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Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com

planergize.com

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Re: Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com

#11

Post by Vindexus »

dshingarev wrote: post #10
guiseppecalzone wrote: post #9

It's took me over 30 seconds to figure out what the site does and I'm still not 100 percent. If I were a normal user, I would have bounced by now. Improve the landing page? Pictures and some points on what it does could be helpful. Good luck!

Thanks! We are working on improving a landing page with some graphics and better explanation.

The "Wedding Planning" button made me think that's what it did. I thought "cool idea, they should show that in more places". Then when I clicked the Categories tab I found out that that's just an example. Or I could be wrong about that too, but that just highlights the point further.

I'd suggest putting a tagline beneath your logo that describes what you do. Don't make it too marketesy, make it explanatory. "Helpful instructions to common tasks" or whatever is better than something like "Plan. Do. Share.".

Re: Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com

#12

Post by dshingarev »

Vindexus wrote: post #11
dshingarev wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! We are working on improving a landing page with some graphics and better explanation.

The "Wedding Planning" button made me think that's what it did. I thought "cool idea, they should show that in more places". Then when I clicked the Categories tab I found out that that's just an example. Or I could be wrong about that too, but that just highlights the point further. I'd suggest putting a tagline beneath your logo that describes what you do. Don't make it too marketesy, make it explanatory. "Helpful…

Totally agree with you, we'll have it fixed by tomorrow! Very helpful comment, thank you. Yes, wedding planning is one of the examples what kind of plans you can create with planergize. If you like a plan you can then "run" it and get SMS/email reminders before steps.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com

#13

Post by Vindexus »

Like others have said it's a bit confusing to figure out what it does right away. I think a demo video might be in your best interest. I read this and it was kinda helpful: http://blog.procasts.co.uk/2009/03/why-screencast-if-a-pictu...

You could use Camtasia: http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp I tried out ScreenToaster as it was free and it works pretty good: http://www.screentoaster.com/

I see you don't have an FAQ page. May I humbly suggest my FAQ script side project: http://breezyfaq.com

Re: Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com

#14

Post by hackoder »

Very nice, I like it. I agree with the others that you could improve the first impression- Have a nice big tagline that captures what you do in one sentence. I can see this as being very useful in lots of domains (think disaster recovery etc). You could pitch it to businesses even (thought the current look is too casual for businesses) to use this as part of their risk management process.

I stress the point of businesses because you have more money-making potential there as opposed to individual plans.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com

#15

Post by dshingarev »

Vindexus wrote: post #13

Like others have said it's a bit confusing to figure out what it does right away. I think a demo video might be in your best interest. I read this and it was kinda helpful: http://blog.procasts.co.uk/2009/03/why-screencast-if-a-pictu... You could use Camtasia: http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp I tried out ScreenToaster as it was free and it works pretty good: http://www.screentoaster.com/ I see you don't have an…

You sure can! :-) I'll have a look at it. We have a screencast, there is a link on the how to page: http://assets.planergize.com/planergize_demo.swf

Re: Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com

#16

Post by dshingarev »

hackoder wrote: post #14

Very nice, I like it. I agree with the others that you could improve the first impression- Have a nice big tagline that captures what you do in one sentence. I can see this as being very useful in lots of domains (think disaster recovery etc). You could pitch it to businesses even (thought the current look is too casual for businesses) to use this as part of their risk management process. I stress the point of busine…

I'm working on this side as well. Applicability in business environment was the reason I got funded a year ago by Enterprise Ireland (Irish state agency working to support commercialization of research, among other things)

Re: Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com

#19

Post by kyro »

This might not a big issue, but I think the phonetics of the name are a bit off. I didn't quite know how to pronounce it, and realized when I clicked through that it's probably meant to be read as planner-gize. This could be a problem for word-of-mouth marketing as people would probably assume it's spelled with two n's. Plannergize.com seems to be taken already, but something like PlannerMake.com is available.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my start-up - planergize.com

#20

Post by dshingarev »

listic wrote: post #17

Why did you decide to use Facebook authentication? Do you have plans for symbiosis with Facebook? Why have the user create a Facebook account instead of account in your startup?

We actually had our own authentication initially, but later decided to use Facebook Connect. We are using some part of data and features available on FB to provide core functionality, e.g. we use friends list for access control, we send SMS and email reminders through FB. We publish short stories on your activity on your wall (if allowed). And we have plans to put more social features, utilizing FB infrastructure. Many people already have FB accounts, so we decided not to ask people to fill in all these fields one more time.
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