
Show HN: Someone.io – Task management for teams made easy - terjeto
http://www.someone.io
======
ma2xd
Hi guys, my name's Lasse I work at Someone.io :)

We are really pleased to see such interest and enthusiasm in the product, it
chimes with what we've been hearing from users since we launched our beta in
May. Your feedback is very useful for us - Someone.io is still in development
and we are currently in the middle of an equity crowdfunding campaign which
you can see over at [http://invest.someone.io](http://invest.someone.io) .

If there is anyone who wants to support us and become a shareholder, we'd love
for you to go and have a look at our campaign and invest.

You're also more than welcome to follow us at
[http://www.twitter.com/someoneapp](http://www.twitter.com/someoneapp) and
[http://www.facebook.com/someoneapp](http://www.facebook.com/someoneapp)
Thanks everyone!

Lasse @ Someone.io

~~~
jipiboily
When are you going to release it for real? Unclear, given that the pricing
page says "Coming this summer"...is it possibly in 11.5 months? If you don't
get payments, how can we know it will still exists in a few months?

Looks neat btw!

~~~
pc86
I came here to ask a very similar question - "this summer" means completely
different things depending on where on the globe you sit, and it's even more
confusing that the majority of readers have just exited the summer.

It gives the distinct impression they've already missed the promised deadline
even if that's not the case.

~~~
jipiboily
Exactly!

------
mbateman
I've been looking for software for months that would help facilitate a _lot_
of collaborative document production. I love the simplicity and user interface
of this system -- almost every other system I've tried fails in some major
element of the user experience.

It's missing two things that I would need to actually use it:

1\. An overview, where you can see the status and progress of all the projects
at a glance. Right now, as far as I can tell, the only info the overview page
gives about the projects is the project name and participants. I'd love to be
able to see which columns were completed in the overview page.

2\. Project templates. I want to have a few different project types, each type
of which loads a default set of columns, colors, and tasks.

One final observation is that I'm not sure what the "state" field of the
columns does. Changing the state doesn't seem to have any visible effect. For
my purposes I'd like each of the columns to represent project stages and for
it to be very meaningful when we've moved from one project state to the next.

Looking forward to seeing future iterations of this project! I've been amazed
at how hard it is to find a software solution for my needs, and am very glad
to see new promising new development in this area.

~~~
terjeto
Hi bateman.

Thanks for taking the time trying out our product.

1.The product so far is in its early days. A better overview across projects
will definitely be developed. 2\. In the backend, a project is based on a
template system. It's not visible to the user yet as this concept further
needs adjustments before we can roll it out . In fact the current project
design is just our first "plugin" of how a project can look. We hope to offer
multiple ways to visualize a project in the future.

The state field is a system state (not changeable) that is used for triggers
and in the future reporting. When you tick of a Task as finished, a trigger
occurs that will look up the column with the system state "Completed" and move
the task there. It's a bit rough at the moment, but could be a handy way to
automate certain tasks later on and provide reports across projects.

------
jaysonelliot
This looks awesome. But our company probably won't use it. And here's why.

Committing to a new process or software is an investment of time and trust.
When we choose something to use in our group, we want to know it's going to be
there in a year or two, and still doing the thing we bought it for.

Software you can purchase and install on your own servers / desktops does
that. In fact, we'll choose one software package over another if it doesn't
force us to submit to updates until we want them, or rely on someone else's
servers to stay functional.

Browser-based tools from someone else can make it into our workflow, but only
after they've been around long enough and achieved mainstream adoption, so we
can be relatively sure they're unlikely to "pivot" or disappear. Google Docs
and Slack are good examples of this.

When you're new and unproven, there are already a lot of hurdles to leap in
order to get users, especially business users.

Making your software user-installable eliminates a huge hurdle, I would
recommend it.

~~~
someonedan
Hi Jaysonelliot, thanks for the terrific comment. It's really helpful for us
to get this kind of insight.

Onboarding your team to any software is a risk. Our focus on being the easiest
and most engaging task manager is aimed at being the least risky. We want to
remove as many of those hurdles for business users as we can through
simplicity and making team members feel more interconnected.

It's easy to say Google was also once "new and unproven", but Mahn's response
below is an excellent one. I guess the issue is epeople want tools they can
trust which here is "only after they've been around long enough and achieved
mainstream adoption". But then, Slack was launched in August 2013 with 0
users. By June 2015 they had 1M+ users and a valuation of $2.76bn. (Source:
WSJ). So new entrants to this market like us can establish themselves quickly
but they need to be very good at what they do and they need to earn trust.

We aim to do just that and as jipiboily points out elsewhere, a payment
solution is the first step to sustainability, which we've been developing with
our research partners and will be rolled out at the end of the month.

