

Ask HN: Review my business, Printavo - webbruce

I ran a screen printing shop a few years ago for a while and realized that using many different systems to keep our shop running wasn't the answer.  We used Google Calendar, Bamboo Invoice, Highrise, Paypal and email which lead to tons of data redundancy and plain 'ol inefficiencies.<p>After specking everything out and gathering a bunch of initial feedback, I began designing the interface and looking for coders.  That didn't work out too well so after a year of that nonsense I bought Michael Hartl's book and started learning rails.<p>Four months later I was ready to start building Printavo and three more months later I had 90% of it done.  To help with the last 10% (Stripe, Paypal and some other bugs) I hired a freelancer (shout out to Kuah!).<p>Just went live last night and I'm focusing more on the marketing end now.<p>I wanted to get your guys' feedback on everything, thanks!<p>http://printavo.com
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hmgauna
As the others, it's hard to tell as I'm not in that business. The product
looks professional and sleek, but the best advise I can give you is that you
look for feedback from your real potential customers. You have to go find them
and test their use, hear their needs, calibrate the pricing.

If you have some budget you may set an ad campaign and split tests to know
what's is working and what is not. You may try several different home pages to
see which things perform better. This could give you some ideas:
[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2977-behind-the-scenes-
highri...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2977-behind-the-scenes-highrise-
marketing-site-ab-testing-part-1) [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2983-behind-
the-scenes-ab-tes...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2983-behind-the-scenes-
ab-testing-part-2-how-we-test) [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-
the-scenes-ab-tes...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-
ab-testing-part-3-final)

And also: are you tracking your users behaviors? That may give you powerful
insights about the product.

I created an account to test it, but I had several errors in a row: 'We're
sorry, but something went wrong.'

For the rest, congrats, it looks great. I hope you the best!

PS: You may work on a better favicon with a relative ease, by now is not
looking so good.

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webbruce
Thanks for the tips. I'm marketing a bunch on forums/blogs in the industry
right now and then when that gathers more traffic I'm going to A/B

How would I track user behaviors? I'm just using Google Analytics.

All the errors on the site should be fixed now.

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hmgauna
Hey!

It depends a bit on how your site works. A typical use of the GA script may
already do the work. But sometimes, you need to set things to do the right
tracking: the typical example is the usage of javascript. If you have a lot of
JS you may want to track it. Maybe you want to know if some feature is being
used or not, you should check those small things and have it clear, so that,
when the traffic comes, you will be collecting valuable data about your
product. But also, ask your customers. Some human feedback may be much more
rich than a bunch of data.

PS: By the way, I like the 'XX shops are currently using Printavo!' PS 2: I'm
still getting the error messages (now in the welcome screen).

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bradhe
Certainly well designed site, value prop is easily understood although not
sure how valuable it actually is (not in industry so...). How big is the
screen printing industry?

I imagine the average screen print shop is between 1 and 5 heads. Are their
needs significantly different than other creative businesses--an agency, say--
of similar size? While there is a lot to be said for narrow scope, I think
it's best to keep scope narrow on the product side and wide on the market side
(especially at your stage).

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retroafroman
I can't comment on much, as I'm not in the screen printing business. However,
the design is very nice and professional.

There may be a bug-when I click on the link "Check them out" on the front
page, nothing happens. Using Chrome on Windows.

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webbruce
Ah thanks

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webbruce
Clickable: <http://printavo.com>

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Berone
really slick and impressive site

