Ask HN: Need feature advice for startup

[gotouday]

I am building a simple communication platform for small to medium companies. It is a webapp (Saas). I built a messaging system look like an e-mail and a forum for discussion. I built admin system for centralized administration. I am now building chat for real time communication. What else can I do to make it better? Actually these companies are still using a desktop e-mail client and maintain their own e-mail server for communication, which will not allow real time communication and when I was an employee of a company which was using this desktop e-mail client, I was asked to not to send too many messages because they are not able to maintain the server load. I want to change that and I also want the employees more engaged. What else can I add to make it better? Another thing is that the users are not so tech savvy. They use computer to get their work done. They do not know about blogging, twitter, social networking etc.

[smiler]

Suggest you get your application online and invite HNers to take a look?

It will be much easier to offer advice when we can see your product and what it's trying to achieve

[gotouday → smiler]

my startup is similar to socialcast, yammer, but my approach is different. I want to add more features and and some other socialnetworking stuff.

[vindicated]

One question you might benefit from is that if the users aren't tech savvy, will they be 'willing' to change the way they work?

I help maintain my university's portal, and often the biggest problem is to convince people that the way they collaborate needs to change.

[gotouday → vindicated]

You are right, but actually these people are currently using IM and emails for the communication because communication is essential for the work they are doing. I want to move these to web and make them more personalized and customized to that particular community or company.