a 60% feedback
rate" are hard numbers with 60% being extremely high for this type of thing.
If you're pitching to someone who understands how high 60% is, it has more
impact than the story.

I think for a general investor or layman, the story would be more compelling
because it lays out why it is high (and that it is high for the industry). YC
would be in the more technical group and would already know this, so just
giving them the 60% is more likely to get their attention.

~~~
sandeep45
Thanks for the explanation. I like how you put it :)

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chrisstanchak
Don't get too hung up on the critical feedback here. It's a good idea and the
application is solid. In my opinion there is a big enough market for this.
Stick to the idea and nail the original premise for the company - saving
developer hours.

One idea would be to make your video a little more natural and less 'cutesy'.
They are trying to get to know the real you.

Good luck! Our company, Loveseat (formerly Bidbash) got an interview for
summer '13 - but, we didn't get in. Met PG and that was fun. We're still doing
it though! Stick with it.

~~~
chrisstanchak
And....I'm the founder of TicketLeap - Eventbrite's biggest competitor in DIY
ticketing. Big platforms have to jump through all kinds of hoops to figure out
which features to build. Your idea makes sense to do user testing on real
users all the time.

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porter
Here's some feedback on the last questions about something surprising you've
found. Instead of putting something any middle schooler could find on google,
you should but a unique insight instead. For example, what features (out of
the many you claimed to have built), have had surprising results? Perhaps this
could be something nobody thought would move the needle, but ended up as a
breakout success. This would provide a much more powerful insight, and also
help justify the product you want to build.

~~~
JRFuentes7
Very good thoughts, porter. We'll consider this more and edit our application.
This is precisely the kind of feedback we're looking for here. :)

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austenallred
You asked me to give it to you straight.

Seems like a cool little widget, but I doubt the market for it would be big
enough to be worth your time. It's a small enough of a problem that most
people won't notice it, and if they do they could easily solve it themselves.
People won't be looking for a solution, and it's not cool enough that people
would share it just because.

As for your questions, your responses are way too long.

~~~
sandeep45
Austenallred: Thanks for giving to me straight.

I think this seems like an "easy" thing to build in-house, but we believe
getting this right will take a ton of time, which companies could put towards
doing what they do best.

Here is what we have: 1\. The rules engine, to track visitors and fine control
who see's feature experiments and how often. 2\. An analytics suite, to
capture all data and show it in a form which is digestible and allows a PM to
take action 3\. Making overlays work cross browser and device. 4\. Solution
which requires absolutely no-code to get feedback on existing features. A gui
where PM's can visually find features on their website, tap on them and
configure them to ask for feedback.

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austenallred
I'm not questioning that it's hard to build as much as I am that people will
go out of their way to get it. But best of luck to you, prove me wrong!

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JRFuentes7
Thanks, austenallred. I'm not sure what you mean by "people will go out of
their way to get it". Can you tell us more? I'd love to address that in our
application.

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bradpineau
Great overall concept. I think it's something my company could use.

One concern I'd have if using this product, is that often the customer says
what they _think_ they want, but don't actually need. So I'd expect there to
be some decent "management" tools for working through all the feedback. Maybe
some sort of internal scoring or feedback system within the company or
something.

~~~
JRFuentes7
Thanks. You're right that it's not just what users say. You have to observe
what they do, too. In the next version of our product, we want to provide a
"confidence score" for a person's feedback, which is based on what we've
observed them doing in the application (e.g., are they a power user? are they
freemium or enterprise user? did they leave yes/no feedback + commentary?).

As for the internal scoring system, we integrate with JIRA so you can send
your data to your existing prod-dev mgmt tools. We hear KANO analysis is
really powerful when it comes to scoring your prod roadmap.

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hkarthik
Congrats Sandeep! I think your application is well written.

One thing I think you guys should consider in your target market is mobile app
developers. Also consider looking at Backend-as-a-service providers like
StackMob/Pars in your market size estimations.

Good luck!

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sandeep45
Karthik: Thanks, buddy. We are still validating our idea, collecting feedback
from beta users and trying to prove to ourselves that this things has legs.
Soon though we'll release a native version of FeatureKicker. Something which
tags elements and gestures. Imagine shaking the phone, and our overlay coming
in to ask, "We think shaking should do X. Is that what you expected?"

What do you mean by "Backend-as-a-service"? Tell me more.

~~~
hkarthik
Sandeep: Sorry little late in seeing these comments. Check out startups like
StormPulse, Parse, and Stackmob to see what I mean about Backend-as-a-service.

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JRFuentes7
Ummm... looks like we maxed out the number of concurrent viewers (max: 50) who
can see the Google Doc. We're going to move the application to our blog.

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JRFuentes7
Here's the link on our blog in case the Google Doc doesn't work:
[http://startupsthehardway.tumblr.com/post/63091956854/featur...](http://startupsthehardway.tumblr.com/post/63091956854/featurekickers-
yc-w2014-application)

