

Dear HN'ers, please check out my new startup - itsnotatumour
http://www.masteryourcard.com
:)
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itsnotatumour
Hi guys, for the past few months a friend and I have been working on a web
application in our spare time that I hope will really help people put a dent
in their credit card debt.

It's still in really early stages (like pre-alpha), and it's still got a bunch
of bugs and spelling mistakes, but I was wondering if any of you could give it
a once-over and let me know if anything screws up - and of course general
feedback would be most welcome.

Its up at my domain now: www.masteryourcard.com. The 'take a tour' feature
doesn't work yet, but there's a little summary of what it's all about on the
Index page.

Here's a direct link to the Sign-Up page:
<http://masteryourcard.com/signup.php>

Its all 100% anonymous, you'll never be asked for your personal or banking
details. Even if you don't have any cc debt I'd really appreciate any thoughts
you might have.

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gstar
Great idea - few things:

\- You could have problems with mastercard wanting to protect their trademark.

\- Your homepage is pretty heavy on copy. The copy's a bit long on hyperbole,
too. Maybe edit down a bit and add a banner pic/video. Webapp homepages are a
bit of an art, but good ones are fairly formulaic, too. Lots of examples out
there, smashing magazine is always worth a look for inspiration.

I didn't try your app (not really very useful for me), but I think if you fix
your homepage, you could convert really well. It's a problem a lot of people
could use help with.

~~~
itsnotatumour
Thanks gstar - any examples of some good webapp homepages?

~~~
gstar
Yes. Some are more webapp than others. <http://280slides.com/>,
<http://basecamphq.com/> (not to my taste, but might be to yours),
<http://vimeo.com/>, <http://www.campaignmonitor.com/>,
<http://www.checkoutapp.com/>

The list is endless!

------
ismarc
I checked it out real quick because it actually looked pretty
presentable/useful for other folks (I have 0 debt, literally, not even a
quarter to a co-worker now). Playing with the test account, there's no way to
view the annual interest rate for cards after you've entered them, or a way to
change the interest rates. I tried and tried. Also, it's unintuitive to
provide options in the edit card screen that weren't there for the initial
creation, but to not display fields that were there for the initial creation.

~~~
itsnotatumour
ismarc - I will get that fixed, thanks! And if you have a chance to set up a
new account (even though you don't have any debt yourself) and give it a
proper run through some time I'd love to hear some more of your thoughts on
design/usability.

~~~
ismarc
I forgot to add above...the reason I was looking for interest rates was I was
looking to understand how you were prioritizing what to be paid off. I wasn't
sure if it was biggest + minimums first, or if it was prioritized to prevent
growth of outstanding balance on all but one that was being paid down, or if
it performed calculations based on "best" payoff options (high interest + low
balance being prioritized over low interest + high balance, minimizing total
interest paid over the period for paying off the balance, etc.).

I would highlight the method, use it as a draw point and explain it somewhere,
and have the website be the tool to track progress with the method. That's the
catch with credit cards, they have a limit, but the part that is never pointed
out is the total amount you really end up paying including interest.

------
cgherb911
You'll have a marketing challenge because of all the scammers and spammers out
there. Instead of saying manage your credit card debt, maybe say personal card
management software. My initial reaction is that you're looking at a huge
disadvantage just because of other non-related evil doers.

~~~
bhousel
To be completely honest, my initial reaction was that the site was a scammer,
and I only came in here to flag it...

Luckily I realized that it was a real site from reading the comments.

Maybe you could revise the copy to make it less scam-like. I think I was
thrown off by phrases like "100% secure", frequent use of "free", all the
exclamation points, also the second-person voice "So if you want to say
goodbye to your credit card debt.."

Hope these suggestions are helpful.

