Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 26 posts

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps

#11

Post by jonschwartz »

I like the concept and it seems like it would make it easier to get an app going.

One criticism I have is not so much about the concept but the signup page. On your signup page you have that mini f.a.q. I think around a couple of those questions sound like they're coming from a skeptic. Your signup page shouldn't focus at all on the negative and I would probably even move the faq to a different screen all together. That screen is about funneling people into the service, not answering their questions.

Questions I think you can get rid of:

"Why isn't StorageRoom free?" -I have to pay for it, so should you, Jerk. The world isn't free.

"How does the 30 Day trial work?" - It's a 30 trial. You don't have to pay till you've been using it for a month. Haven't you ever seen an infomercial? Are you even smart enough to write code?

"What browsers work with StorageRoom?" - StorageRoom is a modern web app and, if you're planning on giving me money, you should trust that I put the time in to test on more than one browser. This isn't 1996 anymore you can't get away with "Optimized for Netscape Navigator 2.5 and later on and 800x600 resolution"... c'mon, seriously?

"Do I get a 30 day free trial if I upgrade?" - No, you cheap bastard! You already know what the service is like. You don't need to figure out if you like it or not. If you decide you need to increase your capabilities, that's on you.

--------

Sorry for the snark (well, not really... well, maybe a little.) You shouldn't be trying to argue an imaginary skeptic. You should be trying to tell us why your awesome product is so awesome.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps

#12

Post by sashthebash »

petervandijck wrote: post #10
sashthebash wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. I blurred the screenshots as they didn't look nice. I just have an ugly prototype so far. I wanted to ask for more feedback and validate the market more before spending more time on making the system nicer. Currently you cannot sign up. You can only enter your email in a list and get notified when the product launches.

Cool. Still, I wouldn't blur them. I think this is a difficult market to be in. Think back to all the hosted CMS's in the past. If there is really demand, there will be a free solution that you run yourself.

A free self-hosted solution is definitely competition. But many people will probably still think it is convenient to use a hosted service and pay for it.

It's the same with Gmail, salesforce, 37signals products and many other services. There are almost always free open-source alternatives, but not everybody wants to deal with installation, hosting and maintenance of those solutions.

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps

#13

Post by sashthebash »

jonschwartz wrote: post #11

I like the concept and it seems like it would make it easier to get an app going. One criticism I have is not so much about the concept but the signup page. On your signup page you have that mini f.a.q. I think around a couple of those questions sound like they're coming from a skeptic. Your signup page shouldn't focus at all on the negative and I would probably even move the faq to a different screen all together. T…

This is great. I will try to implement this in the next release.

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps

#15

Post by gordonguthrie »

I think I have worked out what your app does:

* developer builds an iPhone app

* end-user provides some content for that app

* developer doesn't want the hassle of updating the app

* end user has an online editor to edit the content

- app updates itself

* developer sits on beach sipping daquiris If that is the case then the front-page should show it in the picture:

* a user with their phone

* a developer with the app

* the end-user customer with their CMS editor

If this is a correct description of the app then YOUR CUSTOMER is the developer and the tour page should then heavily feature Daquiris, instead of regular expressions. Getting high from regular expressions is about as lame as smoking dried banana skins :)

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps

#17

Post by sashthebash »

gordonguthrie wrote: post #15

I think I have worked out what your app does: * developer builds an iPhone app * end-user provides some content for that app * developer doesn't want the hassle of updating the app * end user has an online editor to edit the content - app updates itself * developer sits on beach sipping daquiris If that is the case then the front-page should show it in the picture: * a user with their phone * a developer with the app…

Replace "end user" with "a member of your team that edits the content" and your description is correct.

I don't know if the developer will then be sipping daquiris at the beach if he doesn't have to take care about managing the content himself, but he will have more time for more important work :).

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps

#18

Post by notahacker »

jonschwartz wrote: post #11

I like the concept and it seems like it would make it easier to get an app going. One criticism I have is not so much about the concept but the signup page. On your signup page you have that mini f.a.q. I think around a couple of those questions sound like they're coming from a skeptic. Your signup page shouldn't focus at all on the negative and I would probably even move the faq to a different screen all together. T…

This is good advice. Any FAQ on the signup page ought to be encouraging actions more than trying to scare them off e.g. "Can I use my Storageroom account for client projects" "Can I manage all my webapps under one plan?"

If you are asking questions on browser support I'd think the most important one would be to clarify that it's not iPhone/Android specific

You probably also need to think more about your target audience - is it more of a WordPress for mobile data (in which case the focus should be on ease of use) or a Rails/Django for mobile data (in which case RESTful JSON API probably is a key selling point)? As you're potentially appealing to both groups possibly separate tours for different use cases would work "StorageRoom for Publishers: content creation for non-programmers", "StorageRoom for Developers: develop in your preferred language and we'll handle the backend for you"

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps

#19

Post by ntulip »

Udo wrote: post #14

I didn't like the fact that the screenshots are deliberately blurred. You should obfuscate the relevant input fields only, or better yet just fill them with non-sensitive data (if that was the reasoning behind the blur). Otherwise, cool app, nice site! :-)

i agree -

Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps

#20

Post by sashthebash »

Udo wrote: post #14

I didn't like the fact that the screenshots are deliberately blurred. You should obfuscate the relevant input fields only, or better yet just fill them with non-sensitive data (if that was the reasoning behind the blur). Otherwise, cool app, nice site! :-)

The screenshots are from an unfinished ugly prototype. I thought I blur them, otherwise ppl would have seen them and said they look terrible. Before I finalize the application I wanted to get some feedback first.

It probably was the wrong choice, I will post the original screenshots with the next deploy.

Post reply on HN