
Published my first proper product after working as a developer for 10 years - hkanaktas
https://dytto.co/blog/how-it-all-began
======
tylerrobinson
If I may provide some unsolicited feedback, if you are targeting the United
States you may want to check the use of the word quotations in this context.
I’ve not personally heard “quotation” used this way, so I wasn’t sure what the
software is for. Maybe proposal or quote or RFP process would resonate more?
(I googled “salesforce quotations” to check myself on this and indeed do not
see any results using it that way)

Could you explain on the marketing site what type of business this would be
best for? Are there other workflow tracking features?

For grammar, there are only a handful of things which don’t ring quite true
for me as a native speaker, like “stop losing your time” which for its
prominence on the page seemed worth mentioning. Others might think it sounds
fine, but that felt awkward to me compared with “stop wasting time”, for
example.

~~~
hkanaktas
Oh god. Please keep 'em coming. These are all great feedback.

To be honest we, two cofounders, didn't spend days to decide on the words. We
both are not native speakers. Google'd some keywords, took a look at
dictionary websites and decided quotation was fine. We will do further
research on that. Would "offer" work in this context?

We are decided on targeting freelancers and businesses that sell services,
like software or advertisement agencies. But to be fair anyone doing business
negotiations via sending an offer to a client could possibly use the app.
Right now the app is pretty basic as this is a product of 2-nights worth of
time and we only went live this week.

"Stop wasting time". Noted.

Again, if you have any more feedback, I'd really appreciate it. You can also
contact me on Twitter if you'd prefer. My username is hkanaktas.

~~~
h0l0cube
> To be honest we, two cofounders, didn't spend days to decide on the words.
> We both are not native speakers.

I think you also should find a few 'bookish' native speakers to proof-read
your blog posts before you publish them. While it's impressive that you're
speaking another language, the casual reader likely won't know that and so
your writing will seem amateurish - which might not reflect well on your
product.

~~~
hkanaktas
Yeah, agreed. We don't want to give that impression.

------
wolco
Great mvp. Good Luck.

"All these employments and hourly works are means to make some money, but it
doesn't worth much when you want to take a trip for a few days/weeks but your
"boss" says no."

When success hits you might have less time for travel compared to scheduling a
vacation at work. The more important you are the more important your business
is can create longer hours.

~~~
hkanaktas
Thanks a lot!

I'm aware that owning a business means much more work and I'm willing to put
in the necessary effort. Maybe I will go nomadic, work in part of the day and
travel in the remaining hours. Possibilities are endless.

------
tarasmatsyk
Go-go-go man! An idea seems interesting, having a simple product just to store
all quotes should be a cool thing for small businesses.

What I would personally add: \- Use GIF/carousel instead of an image on the
landing page so I can use what exactly the product does \- Add some kind of
API (really basics) to integrate a product into other solutions

~~~
hkanaktas
Thanks a lot for your feedback. It seriously means a lot to me that people
take their time to check out something I built and say what they think about
it.

The landing page is literally 5 days old. I am constantly tweaking it with new
ideas and I will definitely apply your feedback. I was thinking of a speed-up
video to show various pages.

API sounds so good. I was thinking of Zapier integration but why not both,
right?

~~~
toomuchtodo
I’d recommend both; folks who want to use the API natively can, but those who
are going to use Zapier can rely on the integration. You’ll need the API
endpoint regardless for the Zapier integration.

I propose that having the ability to manage clients and quotes through an API
would be a powerful feature. If you’re worried about rapid iteration and
backwards compatibility, remember to version your API route(s), and use a sub
domain so you can scale out the API easily in the future independently of
other app components. Consider firing off web hooks for any events that your
customers would want action taken on faster than polling your API could
support.

Congrats on the launch!!

~~~
hkanaktas
Thanks a lot for the ideas, too. If you want to hear about the progress you
can simply just register (we'll probably send a weekly mail) or follow me
(@hkanaktas) or Dytto's account (@dyttoco) on Twitter.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Registered!

------
markdown
Looks great. Congratulations.

(Hopefully constructive) feedback:

1.) Why only four currencies? Now I can't use it. Netflix has helped normalize
credit card usage all across the world, so your potential market is huge, but
you've only targeted four countries. I don't get that.

2.) All price/currency fields have placeholders in the format 0.00. When I
click on one of these fields, I expect it to go blank so that I can enter my
own price. So I just click anywhere on that field and start typing. If I
happen to have clicked after the decimal point, and try to type in 2000
(meaning $2000), the value I end up with is "0.200". This is unexpected
behaviour for a form field, at least for me.

3.) In your quote entry form, you need to widen the tax % field. When I enter
0.09, the 9 is half cut off.

~~~
hkanaktas
Thanks for taking your time and the compliments. It means a lot!

1- The app is like in alpha/beta stage right now. I planned to put currencies
in the database but it was too much work for an MVP so I literally typed them
into the template lol. Which currency do you need? I can add it manually now
and be sure to have it in the database when I make the transition.

2- Agreed. Number inputs are funky. Tried to have custom Javascript for the
minimal asset size but I didn't do well. I'll use some 3rd party plugin for
those.

3- Noted. One question though. Why do you type 0.09 in a percentage field? Is
it just a test or do you really have 0.09% (9 in ten thousand) tax rate?

~~~
markdown
> Which currency do you need?

Oh don't trouble yourself on my account. I have no urgent use for it, so will
just wait for it to be done properly.

And you're right about the percentage field. I didn't notice that 9% was
correct for that field rather than 0.09.

------
Closi
Hey, just as a heads up I found a vuln that exposes all customer email
addresses and contacts for all users. I'll responsibly disclose using the
'contact us' feature.