~~~
jaysonelliot
For us, the preferable solution is to let us pay for it and install it
ourselves.

For every Slack or Google that reaches mainstream adoption, there are a
hundred smaller, often amazing companies, who don't.

Rather than rolling the dice on an all-or-nothing SAAS strategy that requires
a big hit to get people to feel comfortable committing a whole organization,
you can sell something people can buy, install, and own.

It doesn't mean you can't offer the freemium hosted option. What it does do is
give you a chance to see organic growth in the early days. With subscription-
based support services, you can even book more revenue — just the kind of
thing a startup needs when they're looking for traction in the bootstrapped /
angel funded days.

------
sangaya
I find it interesting that as a newly released product that is likely to hold
sensitive information security seems to be lightly addressed. The only
reference to anything you'd do to keep my data safe is this single paragraph
under the Privacy Policy: "The security of your Personal Information is
important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the
Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to
use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we
cannot guarantee its absolute security."

You also have a limit of liability for the actual amount paid to you over the
last 12 months (for a free service, this is $0), and on top of that a pretty
broad indemnity clause.

Depending on your target audience, I think a pay for option at the lowest tier
would help, as at least then I'm not left wondering how you make money and if
you plan on selling data to advertising partners as a "related service".

From a design and functionality standpoint I appreciate the simple slick
design and feature set. It focuses on the core need without feature bloat.
Best of luck!

~~~
drdaeman
The quoted clause is part truism part obviousness. There is and never will be
absolute security. Then they just state that they do their best - to the
extent commercially acceptable - to protect the data (who doesn't?). I really
don't see anything wrong here. If someone else promises you something else
they're most likely either over-confident or lying. Or investing in their
security more than their budget allows them to do.

Paired with liability clause, basically this reads to me (my personal
interpretation) as "we'll try our best but don't trust us with anything you
that you really value and can't afford to lose". Which is probably acceptable
for teams with low or no secrecy requirements, although it probably won't fit
a group with stricter needs.

Disclaimer: not affiliated by any means, just looked up few pages, found no
demo, haven't bothered to sign-up, still have opinion (haha)

------
arsalanb
I used to use Trello + Burndown for Trello + Scrum for Trello prior to this.
This looks better. It will have to be very fast loading and should have
burndown & scrum like features before I can convince my team to switch, but
thumbs up for the great job!

I will give it a shot :)

Kudos!

Edit — Tried it out! is awesome! A few minor things though – It's a little too
similar to Trello for me to bother switching, but looks way better (subjective
I know, but works well for me!)

and also this: For the buttons (signup button on the home page. The
element:focus{outline: none;} is something that really goes a long way in
showing polish and detail on the front end.

~~~
RobLach
"element:focus{outline: none;}" also violates accessibility guidelines unless
an alternative styling is added.

It's kind of not cool to discriminate for the sake of "polish".

Reference: [http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#navigation-
me...](http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#navigation-mechanisms-
focus-visible) [http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/NOTE-
WCAG20-TECHS-20081211/F78](http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/NOTE-
WCAG20-TECHS-20081211/F78)

------
daminimal
The page allows to register with www.someone.io Of course, that will not
redirect properly to the board afterwards, but I was able to register a board
with that address.

~~~
terjeto
Yepp. Saw that :-)

Edited your domain name, and restricted www so it can't happen again. Thanks
for pointing it out so we could correct it :-)

------
garrensmith
How is this different to trello?

~~~
terjeto
Hi garrensmith.

I'll admit that there are some similarities, but our focus is very different.
What you see today is perhaps closer to Trello than what the experience of
Someone.io will be a few months from now.

We have heard from many users who tell us that it is our design and attention
to detail that they prefer over Trello. We know that won’t be the case for
everyone, but there is plenty of demand for products that serve a similar
purpose to Trello, but do things a little differently.

With that said, I think there are 3 main differences between us and Trello.
1\. We are team focused. Someone.io is specifically focused on delivering
value to teams in a work environment, where Trello has much broader aims. Our
focus on teams allows us to better meet their needs. 2\. We have simple but
beautiful design. We want to be the easiest and most engaging task management
tool on the market. Our research tells us that some users find Trello to be
“dull" and “uninspiring" and we’ve found particular traction with creative
teams who enjoy our approach. 3\. We are in the process of becoming the first
"Social Task Management” tool. Together with our research partners, we have
developed some features designed to make users feel more interconnected with
their team and more engaged with their work which we’ll start deploying soon.

