Hey Hacker News,
I have finished this after 2 months and made the entire thing free (up to 2 projects) for you all to try out, all you need is an account.
Thansk and enjoy,
Dan
Some feedback after opening the link, from the perspective of someone that has looked at, and in many cases used, lots of this type of software.
What problem are you solving? This is probably related to the lack of discussion of features.
What are you doing that other services in this space aren't doing?
Why should someone trust you with their data? Also, you want a lot of information that few people are going to give you without even knowing anything about your product beyond the tiny bit on the homepage. You'd be much better off providing a demo page.
There's no info about pricing.
Is anyone currently using it? Would someone signing up be nothing more than an unpaid bug finder?
Thanks for the feedback,
I am solving the problem of project management software specifically for freelancers. I am trying to implement AI features into this tool. It is currently in the early stages of development and I am currently adding more features to adapt it to mobile. I am also integration more AI into the software, such as a feature for auto task priority. I can provide a demo page, this will take some time to implement though.
The info about pricing is on the pricing page once you signed up, I can put pricing on the home page if this would make it easier. There is a free tier on sign up.
I do not intend for the people signing up to be unpaid bug finders if you feel this is what is happenin. I mostly wanted people to use the service just to see what they think instead of using them to find bugs.
Thanks again for your feedback.
Be super clear on why you want to add AI. Is it solving some specific problem better than a non-AI approach (like maybe a library of pattern matching where tasks like “Ask Jane…” or “Learn about…” bubble to the top)? Or, let’s be honest — we’re all friends here — do you just want an excuse to play with AI?
Project management software is a solution, not a problem. An example of a problem could be that freelancers are forgetting things, or don't have time to get their work done, or have trouble finding clients, etc
> Project management software is a solution, not a problem.
Yeah. I don't pay anyone for software, I pay them to get rid of a problem. One example from when I used to do more consulting was having to send information to the client securely. I didn't look for software, I looked for a way to do what I needed, and to do it in a way that met the client's needs.
Congrats on launching! Most people who have an idea for a project like this never build it. Most people who build their projects never launch them. You're doing great!
Something that rattled me several times when releasing my own projects like this is that once I released my thing I'd expect people to start using it. Most of the time, after I built things nobody cared. I felt really discouraged and would try working on something else to see if people might start using the new thing, but the same thing would happen.
What I've come to realize is that building things is its own skillset distinct from the skill of figuring out what needs to be built which is distinct from the skill of telling people about it. I wasn't (and still am not great) at the last two, but I've been working towards getting better at it by practicing things like:
- talking to customers like a researcher (ie: without asking leading questions like "do you like it?"). Deploy Empathy and The Mom Test were great resources for this.
- figuring out where potential customers hang out online, what their problems are, and how they talk about them. 30x500 was a great resource for me here.
- learning an explore/exploit system for marketing to figure out how to build machines that take in a dollar and spit out more than a dollar. Traction by Gabriel Weinberg is the best resource I've found here so far.
For a good overview of the whole system of building profitable SaaS businesses I've recently really enjoyed The SaaS Playbook by Rob Walling.
It's great that you've got this up and running, but as many others will no doubt ask: why would I use this if I have hundreds of other choices? What value are you adding that others haven't got to yet? Best of luck with it, well done for getting something out of the door.
Any tips on staying for consistent with your project in your free time? I'm torn between pushing to finish my projects vs just accepting that I'm very interested in something else right now and accepting that and allowing myself to enjoy the new thing.
Yeah, I had a similar issue with motivation to build this when I had other ideas throughout building the software. This may seem strange but the way I dealt with it is basically by buying the domain so in my head I would just think that I’ve wasted the 20 or so pounds(the currency) on buying that which would almost deter me from going to a different project. Maybe just put up like a small financial incentive to get it running like the fact that if I didn’t launch it would be a waste of 20 or so pounds. Hope this helps. By financial incentive I didn’t mean like making money, even though that’s the goal for a business, I meant more losing money to costs to set it up.
Hey Dan, what makes this better than other project management tools?
It wasn't obvious to me that I could scroll to read more. I clicked 'Get started' to find out more. I think it might be at least worth making it more obvious that you can scroll.
Thanks for the feedback, and sorry for the long response time.
I have tried to make this tool target the specific niche of freelancers to meet their needs as best as I could think of. I am currently trying to add more AI features to the tool to make the product stand out more as a lot of the responses have been asking why the software is unique.
I will make sure to show that you can scroll as this is a problem that has been highlighted by a few people.
Again thanks for the feedback, hope this helps answer your question.
Thanks, I will make sure to fix that. I can’t believe I didn't notice. I think it’s because I invested most of my time into building the platform instead of the landing page as I am more towards the development side instead of marketing or sales.
As an aside, I wouldn’t mention “2 months” anywhere but to your friends here. To someone working hard on a project, 2 months can feel like an eternity. To someone outside that project, 2 months sounds like a pretty tiny project someone worked on for funsies.
“All you need is an account” is more of a blocker for your target market than you might expect. I’d recommend some mechanism like “click here for a demo” that creates a temporary account that gets deleted after a couple hours. That’s way more likely to get me to play with it to see what it can do than registering for Yet Another Test Account is.
Thank you for your feedback.
I mentioned 2 months for the reasons that you said but seeing it from that point of view has made me realize it does seem like a short amount of time.
I am working on adding a demo which showcases the kanban board and the project brief section of the page with the time tracking. I am also going to add limited AI features to the demo(as AI is expensive) to showcase some of the unique features with the possibility of an assistant for you to ask questions.
The demo doesn’t require an account and will be available soon. I will submit another show when I have the demo finished for you all to check out.
What problem are you solving? This is probably related to the lack of discussion of features.
What are you doing that other services in this space aren't doing?
Why should someone trust you with their data? Also, you want a lot of information that few people are going to give you without even knowing anything about your product beyond the tiny bit on the homepage. You'd be much better off providing a demo page.
There's no info about pricing.
Is anyone currently using it? Would someone signing up be nothing more than an unpaid bug finder?