~~~
hkanaktas
Ah, don't even know how I missed that. Should be fixed now. I appreciate the
heads up.

~~~
herman_toothrot
I sent a message about an issue with a similar cause through the message
function on your site.

~~~
hkanaktas
Just saw it and deployed a fix. Thanks so much for helping out.

------
renewiltord
Congratulations on your launch. Not really feedback but I realized when I
clicked through that I would have signed up if I could use one of the
federated login services (Google most likely, GitHub maybe, Facebook probably
wouldn't have helped) and I didn't want to go through the mail, password,
confirm cycle so much I actually just hit back.

I think you can still get someone's email for follow up if you use them.

~~~
hkanaktas
Thanks for your comment. It's possible to sign up and start using it by simply
entering your email. I do plan to add 3rd party logins though.

------
andi999
Good luck from me as well. Although I am not looking for a quotation solution,
there would be 2 things which would concern me (if I were):

\- There is no example how a 'beautiful quotation' looks. \- Pricing would be
a concern. You say it is free, so why should it be of concern: if I change my
business process now to use your interface and then I am locked in, I would
really like to know how much I have to pay next year.

~~~
hkanaktas
Thanks for checking it out!

I was working on the preview button before my server crashed from the extreme
traffic :D I will deploy it soon.

About the pricing, we don't have set in stone amount right now but we will be
nice to our early-adopters, I promise!

~~~
lowdose
Write a blog about the HN traffic hose!

------
markdown
There are two ads in the emails clients receive. One by you (Powered by
Dytto), and one for something called Elastic Email. I clicked to find out what
it was and Gmail gave me a scary message. This isn't a warning I'd ever want a
potential client to get:
[https://i.imgur.com/ZGKWNav.png](https://i.imgur.com/ZGKWNav.png)

~~~
hkanaktas
Oh, damn. Thanks for the heads up. I don't know why Google thinks Elastic
Email is suspicious. They have been in business for years. I'll take a look
though.

~~~
marcinee
Hi, it seems that the link is showed as suspicious because it starts with
HTTP:// instead of [https://](https://). Google is very strict about it.

I work for Elastic Email and I don't recall any problems from our side lately.

~~~
marcinee
If you have an SSL, it can be installed. Contact the support team for details.

~~~
hkanaktas
I've sent an email to Elastic Email. Thanks for the heads up.

------
tomarr
Some feedback: \- found the image on landing page confusing, expected to be
able to click the items in it \- pricing 'free until we launch'. This would
scare me off - if people are going to start using your platform they need some
idea of pricing levels / tiered plans. No point joining up to something and
using in action to find you are priced out

~~~
hkanaktas
Gonna replace the screenshot with a video. I'm a little overwhelmed by the
attention right now haha.

Fair. We'll update the pricing section with some numbers tomorrow.

------
Scaevus
Just a small feedback. Personally, the periods at the end of each heading on
the homepage is a bit annoying for me.

------
hkanaktas
Okay, it's back on. I upgraded to a bigger box. Phew, this is exhilarating.

------
Aeolun
It is amazing how many people seem to build an invoicing/quoting product. A
ton of them are actually successful too.

What is it about this niche that makes it a thing that everyone wants to
start.

~~~
wheelerwj
it has a huge market and every small business outside of
food&beverage/hospitality has to solve this problem.

------
dcl
Is your website colour palette inspired by Cividis?

~~~
hkanaktas
Not sure what that is but if you're talking about the colors on the landing
page, a designer friend of mine made the logo and chose the colors. I just
used them. Don't know if he knows about Cividis.

If you're talking about the colors in the app, they are the default color
palette of Tailwind CSS. Most components are also exactly copied from Tailwind
UI examples.

------
robbintt
When I make a quote on a large tablet, I can’t find it in the quotes list
afterwards.

There are also too many required fields in the customer form

~~~
hkanaktas
Thanks for your feedback. We will talk about the customer form and will adjust
accordingly.

Your latest addition should be displayed at the top of the list. Is it not?
Also, were you redirect to quote details page after creating it?

------
graposaymaname
Good job! I'm yet to check the product but the website itself looks beautiful.
Clean and no-nonsense design. Loved it!

~~~
hkanaktas
Thanks a lot! I look forward to your feedbacks on the product itself as well.

------
edgarascom
Impossible to understand from the front page what is it.

~~~
hkanaktas
Appreciate your feedback. We are constantly updating and improving it.

------
indymike
Nice! This is a great little idea. Keep iterating.

~~~
hkanaktas
Thanks Mike! We will do our best and more.

------
hkanaktas
The server is down, please have mercy lol

------
imprettycool
Good luck, you're gonna need it

~~~
hkanaktas
Heh, thanks! We need a lot of it and still gotta work hard. _Fingers crossed_.

------
the-dude
Who are your competitors?

~~~
hkanaktas
Okay, let's see.

\- Basically a lot of CRMs handle the offer/quote stuff. Some have partial
support, some have more functionality then we do.

\- There is quoter[dot]com as a direct competitor. I'm not sure how well they
do. My co-founder is more aware of this topic.

\- There are some old desktop softwares doing the same thing offline. I don't
think users of these would convert much to online solutions.

\- And of course there are users that do everything manually. Keeping the
records in an Excel file and exporting Word documents as PDFs to email to
clients.

Edit: sorry about the formatting. I'm exhausted.

~~~
adamm255
Check out [https://www.waveapps.com/](https://www.waveapps.com/). I do my
quoting through invoice free on there.

