
We just launched a new invoicing web app for under 10K. Check it out: Ballpark - alibosworth
http://getballpark.com/
======
patio11
I don't know how much of that $10k was for web design but however much it was
it was money well spent.

Interesting choices in the pricing plans. I'm not sure I like using SSL as a
differentiator -- I know it is quite common these days for many web apps, but
particularly with invoicing you're putting third party (client of client)
financial information out on an open wire because somebody was too cheap to
pick the $50 a month plan.

~~~
dcurtis
Yeah, SSL costs in total $30 a year, for all customers. No company should be
reckless with customer information, regardless of the tier they purchase.

Only charge for things that actually cost you time or money, otherwise your
customers will feel ripped off.

~~~
patio11
_Only charge for things that actually cost you time or money_

I can't agree with that. I charge money for software, which is free at the
margin. My customers don't feel ripped off about it, because their time is
not.

The worry with SSL is the security implication (particularly for people who
had no option to say "Please treat my data as non-sensitive! I totally don't
mind!"), not the fact that the code is making an arbitrary distinction between
user classes despite the cost to the company being the same for all users
(essentially nothing at the margin).

~~~
dcurtis
Sorry, I guess I didn't say that right.

I meant that you shouldn't charge for things that customers have the
perception of being free to you. People don't seem to like that. A customer
will think "Oh, more invoices if I pay X dollars more!" and that's tangible.
Those are physical invoices stored somewhere.

But when you try to charge for something stupid like the ability to change
colors or something, that seems to make people angry. I've done user testing
with payment tiers, and whenever someone asks "Why does this cost more? That's
stupid" they immediately have a bad taste in their mouth about the product.
And that's a first impression before they have even started to use it.

------
rickharrison
First thing that hit me was "wow great design." I actually am looking for a
designer for my next project. Could I contact you/metalabs about it?

~~~
lunaru
Disclaimer: I'm the author of <http://www.roninapp.com> (also an invoicing
app)

The designer for ballpark is definitely top-notch - the folks over at metalabs
are good at what they do. Keeping invoicing sexy is something that is hard to
do (but we're trying our best as well!)

Congrats on the launch - I'm sure the folks over at FreshBooks (who are the
obvious market leaders) are taking notice at all these invoicing/time-tracking
apps hitting the market (cashboard, invoicemachine, letsfreckle, among
others). It certainly speaks for how far we've come in Rapid Development and
how accessible good UX/design has become.

~~~
metalab
Ronin looks cool! We're glad to have some solid competition, and FreshBooks
could really use some.

~~~
sunir
Hey Andrew, Lu,

We do take notice. It's good to see a lot of other apps come into the market
with different ideas and approaches. It's definitely no good to end up in a
market of one.

P.S. Andrew, it's too bad we didn't hook up when I was out in Victoria last
summer. Are you coming to Toronto any time soon, by any chance?

Lu, similarly, I was just in SFO in January but I didn't reach out. My bad.
Next time I'm down, shall we have a beer?

\-- Sunir, Chief Handshaker, FreshBooks

~~~
quizbiz
I'm so impressed by that whole conversation between competitors. I'm
speechless. Best of luck to all of you...

------
alibosworth
For the record, this was going to be the title but it didn't fit:

"The small company I work with, Metalab, has just launched a new estimating
and invoicing web app for under 10k with no VC. It's called Ballpark, check it
out."

Thanks for the comments on the design, all of the credit for that goes to the
main Metalab guy, Andrew Wilkinson, see more here
<http://www.metalabdesign.com>

~~~
pclark
amazing portfolio site. Any suggestions on best way to learn your style of
design/javascript?

~~~
jfornear
i really like their style too. it looks like they use mootools and jquery for
most of the javascript effects, and as far as the look goes... you could play
around with PNGs, bevels, gradients, and strokes to get a similar style.

------
jerryji
Unfortunately more attention has been drawn to the design of your site than
its functionality.

While the design is great and you have all the reason to be proud of it, the
long term success of your business will tie mostly, if not all, to the
functionality rather than design.

~~~
wheels
As someone with a site with mediocre design, first impressions mean a lot.

I read a lot into a design. It tells me how professional the people I'm
dealing with are. It tells me if they're enterprise droids or if they're
working with small customers too.

We'll be either doing a new one ourselves or paying for one soon.

------
metalab
This is Andrew from MetaLab. I just wanted to say thanks for all the
compliments on the design. I hope that you guys will take it for a spin and
let us know what you think.

Quoted from cominatchu: "The 'under 10k' price tag is misleading because it
does not include the opportunity cost of the web designers time. In other
words, one has to calculate (the hours spent by Metalab web designers * their
normal hourly rate) and add this to 10k to arrive at a more accurate cost for
building this site."

Yes, we really did build it for less than $10k. Our key expenses were: Rails
development (1 developer a few hours a week), a SliceHost server, and some
custom icons we hired out. We're planning to break it down in more detail on
our blog in the next little while, but I'd like to debunk this a bit here.
You're absolutely right about the cost being higher if you consider what it
would normally cost at a full consulting rate, but I feel like that's kind of
fallacious logic:

If you learnt how to woodwork, built a bookshelf, then told your friends that
it cost you $15 (the price of the wood and a couple of screws), they aren't
going to argue that the true cost was $500 (the hours spent learning
woodworking or a carpenter's rate).

If a founder who was an incredible programmer paid himself $1,000/month during
the early months of his startup, would you say that his time really cost the
company $15,000 (what he would have charged at a consulting rate)?

