Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#1

Post by jessehorne » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

On and off throughout my software career I've been shown software products that are good and bad, but one common theme I'm finding is that websites for these products seem to be a bunch of tech/startup jargon thrown into sentences that don't explain the product at all.

For example, take New Relic (https://newrelic.com/)...

"New Relic One is an observability platform built to help engineers create more perfect software. From monoliths to serverless, you can instrument everything, then analyze, troubleshoot, and optimize your entire software stack. All from one place."

I'm going to be really blunt here. What on earth does all of that mean? From that explanation alone I have no clue what New Relic is. I'm going to have to use it first to even know what it does.

So on my quest to figure out what New Relic actually is, I decided to research "observability". Let me just say, WikiPedia did not help...

"In control theory, observability is a measure of how well internal states of a system can be inferred from knowledge of its external outputs. The observability and controllability of a linear system are mathematical duals." - Wikipedia

I've put myself out there and called out, what I've heard is, an excellent product. I'm just saying, I can't get a clear explanation on what it actually is from the website. Now it's your turn...

What's your best example of a website that doesn't do a good job of telling potential customers what the product actually is? Why is it like this? Am I missing out on something? What do I have to do to become the type of developer that doesn't cry when I have to investigate a new product solution?

Re: Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#2

Post by dmje » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

Honest answer to an honest question? Because the nerds are in charge.

I’ve lost count of the number of times dev types have been put in marketing or management roles because someone thought that stuff is easy. Imagine putting a marketing type in charge of your server.

Writing, marketing, product management: these are all real, solid skills, and quite often (not always), devs or startup CEO’s don’t have them.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#3

Post by wryoak » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 9:52 PM UTC

dmje wrote: post #2

Honest answer to an honest question? Because the nerds are in charge. I’ve lost count of the number of times dev types have been put in marketing or management roles because someone thought that stuff is easy. Imagine putting a marketing type in charge of your server. Writing, marketing, product management: these are all real, solid skills, and quite often (not always), devs or startup CEO’s don’t have them.

Lots of people out there think lots of other professions are no more complex than mashing rocks together, and I would venture techies are probably the most arrogant of these

Re: Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#4

Post by muzani » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

dmje wrote: post #2

Honest answer to an honest question? Because the nerds are in charge. I’ve lost count of the number of times dev types have been put in marketing or management roles because someone thought that stuff is easy. Imagine putting a marketing type in charge of your server. Writing, marketing, product management: these are all real, solid skills, and quite often (not always), devs or startup CEO’s don’t have them.

To add, nerds are not always the programmers. There are plenty of people from finance who do the same. Sometimes the CEO, who has a sales background, gets a little too obsessed with the technology behind the product and doesn't explain what problem it solves.

There's a cliche that the ideal founding team is a hacker (dev), a hustler (business), and a hipster (UX). When a team misses out on the hipster founder, these things happen.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#5

Post by dalmo3 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:00 AM UTC

Are you sure you're a potential customer? Apart from the somewhat broken English I can't see what's wrong with that 50-word summary.

I'd guess they would have a few pages explaining its features but it seems the website is down atm.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#6

Post by zallman » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 11:19 AM UTC

Because the makers of websites are web devs and not copywriters.

I’m a copywriter that specializes in SaaS tools, and it’s literally always the case.

The founders are brilliant nerds but haven’t a cooking clue about the first thing when it comes to marketing, product positioning or delivery of their value proposition.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#7

Post by jessehorne » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

dalmo3 wrote: post #5

Are you sure you're a potential customer? Apart from the somewhat broken English I can't see what's wrong with that 50-word summary. I'd guess they would have a few pages explaining its features but it seems the website is down atm.

Yep!

Re: Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#8

Post by davidajackson » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

Sometimes people focus too much on the 'how' instead of the 'what problem this solves' when describing their value proposition.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#9

Post by mpc75 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

Because every software-focuses business that does one thing really well thinks that to scale they need to build a “platform” or “ecosystem”.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some websites so bad at describing their product?

#10

Post by diehunde » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

Not a very good example considering New Relic dominates that space. Also, companies adapt their description to include latest trending words such as observability.