Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#1

Post by sandeep45 » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

Hello. My name is Sandeep, and I'm the cofounder of FeatureKicker. As a developer, I have built many features. Many of them were a waste of everyone's time. I built FeatureKicker so we can "make something people want" instead of software that sucks.

We're applying to YC W2014, and we'd love your feedback on our application: docs.google.com/document/d/1kv_Rgr4-y9wvrOxwZdTevhW-r-i5pktUBcw6t0ufazY

Give it to us straight. We've got thick skins.

-- UPDATE -- CRAP! Looks like we exceeded Google Docs' max number of concurrent viewers. Here's our application on Tumblr: startupsthehardway.tumblr.com/post/63091956854/featurekickers-yc-w2014-application

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#2

Post by sixQuarks » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

Your competition: "Our strongest competitors are customer apathy and DIY solutions that are cobbled together."

the fact there are no competitors gives me pause. That's actually not a good thing.

--------------- "Assuming we obtain 4500 customers within 5 years, charging an average of $1000/mo, we expect to earn $54M in annual recurring revenue from our products and services."

- this is waaaaay too unrealistic IMO. Any company willing to pay $1k per month for this would probably just build the feauture themselves, no? I don't think large companies are your target market. -----------------------

- dejamore: I love the video - dealonaire.com link didn't work

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#3

Post by JRFuentes7 » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

sixQuarks wrote: post #2

Your competition: "Our strongest competitors are customer apathy and DIY solutions that are cobbled together." the fact there are no competitors gives me pause. That's actually not a good thing. --------------- "Assuming we obtain 4500 customers within 5 years, charging an average of $1000/mo, we expect to earn $54M in annual recurring revenue from our products and services." - this is waaaaay too unrealistic IMO. An…

dude, awesome feedback. thanks! Especially re dealonaire.com. We'll fix that ASAP.

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#4

Post by 6thSigma » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

(I'm not involved with YC, so take this with a grain of salt.)

I think the idea is really cool and I can see how useful it could be for companies, but do you have evidence that users actually give feedback via your method?

I'm trying to look at this product from that side of the equation, and I could see me getting frustrated that clicking "Sign up with Google+" doesn't actually do that. If you have evidence showing that users are willing to give feedback, or have some type of insight regarding that, I'd definitely include it in the application.

Goodluck!

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#5

Post by bradpineau » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 4:18 PM UTC

Great overall concept. I think it's something my company could use.

One concern I'd have if using this product, is that often the customer says what they think they want, but don't actually need. So I'd expect there to be some decent "management" tools for working through all the feedback. Maybe some sort of internal scoring or feedback system within the company or something.

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#6

Post by porter » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 4:20 PM UTC

Here's some feedback on the last questions about something surprising you've found. Instead of putting something any middle schooler could find on google, you should but a unique insight instead. For example, what features (out of the many you claimed to have built), have had surprising results? Perhaps this could be something nobody thought would move the needle, but ended up as a breakout success. This would provide a much more powerful insight, and also help justify the product you want to build.

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#7

Post by sandeep45 » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

6thSigma wrote: post #4

(I'm not involved with YC, so take this with a grain of salt.) I think the idea is really cool and I can see how useful it could be for companies, but do you have evidence that users actually give feedback via your method? I'm trying to look at this product from that side of the equation, and I could see me getting frustrated that clicking "Sign up with Google+" doesn't actually do that. If you have evidence showing…

6thSigma: Thanks for your feedback :). To answer your question, with our beta customers, we have shown the feedback overlay more than 1K times and have gotten a 60% feedback rate.

We think this is because we ask the right person, the right question at the right time. Its the right person, because this person clicked on the feature, its the right question because the question is about the feature they clicked on and not their age, gender etc. and its the right time because they are in the app, just clicked on the feature and at the height of their curiosity when it comes to that feature.

In regards to frustration, we believe this is a valid theoretical concern, but in practicality with our 27 beta customers, we haven't yet had anyone complain.

We think this is because our customers are using this in a "logged-in" product, leveraging our rules engine to control how often the feature experiment is shown and to who.

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#8

Post by JRFuentes7 » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

bradpineau wrote: post #5

Great overall concept. I think it's something my company could use. One concern I'd have if using this product, is that often the customer says what they think they want, but don't actually need. So I'd expect there to be some decent "management" tools for working through all the feedback. Maybe some sort of internal scoring or feedback system within the company or something.

Thanks. You're right that it's not just what users say. You have to observe what they do, too. In the next version of our product, we want to provide a "confidence score" for a person's feedback, which is based on what we've observed them doing in the application (e.g., are they a power user? are they freemium or enterprise user? did they leave yes/no feedback + commentary?).

As for the internal scoring system, we integrate with JIRA so you can send your data to your existing prod-dev mgmt tools. We hear KANO analysis is really powerful when it comes to scoring your prod roadmap.

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#9

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

bradpineau wrote: post #5

Great overall concept. I think it's something my company could use. One concern I'd have if using this product, is that often the customer says what they think they want, but don't actually need. So I'd expect there to be some decent "management" tools for working through all the feedback. Maybe some sort of internal scoring or feedback system within the company or something.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#10

Post by mrgreenfur » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 4:24 PM UTC

Honestly, I think it's a cool widget! It doesn't sound nearly big enough to get a 10x return on VC though. How big is the market really? I watched your intro video and came away a bit underwhelmed: Can't someone just replace this with an analytics event of "clicked" and extrapolate that only people who want a feature are clicking on that feature?

Have either of you worked on product teams before? Do you have feedback from product teams? Usually this isn't a problem of competing features, but usually of "will people use this" at an entire product or project level. MVP is how most people I know attack these things.