The point isn't that someone with no technical skills can do this for 10k
(after all, this is Hacker News, and I assume most of you are highly skilled
in the field), we're just pointing out that we managed to create a business by
pulling a few extra hours a week over 6 months. We didn't have to quit our day
jobs, move to the valley, or build a board of advisors - we just went ahead
and built it. This isn't to say that it's an especially complex app or that it
is some sort of technical feat, just that a little bit of money went a long
way.

I don't think taking funding is always bad or anything, especially small seed
funding like YC. Sometimes advantageous ideas need money to make them happen.
The point is that most of you already have many of the skills required to
build things, so funding really shouldn't be a barrier to entry. If your idea
requires more money than you have, boil it down to the bare minimum and build
it within your budget. We could easily have decided that we wanted to build
the best invoicing app ever, figured out that invoicing was a 1.3 kagillion
dollar industry, secured some funding, built up the stakes, then gone crazy
with features. We could have convinced ourselves that we needed to close down
our consulting business, hire a full-time Rails developer, and move in
together. Instead we took a simple idea that we felt wasn't being done right,
boiled it down to its core, then built it when we had the time.

------
rksprst
You should have the pricing plans oriented to the top instead of the bottom.
Because I want to look at "estimates" and look over to the other pricing plans
to compare; with your format, the "estimate" is at a different eye level.

~~~
alibosworth
This is an excellent point, we will fix this.

------
cwilson
The UI is great, love the simplicity, but I really don't want to use Paypal
for anything. Freshbooks mails me a check or hooks up to any payment gateway I
want to use, meaning I don't shell out for Paypal's fees. I'm also not seeing
what this is doing that Freshbooks is not, other then having a nicer UI.

~~~
metalab
I think the key differentiation is the fact that Ballpark is built for teams.
This might not resonate with freelancers (who might just use it because it
works well and looks pretty), but, in most small businesses, more than one
person is usually involved in the process. For example, we run a design firm
(www.metalabdesign.com), and while I don't personally send out estimates or
invoices, I can easily keep track of incoming payments via the dashboard, give
sign off and comment, see what the numbers for the month were, etc.

Regarding PayPal: Nobody is required to use PayPal - it's totally optional.
We're definitely planning on looking into offering payment gateway solutions,
but at this point we are focused on polishing the core functionality and
adding some really cool new features that will help differentiate us from the
pack.

------
bkbleikamp
I saw the site a few days ago when @mike9r talked about it on Twitter and I am
impressed with it.

I have tried Blinksale and FreshBooks (who I guess are your two most obvious
competitors) and neither of those really worked out for me, so I am anxious to
give Ballpark beyond clicking around a bit. I am constantly looking for
something that is only as powerful as I need and fits nicely into my work
flow.

My favorite feature is definitely the "news feed" that shows comments /
payments / etc. - that is a great way to visualize what has gone on with the
project.

And yes, great design :)

------
cominatchu
The "under 10k" price tag is misleading because it does not include the
opportunity cost of the web designers time. In other words, one has to
calculate (the hours spent by Metalab web designers * their normal hourly
rate) and add this to 10k to arrive at a more accurate cost for building this
site.

------
webwright
On the signup page, what percentage of people do you think undferstand the
symbol for "infinity"?

Would recommend using the word "unlimited" instead.

Pretty nitpicky, though-- outstanding work and is serving a need that all
businesses have. I'm more bullish on this startup than 99% of the startups
that are introduced here.

------
pclark
whats the breakdown of that $10K?

~~~
bradgessler
Also, how long did it take from idea to implementation?

------
henriklied
The site looks absolutely amazing. Tried a free account for now, and I like
the overall feel.

One thing I'd love to see: Implement autosave of invoice drafts, or at least a
JavaScript popup whenever I try to navigate away from an unsaved form.

------
azrealus
I see some similarities to 37signals' layout design...

~~~
rdmlx
That's because they share the same graphic designer.. look at the portfolio.

~~~
simonk
Uh, 37signals use to be a design firm while they were building their startup.
They design inhouse, only some sort of companion app for 37signals was
designed by that graphic designer.

------
sobriquet
Nice demo video!

One nit-picky detail, at 2:57, the VO says the Dashboard will "show how much
money we received this month, last month, and last year, in addition to all
the money you expect to receive in the coming weeks" The video shows 'received
year to date', not what was received last year.

Probably not worth re-recording the VO (it sounds professionally done), and
re-encoding, but I figured you should know :)

------
patrickg-zill
I like it, however I think you should allow more invoices to be sent at the
lower level of the plans. Maybe just focus on the per-user limitations, and
make the estimates generation more generous. Also everything should be over
SSL - better for you and better for your customers, since if there is a data
breach by the user they will still blame you.

------
auston
The metalabdesign guys are amazing!! I'm assuming you got the design for less
than $10k? If so I need to contact those people!!

------
eguanlao
I love it! I'm inspired. There are so many problems out there to be solved
with Web applications, and money to be made.

------
mdolon
In the pricing plan page, the titles of each plan are a bit hard to read as
they are black on a dark blue background.

------
bcater
I was discussing building an internal payment management system over lunch
today. Do you have an API that we could use instead?

As others have said, kudos on the design.

------
rymngh
You should really consider free membership with less features.

~~~
metalab
We actually do have a free plan. If you look on the plans page, it's in the
blue bar "Or, sign up for our free personal plan".

------
merrick33
I am curious what program you created the screencast in?

~~~
metalab
We used a really great app called ScreenFlow for the Mac.

------
jpwagner
Great concept, great design, great execution.

How much is "ballpark.com"?

------
geuis
None of the buttons or links worked on my iPhone.

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csomar
wow it's great! It seems also to have many features.

But I don't have much work online to go for it :)

\-- Not accepting PayPal is a bad point --

