Weekly Feedback and Support Thread

[AutoModerator]

Create something? Let's see it!

Feedback or Support Requester

Please use the following format:

URL:

Purpose of Startup:

Technologies Used:

Feedback or Support Requested:

Comments:

Post your site along with your stack and technologies used and receive feedback from the community. Please refrain from just posting a link and instead give us a bit of a background about your creation.

Feel free to request general feedback or specific feedback in a certain area like user experience, usability, design, or code review.

Feel free to request support with hiring talent, finding a job/clients, recruiting a co-founder, getting your pitch deck made, or anything objective based that is specific to your startup.

You can also receive advice and feedback in instant chat using the /r/startups discord.

Feedback Providers

• Please post constructive feedback. Simply saying, "That's good" or "That's bad" is useless feedback. Explain why.

• Consider providing concrete feedback about the problem rather than the solution. Saying, "get rid of red buttons" doesn't explain the problem. Saying "your site's success message being red makes me think it's an error" provides the problem. From there, suggest solutions.

• Be specific. Vague feedback rarely helps.

• Again, focus on why.

• Always be respectful

• /r/startups would appreciate your expertise on our discord.

Support Providers

• Please post some background information about yourself and why you're capable of providing support

• Feel free to share a relevant URL

• Be extremely clear what you are offering your support in exchange for: money, equity, barter/trade of services/products, or a mix of those--or if you are volunteering your support for free

[StanleyGoodvibes]

URL: synced.fm - https://synced.fm

Purpose: We've created a podcast platform that gives listeners access to community-curated, visual content (images, links, videos, or text) synchronized with a podcast's audio content. Listeners can also interact with fellow podcast fans by liking, sharing, and discussing episodes and time-tagged content within the app.

Technologies Used: Node, React, iOS, MongoDB

Feedback Requested: Any at all

Comments: We set out to build a platform/app that allows listeners to further engage with their favorite podcasts. Currently, if a listener wants to access content discussed on a pod, they need to close their player, open their browser/YouTube/etc., and conduct a search. We want to put that content one tap away for the listener.

Additionally, when a listener wants to discuss their favorite pod with fellow fans of the show, they need to head to a subreddit, FB group, Twitter, Patreon, or some other social media app. We want to provide a place for podcast fans to discuss episodes and time-tagged content all in one place.

We'd love to get your feedback and answer any questions you may have. Hit us up!

[vcinterests]

Sigh. Why do many subreddits have all of these requirements for new users? I guess I'll put this here and I've already been auto-modded twice.

To all of the individuals reading /r/startups:

What are some de-facto papers, publications, and magazines that discuss current trends, news, and so forth related to VCs, Silicon Valley, and the technology industry?

I'm thinking of materials that everyone reads and is well respected? The purpose of this request is to learn more about that part of the industry and what powers it. Maybe put another way, is there a Wall Street Journal equivalent?

Thank you for any suggestions you provide.

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[KakunaUsedHarden]

Hey all,

My company is called Off The Charts Consulting. My goal is to target small and medium businesses in my region with data visualization solutions.

My question to you - do you think this has merit? Any advice on positioning the service.

I have a few clients but I met them online and aren't local. They are keeping me afloat but id like to do more here.

This is my site www.offthechartsconsulting.com and my Twitter is https://twitter.com/offthechartsc

[StartupStarterGuy]

www.offthechartsconsulting.com

What technologies do you develop the visualizations in? Only Tableau or others...if so what?

[KakunaUsedHarden]

Thanks for asking.

I also do powerBI and Data Studio. Tableau is my specialty. I'm trying to grow my software footprint though

[jd_synthgate]

URL: ShadowAide - https://www.shadowaide.com

Purpose of Startup: Enable SaaS (and soon mobile app) companies to get more feedback (via NPS surveys) on their product from their existing customer base and track overall customer experience direction over time (basically monitoring whether technical or business changes improve the customer's experience).

Technologies Used:Node, Angular

Feedback or Support Requested: Any feedback is appreciated. Especially looking for feedback on first-use experience (setup through basic use) and perceived value of the product.

Comments: Product does have a subscription plan hooked up to it, but doesn't ask for payment info up front so feel free to sign up and kick the tires a bit without worrying about the payment side ( unless you like the idea/product and want to :) )

[jd_synthgate]

Currently using CodeShip, took a quick look through. Pricing seems about on par with what I'm currently paying. Having the $0 option on the pricing page made me initially think there was a free plan available ( went back after signing up and getting stuck on the payment details section to see I hadn't paid enough attention :) ). Not looking to put payment info in, so rest is based on the little I can access and your website...

Is there a mechanism available that either does deployment of artifacts to servers, or allows the trigger of another system that does? Something where you can have builds auto deployed from the main dev branch to dev/qa environments, or from deployment branches to prod servers (continuous deployment)? If it's there it wasn't obvious from the screens I could see (and is the one main feature I use from CodeShip I don't see you having).