Thanks for your question, have a great day!

~~~
xerophyte12932
This is how i read those points:

1\. Our focus is to serve teams so in the near future, all of our new features
will be directed towards teams. (btw which features of trello do you feel lack
"focus on teams" ?)

2\. Our visual design is better than Trello.

3\. We will eventually bring in more "social" collaborative tools (any idea
what these will be like?)

~~~
xivzgrev
My feelings exactly. Right now it's Trello with a better visual design. The
other features are unknown at this point.

------
nceruchalu
This looks awesome. A live demo page would have been great, but decided to
gamble and provide my email anyways!

Some comments on initial signup: \- Great approach to validating emails by
sending an email after initially providing just that, As opposed to the
classic "doing so after filling in all info". This way you get to figure out
you messed up your email early in the process! I liked that.

\- The confirmation email had a link to `Get started with...`. It would have
been great if you also had smaller text saying "Or copy this link and paste in
your browser: ...". Maybe it's just me but I get scared of clicking on links
in emails without knowing where they are going to (or downloading in malicious
cases)

\- Would have been great to not have to go through so many screens for signup.
Maybe have me provide my team name, name and password in one screen.

\- The animations on the task cards and their dragging is pretty great!

------
pookeh
Although the UI looks good, there are a few problems that are still keeping me
from using it:

1\. When two or more people are editing the same card's description, the
description goes out of sync and ends up not saving either of the changes.

2\. The UI doesn't feel very snappy -- it feels kind of slow.

3\. The state field of a column has no other purpose right now than to mark it
as completed so that cards end up moving there automatically when completed.
Perhaps show the state field somewhere?

4\. Why are cards automatically moved when completed? I liked Trello because I
can organize it in whatever way I wish..I'll turn off the Completed lane for
now.

5\. I can't assign more than one label/tag/color to a card.

~~~
someonedan
Hi pookeh, thanks for your comment :)

This feedback is invaluable to us. We've been receiving a lot since this post
hit No.1 this morning and the development team will be hard at work for the
coming weeks implementing the best of the suggestions we have got.

Thanks!

------
Legoblocks
So what does this do better than for example Trello? It looks like a very
basic product.

~~~
terjeto
Hi Legoblocks. I replied to garrensmith who also wanted to know this. You can
read my reply there
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10330518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10330518)

------
misterdai
Signed up to take a look but apart from the lovely interface, it seems to be
lacking in unique features that'd turn my head away from Trello.

While I do love Trello, I find it is missing support for some aspects of
Kanban such as swimlanes and list limits. If something out there could match
Trello on the majority of features, add in the classic Kanban stuff
(optionally) and have a nice looking interface + mobile client, I'd be sold.

------
vortico
The quality of web apps seems to be inversely proportional to the vertical
length of its front webpage. So this looks pretty good!

For an app like this, dedicating the team's time to it should take no less
than 5 minutes of attention per person, about the time it takes someone to
deliver post-it notes to everyone's desk or mount a corkboard to the wall.
This also seems to work within that principle.

------
romanr
Nice product. We've been doing the same - "Task management is easy" being also
our headline at hiTask, [http://hitask.com](http://hitask.com) It's a task
management tool for teams, with mobile apps, Google sync integration and much
more.

------
waxjar
Is duplicating a project on the road map?

We've been looking for a tool with a good interface to use as a collaborative
check list. Every checklist shares the bulk of its tasks + it has a few unique
tasks per project. Duplicating the tasks by hand seems cumbersome.

If anyone has an alternative, it would be appreciated as well :)

~~~
someonedan
Hi waxjar, thanks for your comment.

Yes, duplicating projects is something other users have asked us for and it's
something we have in the pipeline. There are a lot of really great suggestions
we've had in recent weeks and this is just one that you can expect to see in
the run up to Christmas.

Thanks again for your suggestion,

Dan @ Someone.io

------
torizen
We use [https://svyft.com/](https://svyft.com/) and
[https://trello.com/](https://trello.com/) at office. This looks smilar but
will try it for a small upcoming project. Good work.

------
cheeyoonlee
Hey Lasse and team!

We just signed up and are giving it a spin. So far we love how simple and
light everything is at the moment. All the features were intuitive as well,
even those not explicitly stated i.e. dragging tasks around to reorder for
example. Super cool and looking forward to a mobile app ;)

------
lghh
I scanned over the product's landing page so it's possible that I missed it,
but I think something that organizes task priority by color should also have
some option for a color blind mode. I wish there was a way to demo the product
without giving my email and company name.

------
barking
Main priority of the website seems to be to get your email address rather
rather than to inform.

------
gloves
Ahhhhh!!! I've just got everyone onto trello after a bitter fight. This is too
much!

------
lokio9
Thumbs up! I gave it a try and ended up using it for my project!

These are the things I like about it:

1\. Simplicity and easy set up. 2\. I am not forced to provide my personal
information 3\. Customizable workspace 4\. Easy to invite co-workers

------
crystalc
Just from looking at it, it looks simple, clean and intuitive. Would love to
know how it's different from Trello, since it looks like you guys use Kanban
too.

------
juhq
Is it just me or are the icons on the screenshots misaligned? Seems to be off
by one pixel to some direction, I don't know why it seems so disturbing to me.

------
callesgg
Cant use services that are free for work, if stuff is free there is no
liability or even reason for the system provider to fix issues or problems.

Provide a paid version.

