

Please rate my startup: ZigzagCloud - A Mobile File Management System. - schappim
http://zigzagcloud.com
I'd like to get some early feedback about my new startup, Zigzag Cloud: A Mobile File Management System for Business.
http://zigzagcloud.com/&#60;p&#62;The goal of Zigzag Cloud is to provide a dead simple, and secure way for managers to get company files out to their employees iOS devices (iPads initially).
These files could be Sales Content, Training Material, Board Papers or anything else you want to view on your iPad or iPhone.&#60;p&#62;Our core features are around security, tagging and permissions.&#60;p&#62;Having large "health clients" as foundation clients, security is really important to us; we have end to end encryption and a users &#38; groups permissions structure that ensures that client's files are safe.&#60;p&#62;The app has been designed so that users can sync files to their device for offline use, but must check in to the server once every 5 days to maintain access to their locally stored files.&#60;p&#62;Today we support all the MS Office Documents, iWork, Text Files, Images, Music, Video and of course PDFs.&#60;p&#62;We also can view HTML docs within the app which has lead to some interesting experimentation around HTML5 based apps within Zigzag Cloud.&#60;p&#62;For the techies: 
We're running on Rails 3 with nginx and Postgresql. On the client side we've got a talented iOS team which has written the app from scratch.&#60;p&#62;If you feel like telling us about what your dream Mobile File Management System would be like, let us know too, we really want to hear about what our (future) users want!&#60;p&#62;Thanks in advance! Marcus
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dools
I think one of the main problems you might have here (and I'm only speaking
from my point of view on seeing this) is that you're solving a problem people
don't know they have yet.

I looked at the site, the descriptions, etc. and I still don't have a clear
idea of what impact the product will have on my life.

If the terminology "Mobile File Management", "Content Management" and "Content
Distribution" have specific meaning amongst your target audience then what I'm
saying doesn't count but to me they're sort of meaningless.

Try telling me a story. The questions I'm asking are: Where were these files
created? Who created them? Why do I want to share them? Who do I want to share
them with? What other ways of sharing them exist and why are those
problematic?

A video wouldn't go astray[1] and you should also check out this video (which
I've linked to about a billion times since I first watched it) where Simon
Sinek tells us that "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it"[2].

Oh ... and Reprazent the Sydney startup scene bwooooy! Ping me (email in
profile) we should catch up for a coffee sometime :) Us Aussies have to stick
together.

[1][http://www.decalcms.com/page/What_I%27ve_learned_about_makin...](http://www.decalcms.com/page/What_I%27ve_learned_about_making_product_videos)

[2][http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html)

~~~
schappim
Hey Iain,

Thank you for your comments.

Re: The terminology.

You're right. We've been wondering about how you market such a product. We
have a close relationship with a certain fruit company and they've been
feeding us some good leads every time a crate worth of their product goes out.

The need becomes very apparent when you have 50 iPads and need to get content
out to them.

I'm always up for a coffee, I'll flick you an email!

Cheers,

Marcus

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mitjak
I'm not the target audience but wanted to chime in with a few things about the
design and copy:

* Why is the iPhone 3 times larger than an iPad? I got a little confused the first time the site loaded trying to figure out what the giant black device behind the iPad is.

* "Signup Now". English isn't my native language but I'm fairly certain "signup" is a noun, and you want the verb or "sign up" instead

* "Zigzag Cloud has powered built-in analytics". Powered by what? Or is it "powerful"?

* Love the logo and the colour scheme of the site!!

~~~
sixty
this is a classic hacker's critique. Let's look at your comments from a user's
point of view:

> Why is the iPhone 3 times larger than an iPad?

Irrelevant. Users won't care.

> "Signup Now". English isn't my native language ...

Irrelevant. Users won't care.

> "Zigzag Cloud has powered built-in analytics". Powered by what? Or is it
> "powerful"?

Irrelevant. Users won't care.

