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Ask HN: Review my startup – standupmail.com

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Ask HN: Review my startup – standupmail.com

#1

Post by nerdben »

We're passionate about building great software products and never really found a good strategy to eliminate information asymmetry within the product team which leads to misunderstandings, inefficiencies and bad decisions. To fix this problem, we came up with the concept of StandupMail - a tool which continuously keeps our team up-to-date while pushing for discipline in using it.

The concept is pretty simple: Every night we send your team a reminder email asking to reflect on the current day's accomplishments. All team members reply to this email by listing tasks done, upcoming tasks and bottlenecks. We automatically compile the replies into an email digest which we sent around to the team the next morning, so everyone starts the day with a complete wrap-up of the project's current status. Some more benefits you find on the landing page: http://standupmail.com

We had some good feedback on a HN thread yesterday which moved away too fast. So, we hope to get the discussion started again by asking you directly.

We'd love to hear your feedback on the concept and to which extend you're sharing the problem we're trying to solve.

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup – standupmail.com

#2

Post by PurpleFirefly »

Hi, Ben.

I think this is an interesting concept, if executed well. It would be nice to see a sample of one of the summary e-mails that gets sent out the next day (without that, a lot is left to the imagination).

What I'd like to imagine is a system where you reply to the "wrap-up request" e-mail with one event per line, and a dead simple format for processing (server-side) what those events mean. For example, a line starting with a '+' is an item being worked on, one starting with a '-' is a completed item, a '?' is an issue or question for the team, and a '#' is a comment.

Then, on the server side, you categorize all of these events and automatically plug them into a calendar with times and a link to an auto-generated profile for the event poster (the one who replied to the e-mail) showing their entire event history.

The summary e-mail that gets sent out the following day, then, would be broken up into the four aforementioned categories (Questions/Issues, Comments, Completions, and New Work).

Anything in that general area would make for a swell product, I believe :)

Also, a couple minor points: You should increase the lightness of the grey foreground elements on your website (they'll be difficult for some people to see as is, due to low contrast). Also, if you lose the drop shadows on the foreground elements that have them (e.g., the cursor), you'll have a cleaner looking design.

Hope this helps!

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup – standupmail.com

#3

Post by nerdben »

PurpleFirefly wrote: post #2

Hi, Ben. I think this is an interesting concept, if executed well. It would be nice to see a sample of one of the summary e-mails that gets sent out the next day (without that, a lot is left to the imagination). What I'd like to imagine is a system where you reply to the "wrap-up request" e-mail with one event per line, and a dead simple format for processing (server-side) what those events mean. For example, a line…

All great feedback! Thanks for taking the time!

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup – standupmail.com

#6

Post by HashanP »

Hey,

I also think it is a really good idea.

I'd personally like if the administrator could set the default rendering engine for example, if I could set Markdown because my team is familiar with it.

You might want to also have a look at Slack and integrating StandUpMail with Slack.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/12/5991005/slack-is-killing-e...

Also you'll probably need a feature where the administrator could set on what days the emails are sent.

GitHub integration would also be a bonus. For example, merged pull requests, etc.

Anything like that would be awesome!

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup – standupmail.com

#7

Post by nerdben »

HashanP wrote: post #6

Hey, I also think it is a really good idea. I'd personally like if the administrator could set the default rendering engine for example, if I could set Markdown because my team is familiar with it. You might want to also have a look at Slack and integrating StandUpMail with Slack. http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/12/5991005/slack-is-killing-e... Also you'll probably need a feature where the administrator could set on w…

Thanks for the great feedback!

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup – standupmail.com

#8

Post by nerdben »

HashanP wrote: post #6

Hey, I also think it is a really good idea. I'd personally like if the administrator could set the default rendering engine for example, if I could set Markdown because my team is familiar with it. You might want to also have a look at Slack and integrating StandUpMail with Slack. http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/12/5991005/slack-is-killing-e... Also you'll probably need a feature where the administrator could set on w…

How often would you imagine the emails get send? We were thinking of a daily use case (maybe excluding weekends)...

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup – standupmail.com

#9

Post by nerdben »

PurpleFirefly wrote: post #2

Hi, Ben. I think this is an interesting concept, if executed well. It would be nice to see a sample of one of the summary e-mails that gets sent out the next day (without that, a lot is left to the imagination). What I'd like to imagine is a system where you reply to the "wrap-up request" e-mail with one event per line, and a dead simple format for processing (server-side) what those events mean. For example, a line…

How important would be searching and tagging the historic content for you?
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