

HN, Please Review My Startup: Stormweight.com - jbr
http://www.stormweight.com/?p=ovHBEi

======
ZachS
It's an interesting idea, the first thing I noticed was that the design
doesn't look very modern or professional, it gives a bad first impression.

The outer glow on the logo is kinda tacky. I can tell you've invested a lot of
time into this, so investing in a really talented designer/brander might be
something to look into.

Your mac screenshot image covers up half of the learn more and sign up
buttons. It's an easy fix, give this selector ( body.brochure.new_index
#landing.box #screenshot a )position: relative and give em a z-index:1000 or
something.

Also, you have a lot of serif fonts, maybe you should consider making your
menu and header text sans serif?

~~~
raffi
I have to second this. I do not have an eye for design and I know this. It's
just my weakness. Having a good designer on board is an absolute must. If you
want a suggestion, try <http://www.monfx.com/> | <http://www.mdolon.com/> \--
he is here on Hacker News and he designed <http://www.feedbackarmy.com> and
<http://www.afterthedeadline.com> for me.

~~~
christonog
I know monji personally through entrepreneur meet ups and he's great. Also
worked on a YC funded start up way back when as well.

------
phicou
My coworker and I were just (10 minutes ago) talking about the need for a site
like this, so I'm giving the idea a big thumbs-up! We might try it out and
offer additional suggestions as we use it.

As others have said, it could use a different design. Specifically, the fonts
look kind of strange (letters don't have a consistent height) in my browser
(Firefox 3.0 on Linux). Also you might want to streamline the javascript, as
it looks like it caused firefox to use a lot more CPU.

~~~
jbr
The js is certainly processor-intensive; the client polls every 2 seconds for
updates. Search is also done in the client, which can get kinda slow. We'll
look into optimizing that code a bit more, but we are trying for "rich
client," which involves a bit of client-side processor tradeoff. I'm hoping
that the newest wave of JS engines (sunspider, v8, whatever's in FF3.5) will
also increase the adoption of rich web clients.

------
jmathai
This is a great tool. I've used Google Docs in the past to collaborate with
others on an idea. It's not real time and there are often conflicts.

The interface is great (while some design work might help). Seemingly trivial
things like the search for an idea as I'm typing one is brilliant and keeps
dups from showing up. I haven't done this in a collaborative manner just yet
but am inviting a friend now.

This is a great service for free. I would consider paying for it if it really
does help make the brainstorming and collaboration of an idea easier. The cost
would have to be nominal though, since other methods still work even though
they're might not be as effective.

Additionally, it would be nice to invite someone by email address in addition
to a username. I have to email or IM my friend to sign up and then wait to get
his username and then add him. Would be great if I could enter an email
address and it would ask them to sign up and automatically add them to the
idea.

Not sure I love the name though.

~~~
jbr
You _can_ invite people by email address and Stormweight will send them an
invite. When they sign up, they'll go straight to your list.

~~~
jmathai
Not sure why I didn't see that it explicitly said email address. Awesome.

I can also see value in a mobile version of this app.

~~~
jbr
We have an iPhone app in the works and are working on beefing up the email
integration so you can send commands and requests by email, since all
smartphones have strong email clients. Right now you can add ideas to lists by
email and request the names of your lists by email. Next up is the ability to
request the group's merged favorites by email. Thanks for your input!

------
ghshephard
Love the concept - Like the Design a bit - big, blocky - easy to read, but the
layout needs a bit of work to make it more concise.

A little too much information to digest immediately - brain was fried on
landing and didn't know where to turn.

I created a test project, and the first thing I noticed is I couldn't add
name@shephard.org, but could add name@mailinator.com - weird.

For a brainstorm app targeted at the enterprise, or small work groups, I
should NOT be exposed to Featured Lists or Open Membership Lists - I'd yank
that - makes no sense for this class of App.

It _feels_ like a professional application - easy to get into, easy to start
using. I like the way that it interacts with the user. VERY smooth - I like
the way closing a Help Window opens up more space on the screen to work.

I wasn't sure what "adding users" to the list actually did - Send them an
Email? Invite them? Anything? That needs to be more clear somewhow - It
apparently sends out an invitation.

~~~
ghshephard
THere is definite weirdness when trying to add people to the list. I've been
trying to invite people by entering their email address - but I keep getting
"user xxxx@foo.com not found" - How can an Email address not be found? I was
able to enter a few addresses, but not others. It's almost like the acceptance
criteria has changed in the last 10 minutes.

~~~
ghshephard
Yes - definite weirdness - BTW - I have to click on "View Source" to copy text
off your pages, which throws me off, but, "You now can invite people to lists
by email address, even if they're not members of Stormweight. When they sign
up for an account with the email address you invited, they will be privy to
the lists from which you sent the invitation."

But, I'm unable to do this _any more_ (could for a few) no matter how many
times I try. Bug?

~~~
jbr
Having to click view source is so drag and drop doesn't accidentally highlight
text. I'll make it so that only applies on the pages with drag and drop.

I've gotten a number of replies about the email invitation. I am looking into
that currently (one monitor is that code, the other is HN). It's absolutely a
bug if it doesn't do what you, the user, expect -- even if it's what we
intended. However, this seems like a true bug, probably an overstrict email
validation regex.

------
jbr
Hi! I've been working on this full time for the past three months and nights
and weekends for three months before that, so your comments and honest
criticism are deeply appreciated.

We'll be giving away five premium accounts the people with the highest rated
comments on this thread. Thanks for being an awesome community, HN!

------
e1ven
The site looks really nice!

It's a bit Strange not being able to select the text on the page- I can see
from a quick look at the source that it's not all just pre-rendered images, so
I'm a bit confused ;)

The idea sounds really fun, but a bit hard to understand at first. Adding a
live demo page might help people understand what's going on. I know you have
free signup, but it would be easier to play with a demo account before
deciding if people want to join

I do like the way panels appear and dissapear as needed.Show/hide advanced
options. I have a bit of flicker on FF3.5/Linux, but it's not distracting.

A demo page might alleviate the need for you founders to personally come and
play with people's lists.

Good luck with the site!