> Love the logo and the colour scheme of the site!!

Relevant. Users will care :)

~~~
jasongullickson
This is "Hacker News", not "User News".

~~~
sixty
So user perspectives aren't welcome?

~~~
jasongullickson
I'm just saying that criticizing someones feedback because it characterizes
the audience of the site is illogical.

~~~
sixty
fair enough. mitjak did also warn he/she wasn't the target audience.

------
sixty
I like the idea and the design is very good.

I think the landing page could do with an overhaul. The main issue is it's not
_immediately_ obvious what the product does. What exactly is "mobile file
management", "content management" and "content distribution"? HN users could
tell you, and if they didn't know they could probably make an educated guess
but what about the office manager who currently uses email to share files?

To be fair, further down the page you have this:

"Zigzag Cloud is an easy to use Mobile File Management (MFM) System for
business. Sync your documents, meeting notes, training material, or sales
presentations to your team's iOS devices over the air without"

I think it could be simplified and moved to the top of the page. Something
like:

"Zigzag cloud lets you share presentations, spreadsheets and other files with
your team using ipad and iphone (coming soon)".

It would also be interesting to A/B test the wording, design and placement of
the download button. I think you'd see more downloads if you ditched the
'learn more' button (make it a prominent link on another part of the page
instead) and if you removed the popup for the download button - you've already
told the user it's an iOS app and that only the iPad version is currently
available. There's no need to repeat that info. I'd be tempted to try
something simpler like "Download from iTunes".

~~~
schappim
Hey Sixty,

This feedback has been invaluable! Thank you!

"Zigzag cloud lets you share presentations, spreadsheets and other files with
your team using ipad and iphone (coming soon)". - Expect this change on the
site shortly!

Re: Button text and pop-ups.

You're absolutely right, we'll make that change asap.

Cheers,

Marcus

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flixic
My suggestions on pricing:

\- severely limit free plan, to maybe 2 users, 200MB

\- make currently free plan quite cheap, maybe $20, so it would appeal more to
small businesses.

Everything else, especially the design, is very professional, and inspires
trust. Still trying out the app, but at a glance, it seems really nice.

~~~
schappim
Hi Flixic,

We really appreciate your feedback! Yup, limiting the free plan sound like a
good idea. We're still exploring how to best appeal to small business. I think
when you're at the 2-person stage Dropbox is still a great solution.

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

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Udo
I think it's a great concept and the site looks professional. I'm not sure
about the viability of the pricing plan though, but I don't have enough
knowledge about the costs involved and the typical usage profiles to make a
better suggestion. However, I did get the impression that your competitors
(such as Dropbox) may offer more for less.

One question though: on the front page you say that people can try ZigzagCloud
one month for free. But on the pricing page there seems to be an entirely free
usage tier without any time limit. You should probably clear that up somehow.

~~~
schappim
Hi Udo,

You've got some great points. I love Dropbox (for better or worse my life
lives inside it).

We excel in an environment where an organisation needs to push content out to
their employees in a managed environment. For example pushing sales content
out to staff.

Our security model allows you to push content out to staff, but manage how
that content is used. For example you might have some sales content that an
employee can view and open with a potential client, and you may allow that
content to be shared with the client via email. You might have other content
that is for internal use only, such as training content, this content can be
watermarked 'confidential' and sharing is disabled.

We also force the iOS app to check in every 5 days to ensure that polices are
maintained on the device.

In short, Dropbox is a fantastic personal consumer product. We're aiming at
the corporate market, it's almost like a CMS for iPad.

BTW, you're right on the money with the "one month free" versus "free plan",
we'll fix that right up!

Thanks for your feedback, I really appreciated it.

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

~~~
Udo
I see. I wish you all the best, keep us informed! :-)