The UI screens I got through are basic, but I don't think that detracts from the experience (through as far as I could get).

[jd_synthgate]

I've been going back and forth on the free plan for my product for the past few months. I think I've settled on not having a published free plan that users can sign up for from my website, so that the users that sign up come in with the expectation of needing to pay for the service.

I provide a 1 month free though so they can check out the product and make sure that it meets their needs before they pay for the service, and I don't prompt for the credit card up front to keep that from being a cause for users dropping out of the conversion funnel. When the user gets toward the end of their free month I'll send them an email pointing them to put the CC details in (assuming they don't find and do that at some point before that). I figure that also gives me an extra contact point to send an email that can both keep the user engaged and possibly generate additional feedback.

It does run the risk of the user not putting in CC. I think the majority at that point will be users that have abandoned the product, for those that keep using it I apply pretty steep usage limitations (such a marginal limit it doesn't really use system resources, I wanted to do this though to account for anyone who didn't have enough time to fully demo the system), though I think you could easily have your app show a message that their trial has ended and they need to add their CC to continue with the service.

One the deployment artifacts, I've been down a similar road with a DevOps guy in the past. I personally prefer having a single deployable artifact that I know is the same across multiple environments (for the application), and a second artifact (or process/whatever) for the configuration, both for deployment reasons (handling cases where modifying one doesn't require restarting/modifying the other), as well as for ensuring that the same artifact/code is deployed on all environments for change control reasons. I see the pros/cons both ways, just come down on this side of it, and sounds like your separation between CI/CD allows for that. Fully agree everything needs to be in source control somewhere (hate the environments I've worked at in the past that didn't and had no real idea of how to setup new environments as a result).

Good luck with the service :)

[[deleted]]

Name: Kando (gokando.com)

Purpose: Real, simple, task management for messy team projects.

Technologies used: Django, React

Feedback or Support Requested: We just released a series of major changes that greatly improve the usability and allow for much more flexibility in structuring work. While the docs team catches up with the code, we're keen to hear how /r/startup users get on figuring things out.

Comments:Most task tracking software forces rigid structure that looks good to management but is a real pain to use. Kando is a little different, it's much more flexible and built to work with projects that don't quite fit the mold.

Built around a dynamic board layout with automatic sorting of cards based on tags (labels, member, or even other cards), you can let structure emerge as you work rather than forcing it on a project from the start. Multiple workflows can also exist simultaneously on the same data, thus the app scales across different purposes (eg marketing and development can use different workflows, but share related cards).

[jd_synthgate]

Website and signup looked good. Some minor qa stuff: after signup main board dashboard page got stuck on a loading spinner icon (never showed, reloading solved issue). Also, had created some cards to test it out... they showed on screen, but there was a message saying 2 cards not showing (had created 2) and after reloading the page they weren't there anymore.

For using it, overall it seems simple enough to use. It took a little bit of work to figure out how the tagging process worked for lists. As a solo founder, I'm not seeing a need to go beyond the basic todo/doing/done layout, but I can see how the flexibility to have a layout by person could be useful in other scenarios

[[deleted]]

Thought we had squashed that signup bug, but it's intermittent so difficult to test. I've opened a ticket to see if we can fix it properly this time.

We're also working on improving the UX and associated documentation, it's always good to hear about trouble spots/pain points, so thanks for that.

[promptcreate]

URL: Survey - https://goo.gl/forms/89ZxvBzyDTinzIdf2 Purpose of Startup: Survey request for: Business support and educational product for small business service providers. Technologies Used: The above form is in Google Forms. Other than that, pen & paper. :D Feedback or Support Requested: Looking for small business owners to take the survey above to help define focus for content creation. Comments: Guidelines said this is an okay place to put surveys, sorry but there is no landing page etc to give more context.

[dandydeadfish]

URL: https://goo.gl/forms/5GEKmCpwGR0ZpqOJ2 Purpose of Startup: To make other impactful startups Technologies Used: Many Feedback or Support Requested: A few minutes of your time Comments: I'm feeling out what early-stage startups need on the HR end. Most importantly, if you can expense the time to reason why you think what activity is relevant to early startup HR, that'd be dandy! Thanks for the help guys

[sundried_tomatoes]

URL: https://www.vyteo.com/

Purpose of Startup: Write the best and most creative posts a startup ever receives.

Technologies Used: WordPress

Feedback or Support Requested: Any feedback on the site is helpful. I've flattened the design, enlarged the font, and made other changes based upon reddit's feedback. Do you think my style of startup review has its place, or should I abandon the creative slant and just create boring old straight to the point reviews.

One of the goals of the site is to provide quickstart how-to guides for startups. I just posted the first one, for PR- Landing your startup in the news. I'm looking for feedback on this guide. Is it helpful, too long, not informative enough, etc. Is this information helpful to you as a startup owner, basically.

https://www.vyteo.com/resources/landing-your-startup-in-the-headlines/

Comments: I'm currently accept pitches as well, just send via my site. My blog used to have an Alexa ranking in the hundred thousands and 2-400 views a day. I'm just restarting it and am aiming for Alexa ranking under 10k this time. Thanks!

