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Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

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Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#141

Post by jpallen »

Qworg wrote: post #102
jpallen wrote: post #7

I'm trying to expand my online LaTeX editor into a viable business. My cofounder and I think there is potential for a great enterprise product where we could really improve the workflow in publishing houses and teaching, where LaTeX is used a lot. We've had enough feedback from individual users to think this, but we're struggling to get our foot in the door with the people we'd need to talk to about selling to them o…

I've written any paper I've worked on in the last 7 years in LaTeX as soon as it gets over 5 pages or has any math of any kind in it. I'm currently writing a book with a publish house that uses Word templates (dear god!) and it really sucks. =) Here are a few pain points you need to solve (esp. for academics): - All the formats: If you can offer all journal/conference formats (especially those that don't have LaTeX f…

Thanks for the feedback, it's really useful. I think you're right that a big problem is the lack of compatibility between word and latex, particularly since few people know both well. We've been concentrating on just the latex side since it's what we know, but taking a wider view might help.

We're currently adding in templates and formats, as well as looking at how we can better integrate with other referencing tools.

Collaborative editing is not real time but warns and merges if you are editing a document at the same. I think the ease of use for collaborating is our main selling point at the moment, but I agree our pricing needs refinement. First we need to fix our focus and main features.

Thank for your time in replying.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#142

Post by mikegreenberg »

brlewis wrote: post #127
mikegreenberg wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10:06p Shared dropbox folder... seriously, what next? haha 10:07p 10:07p Got email describing next steps. I suppose I wait for human intervention to arrive. (PS: So far, none of this is easy. If it weren't for it feeling like a treasure hunt, I'd have probably given up already.) 10:12p Decided to register while I wait... 10:15p Got the welcome email... 10:17p Fell into a rabbit hole. Sorry, but this is much too compl…

Thanks for the valuable feedback on this process. 57 users have gone all the way through it, or an even more complicated previous setup, but 19 abandoned it in the middle (including you). I've looked at the Dropbox API before, and at the time it didn't seem as good as the shared-folder method. I'll have another look, keeping in mind what a big UX difference it could make.

I really feel this is important to invest significant time into. The onboarding is probably the biggest touch point with your customers and their first experience. Further, just because users have completed the process, it's important to ask if they are happy after completing it. Satisfaction is a much more worthy goal.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#143

Post by brlewis »

mikegreenberg wrote: post #142
brlewis wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the valuable feedback on this process. 57 users have gone all the way through it, or an even more complicated previous setup, but 19 abandoned it in the middle (including you). I've looked at the Dropbox API before, and at the time it didn't seem as good as the shared-folder method. I'll have another look, keeping in mind what a big UX difference it could make.

I really feel this is important to invest significant time into. The onboarding is probably the biggest touch point with your customers and their first experience. Further, just because users have completed the process, it's important to ask if they are happy after completing it. Satisfaction is a much more worthy goal.

I agree onboarding is key, especially at this point. Most users will start from the web site, not from sharing a folder, but some will start from sharing a folder, and I want that process smooth. I've got post-setup satisfaction among the (mostly early-adopter) users who've tried it, but that's because they only have to do it once. The "amazingly sweet solution" quote on http://ourdoings.com/ is from someone who went through the previous, even more complicated setup. But I definitely do need to make it smoother if I want to attract even more early adopters, much less mainstream users.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#145

Post by jreposa »

tarekayna wrote: post #132
jreposa wrote: post #56

Is this easy to use? Your goal is to open a new savings account. http://www.mybanktracker.com/savings We just launched our new style of rate tables, but we need more testing. It would be great to have your opinion.

The first thought that hit me when I opened the link is that I don't know where to look. I was searching for the product. Then I found it after looking at the bottom half of my browser . Three different horizontal menus and one huge ad banner seem to be taking a lot of space. FYI Screen Resolution 1366x768 Once I actually scrolled down a bit and started using the sliders I got it directly. Very easy to use, great job…

Thanks for the feedback. I completely agree. The top part of the site is something we're trying to shrink. Especially since a good part of our audience have smaller resolution screens.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#146

Post by tarekayna »

jirinovotny wrote: post #137
tarekayna wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was pretty excited about checking this out, then was disappointed there is no live demo. Screenshots are good, but nothing beats a live demo of your product on your website.

Hi, by live demo, do you mean video?

I meant live running code of the component you are selling. For example, here is a live demo of the jQuery Accordion UI plugin http://jqueryui.com/demos/accordion/. Hope this help.s

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#147

Post by mattgreenrocks »

stuartk wrote: post #84
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would use this...especially if you can get some talented teachers interested in it. Good UX and interaction features will be key to convince people to move past Youtube. Also, the idea reminds me a bit of guitarmasterclass, but that is more a repository of videos than a back-and-forth learning place.

Thanks for the comments Matt. Having at least one person say 'I would use this' is a nice boost! I wasn't going to have it exclusively for guitar, but musical instrument lessons are an ideal fit for video feedback. I'm sure there are other niches too where video is the ideal medium for this. I've had the domain lessonboss.com for a while, and I was going to use that for this. Perhaps I could have the feedback videos…

Think hard about making peer review work well. My piano teacher (bless her) sometimes has to show me two or three ways to think about something and then BAM it clicks. Some sort of reward system to fight the natural urge to show off and be the 'best' student.

If you can trick people into being helpful via gamification, it almost redeems that concept. :)

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#148

Post by mikegreenberg »

brlewis wrote: post #143
mikegreenberg wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really feel this is important to invest significant time into. The onboarding is probably the biggest touch point with your customers and their first experience. Further, just because users have completed the process, it's important to ask if they are happy after completing it. Satisfaction is a much more worthy goal.

I agree onboarding is key, especially at this point. Most users will start from the web site, not from sharing a folder, but some will start from sharing a folder, and I want that process smooth. I've got post-setup satisfaction among the (mostly early-adopter) users who've tried it, but that's because they only have to do it once. The "amazingly sweet solution" quote on http://ourdoings.com/ is from someone who went…

I'm happy to try it again when you have an update. I've left my account active.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#149

Post by mikegreenberg »

jxcole wrote: post #48

Hi Mike! Thanks for offering to help. I am pretty good at programming but I know almost nothing about hosting or servers or hardware. I would like to make a website with a Go/MySQL back end (I know it's weird, but I love it). Do you have any recommendations for hosting? Should I use a cloud host like EC2 or Rackspace's cloud or should I use some other hosting service?

I'm not very familiar with Go, unfortunately and not sure of it's runtime requirements. I'd go with kevinburke's recommendation. The provider seems pretty solid at quick glance. If you can get Go on EC2 or Rackspace Cloud, I'm certain your experience will be optimal. The only conerns you might have with cloud hosting are IP address which have been blacklisted for various reasons (used on boxes for spamming, running abusive bots, scraping, etc). Otherwise, you should be fine.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#150

Post by mikegreenberg »

stuartk wrote: post #86
mikegreenberg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a really good idea if you made it easy enough to record and reply. The majority of your value will be based around those specific interactions. (Video hosting is pretty much solved.) I would focus a lot of your effort on the UI/UX end of it. If you're green on UI/UX, read: http://designingfortheweb.co.uk/book/ . Alternatively, hire someone who rocks. Additionally, I'm not certain online music teachers wo…

Thanks Mike, that's helped me see where I need to focus my attention. I was looking at direct webcam recording, but was going to add that later. But given your comments I think that is a must now, to enable quick and seamless video comments and feedback. Regarding music teachers paying, I mentioned in the other thread to Matt that I may be thinking more towards making it free for teachers, charging students per cours…

My pleasure! ;)
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