21–30 of 67 posts
I love this idea, but I think there is a stronger pricing model than paying per session. Is the founder on HN? Please talk to me - this is a large market that I've been keeping an eye on for a while. If this is executed with the right toolset, this could be a Zoom or a Slack one day.
I used Focusmate a lot and then dropped it. I think it serves its purpose well until you get used to it and then productivity starts dropping again. I also would like to highlight something which is not particular to Focusmate but rather a phenomena spreading to all these SaaS platforms: Focusmate is not free. It's a paying product that costs $5/month. There is absolutely no details of pricing on the home page. There…
When someone hides a measure of value for an ongoing service, there’s a concern that the actual value doesn’t measure up to the real value. I think that’s what’s going here, and it probably works because $5 is a small amount.
I used Focusmate a lot and then dropped it. I think it serves its purpose well until you get used to it and then productivity starts dropping again. I also would like to highlight something which is not particular to Focusmate but rather a phenomena spreading to all these SaaS platforms: Focusmate is not free. It's a paying product that costs $5/month. There is absolutely no details of pricing on the home page. There…
I'm sorry to hear the effect that not having a pricing page has had on you. Thanks for sharing your feedback.
A few thoughts:
1) Focusmate IS free to use 3 times per week. Most of our users are on the free plan. You can use it in perpetuity for free.
2) We don't have a pricing page yet because we started charging 29 days ago, and because we're shipping product incrementally. (We are a 3-person team with 1 engineer, FWIW.)
3) At this very nascent stage, there is value to being able to run pricing tests, which we can't do if we publish a pricing page. (The downside is we annoy some people, which is not a trivial downside. Knowing the negative effect on you is meaningful to us/me.)
I welcome additional thoughts/feedback.
Taylor
I used Focusmate a lot and then dropped it. I think it serves its purpose well until you get used to it and then productivity starts dropping again. I also would like to highlight something which is not particular to Focusmate but rather a phenomena spreading to all these SaaS platforms: Focusmate is not free. It's a paying product that costs $5/month. There is absolutely no details of pricing on the home page. There…
When someone hides a measure of value for an ongoing service, there’s a concern that the actual value doesn’t measure up to the real value. I think that’s what’s going here, and it probably works because $5 is a small amount.
I used Focusmate a lot and then dropped it. I think it serves its purpose well until you get used to it and then productivity starts dropping again. I also would like to highlight something which is not particular to Focusmate but rather a phenomena spreading to all these SaaS platforms: Focusmate is not free. It's a paying product that costs $5/month. There is absolutely no details of pricing on the home page. There…
Founder of Focusmate here. I'm sorry to hear the effect that not having a pricing page has had on you. Thanks for sharing your feedback. A few thoughts: 1) Focusmate IS free to use 3 times per week. Most of our users are on the free plan. You can use it in perpetuity for free. 2) We don't have a pricing page yet because we started charging 29 days ago, and because we're shipping product incrementally. (We are a 3-per…
Video surveillance is not the solution to this problem. It's outright creepy. I think a simple chat group or a game can better serve the purpose of providing a virtual "office environment". I think highfidelity is working on something along those lines, but you can already use an opensimulator/secondlife space as realtime hangout place. I'm also critical of their "behavioral triggers". For example, "Pre-commitment" h…
The experience on Focusmate is akin to working with a buddy at a library or cafe.
As far as pre-commitment: I think you've got your behavioral triggers mixed up.
Wikipedia has a good definition: "Precommitment refers to a strategy that an agent may use to restrict the number of choices available to him or her at a future time. The strategy may also involve the imposition of obstacles or additional costs to certain courses of action in advance."
I think you're thinking about telling someone what you'll do. That works when you tell someone what action you plan to take. It backfires when you share what result you'll get, because your brain visualizes some of the result, and experiences the reward prematurely.
Video surveillance is not the solution to this problem. It's outright creepy. I think a simple chat group or a game can better serve the purpose of providing a virtual "office environment". I think highfidelity is working on something along those lines, but you can already use an opensimulator/secondlife space as realtime hangout place. I'm also critical of their "behavioral triggers". For example, "Pre-commitment" h…
I love this idea, but I think there is a stronger pricing model than paying per session. Is the founder on HN? Please talk to me - this is a large market that I've been keeping an eye on for a while. If this is executed with the right toolset, this could be a Zoom or a Slack one day.
I love this idea, but I think there is a stronger pricing model than paying per session. Is the founder on HN? Please talk to me - this is a large market that I've been keeping an eye on for a while. If this is executed with the right toolset, this could be a Zoom or a Slack one day.
If you sign up for FocusMate he’ll email you ten times a day. You can also sign up to do a FocusMate session with him and then you’d be able to send him a message via the platform.
Video surveillance is not the solution to this problem. It's outright creepy. I think a simple chat group or a game can better serve the purpose of providing a virtual "office environment". I think highfidelity is working on something along those lines, but you can already use an opensimulator/secondlife space as realtime hangout place. I'm also critical of their "behavioral triggers". For example, "Pre-commitment" h…
Is working at a coffee shop "surveillance"? The experience on Focusmate is akin to working with a buddy at a library or cafe. As far as pre-commitment: I think you've got your behavioral triggers mixed up. Wikipedia has a good definition: "Precommitment refers to a strategy that an agent may use to restrict the number of choices available to him or her at a future time. The strategy may also involve the imposition of…
The security camera guy of the shop is surveillance. Being in a public space, knowing who is looking at you (let alone, he is being seen by others as looking at you), is not the same thing.
Maybe precommitment is not what i had in mind but but you do mention explicitly "implementation intentions" as "what to do and how you will do it" which may not be an optimal thing to do.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ulterior-motives/200...