You can cancel at anytime from within ScrumPad (Admin > Cancel Subscription). You are responsible for any amount due at the time of cancelation(sp). There is no undo for cancellation. Once your account is cancelled(sp), all your project information will be immediately and permanently deleted. In future, we will allow you to export all project data for a fee.
I would seriously rethink this. There should not be a fee to cancel. I would personally never pay for a service that would lock me in like that. My data is my data and I am only using any service for organization of that data.(project management, todo lists, etc)
It also adds a barrier to entry because once a customer chooses to try it out they are stuck with it. On the other hand if you were to allow free export it would be a definite selling point. Will they have to pay a fee at the end of a 30 day trial to export the data?
I would also suggest not deleting the data for at least a month or two. Just disable the actions of the site.
I agree, this is a questionable policy. You should be able to "cancel" (i.e., stop paying) for a couple months and then come back later. This would cover cases where, e.g., people go on vacation, or take a consulting gig to pay the bills and don't need the service for a bit.
Good point. We haven't charged anyone for data export yet though. When you cancel most SaaS, you lose your data. I don't know of any service that allows you to keep your data even after you cancel subscription and can come back and reactivate. However, we like the idea. Maybe we will allow users to do that.
To build on my comment below "...I think it's a good design. The #fail didn't come until i clicked the (bootstrapped) link and landed on a FAQ not related to the promotion..."
After spending a few minutes on the site I found in the signup form, when i hovered over the tiny little ? icon what the criteria is for this promotion. Great, I qualify. However, the signup form is VERY painful. Do you really need all that info? The only thing you probably need are Company Name, Email and Password. Assume everything else and give the users a way to set those once they've signed up.
This is just my 2 cents. Overall your design, and the product itself looks really good. The signup just seems to be a weakness.
Syed - Are you A/B testing the three big bullet points at the top of the page? I read all three, and said "I'm pretty satisfied with what I use today, maybe, no." I probably would have left the page then under any other circumstances (update: "any other circumstances" meaning had I not found this link through HN posted by the founder of the company).
Also, the 'free for bootstrapped startups' section is below the fold on my 1680x1050px screen. Plus, the text in that section (once I found it) doesn't give me a lot of confidence in your longevity (don't get me wrong, I'm bootstrapped, too. It's just a psychological hurdle other users of yours will need to overcome).
The whole concept of a fold is ridiculous to begin with (for the most part), but then to give feedback that the "here's how you get our paid app for free" link is not front and center? Really?
In the 10 seconds I spent looking at ScrumPads home page, I think it's a good design. The #fail didn't come until i clicked the link and landed on a FAQ not related to the promotion. I'd be interested, but I couldn't find more promotion details. Because of this, we'll probably stick with Unfuddle and their ticketing system.
I will say that yes, this HN thread is a promotion, and therefore, the URL should take us to a new landing page highlighting the promotion. Not to the general home page.
The article is entitled "ScrumPad Offers Free Subscription for Bootstrapped Startups," I'm using a fairly high-res screen, and I don't see a 'free subscription for bootstrapped startups' link anywhere.
I can scroll, but I won't unless something captures my interest. A free subscription might, but not if I'm not aware of it.
On an unrelated note, you should consider using only one JS library on your website (260KB of JS on the home page seems excessive), decreasing the size of the larger JPGs on the main page, and minifying your CSS. There's no reason a production website should have a table of contents in its stylesheets.