~~~
someonedan
Hi Callesgg, thanks for your comment.

i understand your point. A premium, paid solution is actually something we are
going to be releasing before the end of the year so you can put your mind at
ease on that one and feel free to test the product in the meantime.

Dan @ Someone.io

------
robotnoises
This is a killer UI. Congrats. Once you get a live demo rolling I'm willing to
bet you'll drum-up even more interest.

------
jnardiello
I fail (as well) to see how this is different from Trello and why I should
move all my trello stuff to here.

~~~
terjeto
Hi jnardiello. I replied to garrensmith who also wanted to know this. You can
read my reply there
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10330518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10330518)

------
dcre
> Someone looks simple and feels easy.

This may be the funniest tagline I've ever seen.

------
JamesAdir
Looks great! Could you please share what stack this is built on?

~~~
xav19
here is some clues:
[https://builtwith.com/?https%3a%2f%2fwww.someone.io%2f](https://builtwith.com/?https%3a%2f%2fwww.someone.io%2f)

------
jorgenblindheim
Trello is bloated with useless features, this is simple. Kudos!

~~~
rootlocus
That's because it's early in development. More features are planned for the
future :)

------
yAnonymous
I really expect a live demo for such things these days.

------
ckluis
fwiw, I’m still looking for a product that does task management well with good
integration/visibility of tasks within Slack.

~~~
someonedan
hi ckluis, thanks for your comment

we actually do integrate with slack! You can read a how to guide right here -
[http://blog.someone.io/post/117160294470/integrate-
slack](http://blog.someone.io/post/117160294470/integrate-slack)

Dan @ Someone.io

------
tomesch1982
Your logo looks like RoboVM [robovm.com].

~~~
terjeto
Thanks for pointing that out. Funny :-) We chose the ninja-logo as the product
was codenamed ninja in the beginning and we kinda liked it.

------
PhilWright
I would be more tempted to try this if there was a demo board that could be
viewed and interacted with without having to sign up. I am wary of giving my
email address before I can even see a basic example working.

~~~
dspillett
I tend to think similarly, but there are many ways to generate a temporary
email address.

It isn't the case here but site/app makings take note: _this is why I_ never
_" sign-in using <social media account or some such>" so if that is the only
option you offer I won't be trying your service/app/other._

For email I have a sub-domain set as catch-all and give out addresses in that
to new sites. If an address starts getting junk I can just block it. If the
sub-domain as a whole gets deluged then I kill it and start another (any
site/app/other I continue using gets given an address on my main domain so I'd
lose nothing, though I've never actually had to do that). Because it is a sub-
domain it gets skipped by junk mailers guessing commonname@domain.tld
addresses. Some sites have bad email address checking that rejects
something@sub.domain.co.uk (I assume their regexp doesn't like the extra dot
in the server name) but if someone gets that wrong I don't trust the code in
the rest of their app so I move on.

~~~
staticelf
Then it comes down to wether you are interested enough to go through and
create a temporary email to check it out. I was not that interested and rarely
is.

~~~
staffordrj
If you're on Chrome it's as easy as right clicking the email field. The
extension's called Easy disposable email address.

------
ramchandanianil
Useful

------
finalight
so how is this superior/different from other task management system like
teamwork, asana, trello, etc, etc...?

------
PeterStuer
Nice application! Task management for teams is exactly what we have been doing
at [http://tasksinabox.com/](http://tasksinabox.com/) . Besides streamlined
task operations, we aim to accommodate and sync your tasks across different
applications and sites, such as O365 and Outlook, and integrate with your
files and calendars on Microsoft and Google platforms as not having 'one more
task-list' was something our users were very keen on. We have a free tier so
you don't have to take my word for it. Uservoice is integrated in the app
site, and all feedback is more than welcome!

