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Ask HN: Review our new bug tracker
13 points by thenduks on Mar 23, 2011 | hide | past | web | favorite | 6 comments
We're launching our pet project today - bugrocket.

It's a small, lean bug tracker meant for small teams. We trimmed and trimmed the spec down over the course of development and what we've got is the core of what we think will be great.

We're looking for some constructive feedback to fuel our first major iteration after launch.

Some stuff that's high on the list:

  - A live demo with real-looking data to play with
  - A video, or several very short ones showing off some of the UI
  - A full API (for doing imports and so on)
What do you think oh wise HN populace?

https://bugrocket.com




Looks very nice. I'd also like a demo to try.

Pricing seems way out of whack IMO. I wouldn't try it because I don't think your pricing model is sustainable. What if a 1000-person company comes to you and signs up? You'll instantly be in the red from a usage/cost standpoint (i.e. what you pay for storage/servers). What if you sign up 100 10-person teams and all 100 use 10GB of storage? You'll go bankrupt paying the usage/meter fees and there goes all of our bug reports/tracking.

I think it's fine to promote simple but "one size fits all" doesn't seem viable to me.

And why reinvent the wheel ("no credit card required")? There's a reason that 100,000 other web startups require a credit card to start the free trial. Why would you buck the trend? I guess another way to say it is, "What is it that those other companies have learned in the past 10+ years of marketing apps on the web that you think is wrong?"


Hey thanks a lot for the feedback.

On pricing: This is a real concern, so I hear you. We've considered the cost of data storage and are fairly confident in the model. In the unlikely event that 100 accounts use 10GB each, we'll be doing fine. A 1000 person company is also way out of our target demographic here, the app is purposefully not designed for that many users. What your comments on this subject say to me, at the core, is that we need to prioritize a full API so that one can easily take their data with them if an unfortunate situation like you describe ever arises.

On no-credit-card-for-signup: This is a big one. We argued and debated about it for a long time. It comes down to the fact that while requiring a credit card in order to start a free trial is common, we just don't like it. Conversion is harder, to be sure, but we feel that letting people try the service without a credit card is a good way to encourage as many people as possible to actually try it. Also, there's a great discussion on this at http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/blog/negative-optio... that heavily influenced our decision here.

Appreciate the comment!


I built/launched a very similar product a few months back. Even has the same plan for the same price, and targeted at the same market:

http://trackjumper.com

Honestly, it's been a slog to get people to sign up and stay. AdWords is dominated by the giants who can pay more and SEO is competitive as hell for even a trickle of traffic. I've got a few tricks up my sleeve, but this is a tough niche.


I like the animation between the screens of the tour, but I'd like even more to be able to try out a demo of the bug tracker.

Also, I'd avoid using a quote from a bugrocket founder as a testimonial.


Hey, thanks. My testimonial on the page is a bit of a joke at the moment. Since we're really early in the process here there aren't many people to get testimonials from :)

As for the demo, as I mentioned, that's definitely on our radar. Have some cool ideas on the subject, stay tuned.


Clickable: https://bugrocket.com




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