------
nhoss2
It sort of looks like dropbox with a few extra features - I guess it is always
good to have competition. But what is up with the pricing? I don't think too
many people will pay $100 per month for 5gb

~~~
schappim
Hey Nhoss2,

Yeah dropbox is consumer, we're aiming at business. I love dropbox, but it
isn't great when I need to push sensitive content out to a sales force or a
board and know that I can yank access / enforce current versions etc when I
need to.

Re: Pricing...

You're right, it's not cheap, but we hope it's good value for a select type of
clients.

As an individual I wouldn't use Zigzag Cloud, but if I had a business I
wouldn't use Dropbox.

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

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sunchild
You ought to say more about security. I would never touch a document solution
that doesn't include technical details about its security measures and
credentials.

~~~
jasongullickson
Right, this does look very interesting (and any sort of Sharepoint integration
is going to appeal to the "enterprise" market) but in light of recent events
I'm not even considering any "cloud" service that doesn't employ encrypted
storage and extensive logging.

If you did those two things you'd be safer than dropbox which is something
else that lubricates sales to the business market.

~~~
schappim
Hi Jason,

Thanks for your comment. We encrypt on the server, in transport and on the
device.

As you know, Dropbox doesn't have a users & groups permissions model, nor do
they have encryption because they de-duplicate files on the backend.

We also have a beta of the web service which can reside on a VM behind the
corporate firewall.

Cheers,

Marcus (@schappi)

~~~
jasongullickson
Thanks for the info Marcus!

I've been looking hard for a service to replace Dropbox with and yours is the
first I've found that provides encryption of the files on the server as well
as an iOS interface.

Will you be providing an API for third-party applications? This is another
area where Dropbox seems to dominate and is important especially for iOS users
who can't use files stored this way unless they are accessible via an API of
some sort.

~~~
schappim
Hi Jason,

Server side encryption is a tick box we've had to do for our health clients.

We've been actively building an iOS SDK that is very similar to Dropbox's own
SDK (the idea being that we'll be able to provide a low barrier to entry for
other devs that have already implemented Dropbox's SDK).

We have a RESTful private API that as each day goes by is getting more and
more locked down. We're looking forward to making it public as soon as
possible.

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

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encoderer
Honestly, I hate the name. I know you probably thought a bit about it and
accepted that such a unique name would have people who dislike it. So I'm sure
this isn't news to you, but yes, I hate the name.

It doesn't roll off my tongue. Without checking for .com availability, I would
personally find ZagCloud (preferably) or ZigCloud a far better option.

~~~
schappim
Hi Encoderer,

I hate to admit it, but I think you're right!

Cheers,

Marcus

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13rules
Interesting service. One thing I didn't like was having to enter a credit card
in order to sign up for the free plan ... I'd get rid of that - don't ask for
credit card information until they purchase a plan and you are going to charge
them.

------
Jimmyjacobson
How do the users work? Is it like Dropbox where I can sign up for a free
account and then have subscribers to the bigger accounts share with me or do I
have a new account for every hosted plan I'm shared with?

~~~
schappim
Hi Jimmy,

Thanks for the question.

We have the concept of account owners/admins. The account owner can access
Zigzag Cloud via a web interface and create further users and groups.

All users can access content via the iOS client, but only admins can access
the web interface.

Within the web interface admins can:

* Upload new content * Tag Content * Create Users and Groups * Set access permissions to folders within the system * Do account admin-y stuff

Cheers,

Marcus (@schappi)

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synnik
Looks fine, but as a potential customer, my main question is not answered:

Why should I stop using SugarSync in favor of you?

~~~
schappim
Hi Synnik,

Thanks for your comment. In a sentence: We provide encryption end to end, a
granular permissions structure.

Cheers,

Marcus

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swatthatfly
There should be an option to buy additional storage space, if needed.

~~~
schappim
HI Swatthatfly,

Great point! We should really add that as an option. FYI we have found that
for most clients the number of users has been the limiting factor, not the
amount of storage.

I appreciate the feedback!

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