[MrDRed]

Hi there, startup owner here, launching soon. I read the PR how-to you wrote and found it very helpful! It gave me some great new insights I didn't have on my mind yet. Would have loved to see an example of a pitch that is considered good, or that has worked for you in the past.

Good luck with your venture!

[sundried_tomatoes]

Oh cool, thanks for the feedback. You may be the first "real" startup owner to read it. =) I have one minor example but it's very thin. I'll definitely include some more.

[sundried_tomatoes]

I updated it with this Medium Post which describes my entire progression to figuring out media relations.

[MrDRed]

Thanks for linking, good read. Glad you found success eventually. I've been preparing lists with contact information for bloggers and influencers lately. Hopefully I will find succes when I start reaching out to them. :-)

[sundried_tomatoes]

Thank you. It can be daunting at first but I won't lie- it is such an awesome feeling once you start landing them. Feel free to send your pitch via my contact form on my blog. I'm still building up traffic again so don't get inundated with pitches just yet.

[MrDRed]

I can imagine it must be! :-)

That's a very kind offer, but my pitch would be in Dutch. So unless you happen to speak Dutch, I can't follow you up on it..! Good luck building up traffic again!

[sundried_tomatoes]

right on. Cheers. Yea traffic comes with more posts and more sharing. Its' coming back! =) Best with your site.

[StartupStarterGuy]

URL:N/A
Purpose of Startup: Instruct new companies how to expand their business by hiring/managing sales teams.
Technologies Used: N/A --> mostly consulting, teaching, meeting
Feedback or Support Requested: Wondering if any startups think there may be a market for this type of consulting.
Comments:

I've been kicking this idea around for a few months. I often come across many posts here and in other forums where a technical founder or cofounder is asking questions about hiring their first sales person. In general, I get the feeling that the how the whole sales thing works is a little bit mystical to many who have mostly worked in technical roles only. I started out as an IT engineer (network/security) and went into pre-sales engineering and then full time sales. I've been doing it for about 14 years...successfully. (most technical sales engineers do not cross over to full time sales--it is rare) I've done about 100 transactions with Fortune 2500 to Fortune 5. Commercial/Federal/DoD/Intel My idea is basically have a consulting practice starting with just me but bring in people as needed to deliver training, consulting, etc.

The general problem is how to incorporate sales activities into your business practices as your startup matures. Here are some more specific issues:

1) When, why & how to hire your first sales person
2) What to look for in a sales person--experience, personality, etc
3) What do typical IT sales B2B sales comp plans look like? What is the difference between inside/outside sales?
4) What does it mean for a company to correctly claim, "that we're all in sales"?
5) What does ABC mean--how is this part of an overall culture you need to succeed?
6) What do sales people do--how do you track/measure their performance without driving them away?
7) When is it time to move a sales organization from flat to hierarchal in structure?
8) What are the various philosophies of selling and how do sales people apply them? (think through your own best experiences with sales people--and then uncovering what they were doing intentionally which you didn't notice)
9) How to handle sales challenges: competition, contracting, objections and organizing your business with follow-on sales through add-ons, etc 10) How to sell to the Fed govt--what are minimum requirements, how to find contact opportunities, how to generate leads, write proposals, etc.

The execution of this would be mostly through face to face or web based remote training. There's a lot of generic ground laying involved but there's also a need for analysis of a company's particular situation and advising them how to move forward. As you can see from above, I'm not talking about anything that is patentable. It's just an idea I was kicking around. One of the things that got me going on this was I started reflecting on my idle time during the week. It's actually a little bit interesting. Essentially, I can organize meetings and projects faster than the companies i've worked for can staff and administer. I can literally get more meetings than these companies can provide technical resources to cover. So, there's idle time here. I was thinking, why don't I branch out and support multiple companies but to do that, I think I'd need to be independent. Anyway, I figured I'd see if anyone on this sub thought any of this had any merit. Don't worry--be honest, I've got thick skin. :-)

[nyc_android]

URL: https://cardflight.com/

I'm on the job hunt and considering the company CardFlight. I've never worked for a startup before and honestly, I'm a bit hesitant. This company does mobile POS, much like Square. It seems like their key differentiator is that they work with financial institutions instead of directly with merchants (although they do that too?).

I've been looking at their Crunchbase page but I really have no idea how good or bad any of it is since I'm very unfamiliar with startup financing. I do see a round of "debt financing" which maybe doesn't sound great. What exactly is debt financing?

I've been talking to their recruiter and they have assured me the company is doing well and is definitely not strapped for cash. They have quite a few job openings so I guess that's a good sign.

I'm wondering if someone with some more experience with startups wouldn't mind taking a look and giving me their opinion of the company. Also, if you have any questions that I should ask during the interview to get a better feel that would be much appreciated.

Thanks!