~~~
jbr
Demo is a good idea. Check out <http://www.stormweight.com/lists/hn-demo> \--
a public list I just made (open access).

------
gierach
My coworker gave me admin access to his ideas list, and I promptly deleted one
of his ideas, just to see if I could. I was surprised that it just "went
away", but I'm glad notification of the event (along with the idea itself) was
emailed off to him. It would be nice if my ideas, that get junked by someone
else, (or all junked ideas) went into some sort of trash bin associated with
the list (and maybe only the person who creates the idea gets to purge it
forever).

Edit: excellent work overall!

~~~
jbr
We're actually just marking them as deleted (acts_as_paranoid rails plugin) so
we can later add an "archive" that lets you pull things out of the trash bin.
We haven't figured out the UI for that yet, so it's in just an unranked idea
in our product development stormweight list for now.

------
samg
Your pricing plan page is especially difficult to read, let alone trying to
compare the 3 different plans. Take a look at 37Signals' or even Apple's.

I click on the screenshot on the about page to see it larger, but it's the
same (small) size.

Overall, it looks like you've got an interesting service but the whole thing
could use an aesthetic retooling. The font is hard to read, and I almost get a
medieval RPG feel from the icons and nav bar.

------
e1ven
Please don't label yourself as a YC reject.

I know it's frustrating not to join the program, but we're interested in you
for who you are- Defining yourself by has turned has turned you down just
makes you look a little desperate.

One post that I agree with is <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=550351>

Your product looks great, and I wish you all the best with it.

~~~
jbr
Thanks! Changed the title.

------
Mongoose
Why does everyone and they're extended family call themselves "rockstar" now?

~~~
jbr
We were looking for a way of saying "startup" without excluding non-tech small
businesses that didn't consider themselves "startups." Changed to "small."

------
ericb
I'd kill the "Rockstar" term in your copy. "Rockstar" is now a has-been...

~~~
jbr
Changed it to "small teams" -- we were trying to say "not big companies"

------
lrm242
The Learn More and Signup buttons don't seem to be working for me.

~~~
jbr
The comment by ZachS pointed this out and a fix has been deployed. It should
be working now. Please let me know if it's not.

------
ableal
Two ideas, sort of corporate-customer oriented:

\- Output to email.

\- Host-it-yourself package.

Established mid/large-sized companies are very leery of sensitive data outside
the intranet, and used to e-mail for discussions. They know e-mail sucks badly
for that, but it's like keyboards - you're not going to switch layout for each
task.

Frankly, I have the perception that internal web apps are for the peons to
fill in the little fiddly input form fields (looking at you, HN comment box) -
at the top you have emails with thousands of (mostly unread) lines quoted,
plus attached presentations and spreadsheets.

Make a web app where everybody can reap results via email, even if only a few
bother fiddling with the controls in the browser, and it might be a winner.
Might.

~~~
jbr
We've looked at doing a host-it-yourself version a la github FI
(<http://fi.github.com/>) or the google search appliance. Although the pricing
that tier allows is quite cushy, (<http://fi.github.com/pricing.html>), the
company they used to wrap up the installer is dauntingly priced for our
bootstrapped budget (<http://bitrock.com/>). So that'll probably happen after
we get the SaaS version off the ground.

~~~
ableal
Didn't know those existed, thanks for the links. Sounds like you're doing it
right. Two 'cheaper' ideas:

\- A VM with minimal customization (use existing LDAP, etc.)

\- Your install in a common server is exactly like some other popular intranet
package (a wiki or PHP-BB ?), and can copy its initial settings from there ...

Good luck.

------
sarvesh
You should consider redesigning the landing page. There is way too much
information crammed into one page. Also a screencast the application in action
will help. The tour page <http://www.stormweight.com/pages/tour> asks me to
signup I would rather see it action before I signup. You might also want to
rethink about the color scheme.

The macbook screenshot is showing off the laptop more than your application.

~~~
jbr
Thanks for the reply! We're working on a screencast today, and /pages/tour is
exactly where we plan to put it.

I'm not a designer, so I'm particularly interested in feedback about the
colors. Are they too dark? We want to look professional without looking
enterprise-ey; all of our competitors are mind-numbingly enterprise-oriented
and look like Microsoft did their design. We were also hoping the macbook
would polarize our audience (hackers and small companies).

~~~
FreeRadical
please don't use so much capitalisation, for example "Deep Email Integration"
as it makes the site appear cold

try and summarise what the purpose of the site in 20-30 words on the home page
to de-clutter...more detail can be added in a FAQ type section

~~~
jbr
This is what comes from trying too hard to look like a Real Business -- we saw
all of the other companies with Marketing Departments using phrases like "Deep
Email Integration" and assumed it was a good place to start. We don't have
much traffic yet, but we have a split testing architecture in place to start
playing with less ridiculous ways of expressing the same thing.

