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Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

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Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#111
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the honesty. This is very valuable feedback. It’s very hard to find a way to convey what’s different... i’ll keep trying

I particularly appreciate comparison pages to other products (even if they are clearly biased). How does this product differ from Tableau / Metabase? Or perhaps there's a different competitor to compare to. It helps me understand exactly what the product does and why I should want to use it.

Great point. Thanks

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a Machiavellian area with a survivorship bias That's just, like, your opinion, man. And for context: I believe humanity is at the least Darwinian point of its survival to date. To that end, any belief that we are in some sort of zero sum competition with one another is a lean towards a more primitive way of thinking which will actively hold back humanity's advancement.

A quantifiable opinion if you noticed I was referring to entrepreneurship especially amongst software sales and SaaS products, and not humanity.

still agree to disagree

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#113
post #31
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok sounds like an easy first step. Thanks for the tip.

What it does: Jig helps CEOs/CTOs get custom insights about their businesses without using much developer time. Install the beta from https://www.jigdev.com

The buZzzzwords these days are: NoCode/LowCode tool for data insights.

Generally I suggest deleting most of the text above the screenshots.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#114
post #49

Downloaded it and installed it, and you seriously need to have some kind of onboarding for this kind of tool. I'm an extremely technical person and I have no idea what I'm looking at. I can create cells that have code in them? How do they connect? What's the output, what's the input? Can I at least see an example of a jig file? Is this vanilla Javascript? It looks like it might be, but the `viewof` keyword is confusi…

Noted. I think that’s likely the first thing to do. ie. that when a person’s interested enough to download the tool, they actually get to understand the basics of what it does...

Sorry for wasting your time.

In a nutshell:

- cells are code blocks that form a directed acyclic graph (like cells in Excel)

- cells can have a name (v=10) that can referenced in other cells (w=10*v)

- the whole thing is not exactly javascript, the viewof keyword represents the “html element of the cell”. This needs more than a comment on HN...

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#115
post #114
post #49

Downloaded it and installed it, and you seriously need to have some kind of onboarding for this kind of tool. I'm an extremely technical person and I have no idea what I'm looking at. I can create cells that have code in them? How do they connect? What's the output, what's the input? Can I at least see an example of a jig file? Is this vanilla Javascript? It looks like it might be, but the `viewof` keyword is confusi…

Noted. I think that’s likely the first thing to do. ie. that when a person’s interested enough to download the tool, they actually get to understand the basics of what it does... Sorry for wasting your time. In a nutshell: - cells are code blocks that form a directed acyclic graph (like cells in Excel) - cells can have a name (v=10) that can referenced in other cells (w=10*v) - the whole thing is not exactly javascri…

I would say that you have to define your audience. You have 4 possible level of users. There are people in the middle, of course, but these are your big groups: 1. IT/programmers (like you) 2. Advanced analysts (that are not afraid of Excel formulas, but barely scratch macros) 3. The report clickers (their concept of running a report is clicking on an icon and refreshing; if anything fails they run in panic) 4. The laid back Powerpoint requesters (CEOs that request other people to run the report for them, capture a screenshot and paste it in Powerpoint for the meeting).

Users in group #4 are allergic to anything with appearance of code in the same room that they cohabitate. Users in group #3 will also get panic attacks by getting code mixed with their visualizations. Users in group #2 will tolerate it, but will fear how their reputation would be affected if anybody see them coding.

My message hear here is similar to what you have received so far. You need to pivot how you market this solution.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#116
post #114
post #49

Downloaded it and installed it, and you seriously need to have some kind of onboarding for this kind of tool. I'm an extremely technical person and I have no idea what I'm looking at. I can create cells that have code in them? How do they connect? What's the output, what's the input? Can I at least see an example of a jig file? Is this vanilla Javascript? It looks like it might be, but the `viewof` keyword is confusi…

Noted. I think that’s likely the first thing to do. ie. that when a person’s interested enough to download the tool, they actually get to understand the basics of what it does... Sorry for wasting your time. In a nutshell: - cells are code blocks that form a directed acyclic graph (like cells in Excel) - cells can have a name (v=10) that can referenced in other cells (w=10*v) - the whole thing is not exactly javascri…

> Sorry for wasting your time.

Not at all, this is what testing out new products is all about! I think you may have something here, but it's hard to figure out exactly what.

Don't get me wrong, I think marketing and splash copy is important (a lot of comments are about your website), but I would personally focus first and foremost on the value proposition of your product.

> - the whole thing is not exactly javascript, the viewof keyword represents the “html element of the cell”. This needs more than a comment on HN...

Gotcha, I was also trying to label a graph's axes based on textlabels (two different cells), but I couldn't figure out how. Some docs, at least specifying what kind of object a graph or a table is expecting would be very helpful. Also, it's kind of odd that md`hello ${text1}` works, whereas I was expecting it to be md`hello ${text1.value}`. The reactivity is awesome though!

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#117
Just wanted to say thanks for sharing (again I guess). I have heard of d3 but not the observable project or jig. Not sure how I can use it exactly, but having it downloadable does give the user the confidence to put data In they would not feel comfortable online only. Like some other users have said going to be hard to take on excel / tableau but for programmers they can prototype something fast and cool. Look forward to trying them both out. Keep up the good work!

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#118
post #72

It looks interesting, but CEO's don't have time to get syntax errors. That is why they pay big money to companies for products like Synergy SmartViews or UniPoint or Crystal Reports. So they can pay someone with moderate skills a moderate salary to generate professional looking reports. This would have to undercut those other tools in price and also be geared towards more technical industries. Preferably industries t…

Sure, what you say works for big corporations. However buyers in big corporations are not first customers. Nobody gets fired for buying tableau.

CEOs in 20-people companies don’t have time for syntax errors for sure, but they do care how much time reports take away from building features.

Anyway that needs rephrasing

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#119

You may not like Excel but most people who "NEED A QUICK ANALYSIS FOR YOUR BUSINESS" (to quote your copy from https://www.jigdev.com ) rely on it. I think you have a solution in search of problem. Showing it to more people is not the answer. Adding features only helps when you have someone who has a clear point of dissatisfaction with Excel. Who is so dissatisfied with Excel that they will take the time to install an…

I look at this and think about hours I generally do this work in Jupyter.

Me too. Jupyter notebook which I believe is open source.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#120
post #116
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noted. I think that’s likely the first thing to do. ie. that when a person’s interested enough to download the tool, they actually get to understand the basics of what it does... Sorry for wasting your time. In a nutshell: - cells are code blocks that form a directed acyclic graph (like cells in Excel) - cells can have a name (v=10) that can referenced in other cells (w=10*v) - the whole thing is not exactly javascri…

> Sorry for wasting your time. Not at all, this is what testing out new products is all about! I think you may have something here, but it's hard to figure out exactly what. Don't get me wrong, I think marketing and splash copy is important (a lot of comments are about your website), but I would personally focus first and foremost on the value proposition of your product. > - the whole thing is not exactly javascript…

The whole thing is based on Observable (www.observablehq.com)

You’ll find plenty of onboarding stuff there if you’re interested.

Observable is great, but it’s got some annoying traits (saas only, lock in, no 2d layouts, no tabs) which make it not well suited to solving business problems.

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