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Ask HN: Review my startup, TeamDoList.com

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Re: Ask HN: Review my startup, TeamDoList.com

#51

Post by adam »

Avalaxy wrote: post #11
localhost3000 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unnecessarily negative, belittling, and mean-spirited. has putting this person down made you feel better about yourself?

I really don't think it's "unnecessarily negative". I see so many people wasting their time by working on 'ideas' that aren't even real ideas. He could have used his time better doing something actually useful. A lot of programmers have a big tunnel vision. They want to create a 'startup' no matter what, and then they come up with a 'TODO list' and waste many months of their valuable time working on it, just to be di…

Not only is this mean spirited, I think it's fairly short-sighted. I've tried several to-do list apps and none of them have quite worked for me. I end up going back to scrap pieces of paper laying on my desk or stickies, both of which are sub-optimal. In fact I've never met anyone who fully recommends their to-do list software, their recommendation is always filled with caveats and things they still do "the old way."

Yes the market is saturated but that doesn't mean there is nothing innovative to be done here. I say more power to this person for building something for himself and putting himself out there to see what others think.

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup, TeamDoList.com

#52

Post by bpatrianakos »

hgezim wrote: post #42
bpatrianakos wrote: post #40

I don't want to make you feel bad or rain on your parade but you must know there are hundreds of competing apps just like this. That's not to say yours can't be successful but if you'd like it to stand out you need to differentiate yourself somehow. Right now you've basically got a todo list app that lets you share lists via a public URL. It's very simple (that's neither good or bad, it just is). So considering how s…

You've raised some really great points. And no, this is not raining on my parade, I think this feedback is more like fertilizer :). So, thanks. I guess since I use it and know the URL quite well, I didn't prioritize creating an account too high, but you're absolutely right. Thanks so much for your thoughts. P.S.: Any thoughts on how I can monetize this? Would you pay for a monthly subscription if there was a mobile a…

johnmurch's comment has a lot of what I'd say. I'm not so sure about his #2 or 3 but his #1 was really good.

I'd just price it super low and have the option to prepay for a year for a small discount. If I had built this, I wouldn't be having visions of raking in millions but you could realistically make a nice side income from it. If the price is like $4 a month or $20 for a year and you're basically just hosting a CRUD app that only stores text then it shouldn't be very expensive to run. Consider too that you built it just for fun. Put that all together and even if you charged $1 for life from every user you've made a profit. Maybe I'm wrong but that's how I think of my projects. It's like I was going to rent the servers and build something anyway so even if I make a single cent then I'm in the green.

But to answer your question more directly, yes. If this were a beautiful site/mobile app that did this one thing really well I would pay. It would be really pretty to look at (like Cheddar is/was), would be super convenient (open a URL or tap a phone icon), and do one thing well (I managed different todo lists with others and I didn't have to fuck with settings or signing in more than once a month or click/tap through more than one screen to get what I wanted) so it would be worth the few bucks I'd probably spend on a coffee or something.

A problem I see is getting groups to use it. Individuals all have their own preferred ways of todo-ing. A thought just came to me that if you made this awesome to work with alone then people would end up using it on their own and then they'd get together and use the group features later. Just a thought.

Tie-ins with other products would be good too. I don't know if they're monetizable but they're certainly great for promotion. If you could build an API and hook your app up to someone else's and vice versa that could definitely be a value-add for a lot of people. Throw up a payment form with Stripe and just see if people will pay $1 for fully refundable 30-day trial and the promise of getting in on some future features of your choosing. That will tell you a lot about how interested people are and if its worth exploring monetization.

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup, TeamDoList.com

#53

Post by bpatrianakos »

hgezim wrote: post #15
ianpri wrote: post #13

Really nice execution. I think that the core feature that is apparent when using the app (simplicity) is going to be one of the downsides of using it in a team based environment: 1)How do I know if someone on my team has completed a task, if you send out email notifications,I might as well use email. 2)How do I make the lists private to just my team? 3)How do I assign a todo or know who ticked that a todo has been do…

Wow, you raise some really good points. I left out the features like assigning tasks, making list private for sake of keeping it simple with the intention of seeing which way people want this to go. I guess I never thought that adding even just those things would make it just another team based todo list app. In terms of updates, if or when I create a mobile app, you'd get those updates on the mobile. For now, I coul…

The features that would make it just another team based todo app might be a good idea to keep out of the app. Its really nice as-is. Sometimes features like assigning tasks and notifications are more distracting than helpful. You'll have to decide on your definition of a group. Is it a medium-largish company? In that case they'll probably want a lot of structure and those features. But if your idea of a group or team is five friends working together or just any tight group then leaving it without notifications and assignment would be a good thing. Personally, if I assign someone a task I don't want a notification of when its done. If its that important the person knows to call me. And I don't need another text field to assign someone a task. Everyone in my group knows what we have to do and we do it. If not, I'll just append a "Feed the dog (Johnny)". Simple is better.

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup, TeamDoList.com

#55

Post by bpatrianakos »

Avalaxy wrote: post #6

I'm sorry, but I'm really not interested in yet ANOTHER todo app/website/whatever. Please come up with something innovating. Creating the millionth TODO app and calling it a 'startup' is just not going to work. We have enough of these things. There's no need for it, and it certainly shouldn't be called a business, because it simply isn't. (the same goes for the thousands of project management apps, hour tracker apps,…

Regurgitating the "be innovative" line is just as cliche and overdone as building a todo list. No one has to be innovative to do a startup. It's just stupid dogma that people repeat to make themselves feel important, special, and unique. Being hostile when people show off their work makes people not want to share their work anymore. You don't have to blow sunshine up people's asses when you don't like something but you should be constructive nonetheless.
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