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

Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 52 posts

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

#11

Post by maryrosecook »

sgk284 wrote: post #7
rockbilly wrote: post #3

* I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right. * Why do you start at 3 brands? I'm guessing that there are enough users that would like to monitor a single brand maybe for $12-$14/mo? * The plan pricing isn't good. The Big Shot plan costs $100 for 10 brands/users while the Blogger plan costs $19 for 3 brands/users. Why shouldn't I just get 4 Blogger…

"I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right." I'm torn between this. On the one hand, it's less friction for the user to sign up... but then you wind up bugging the user later on. I feel like it's better to just get all of the "administrative non-sense" out of the way at the start. Also, if they're willing to give you their credit card (even if you…

The motivation behind requiring a credit card for free trials is that many people forget, or can't be bothered, to cancel before they start getting charged.

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

#13

Post by eisokant »

It looks like a great site especially since you allow filtering to some extent. I was just deleting my account with Techrigy.com earlier since they just didn't get it right, MightyBrand has a lot of potential.

When I tried blocking an author though I got the following error from Google Chrome:

The webpage at http://mightybrand.com/brands/block has resulted in too many redirects. Clearing your cookies for this site may fix the problem. If not, it is possibly a server configuration issue and not a problem with your computer.

All the best,

Eiso

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

#14

Post by ryanwaggoner »

sgk284 wrote: post #7
rockbilly wrote: post #3

* I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right. * Why do you start at 3 brands? I'm guessing that there are enough users that would like to monitor a single brand maybe for $12-$14/mo? * The plan pricing isn't good. The Big Shot plan costs $100 for 10 brands/users while the Blogger plan costs $19 for 3 brands/users. Why shouldn't I just get 4 Blogger…

"I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right." I'm torn between this. On the one hand, it's less friction for the user to sign up... but then you wind up bugging the user later on. I feel like it's better to just get all of the "administrative non-sense" out of the way at the start. Also, if they're willing to give you their credit card (even if you…

I understand what you're saying, but I think most people feel (correctly) like companies who ask for the credit card info up-front are banking on people just being too lazy or forgetful to cancel. While that might result in some decent short-term cashflow, we don't feel that it's a smart move long-term, as that's not really the kind of relationship we want to have with our customers.

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

#15

Post by ryanwaggoner »

eisokant wrote: post #13

It looks like a great site especially since you allow filtering to some extent. I was just deleting my account with Techrigy.com earlier since they just didn't get it right, MightyBrand has a lot of potential. When I tried blocking an author though I got the following error from Google Chrome: The webpage at http://mightybrand.com/brands/block has resulted in too many redirects. Clearing your cookies for this site ma…

We'll definitely look into that error. Thanks for the feedback!

(Note to self: check site in Google Chrome next time!)

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

#16

Post by timf »

sgk284 wrote: post #7
rockbilly wrote: post #3

* I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right. * Why do you start at 3 brands? I'm guessing that there are enough users that would like to monitor a single brand maybe for $12-$14/mo? * The plan pricing isn't good. The Big Shot plan costs $100 for 10 brands/users while the Blogger plan costs $19 for 3 brands/users. Why shouldn't I just get 4 Blogger…

"I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right." I'm torn between this. On the one hand, it's less friction for the user to sign up... but then you wind up bugging the user later on. I feel like it's better to just get all of the "administrative non-sense" out of the way at the start. Also, if they're willing to give you their credit card (even if you…

One reason I think it should be required is to do vetting up front. That is, say you are offering something ISP/colo-like through your SaaS, something along the lines of a web proxy service. Not good to have people on free trials doing illegal things and having no way to identify them.

I understand credit cards are not great vetting but it's better than nothing in these situations. I wish there were a way around this (which is mostly why I'm posting this comment, perhaps someone can relieve me of any ignorance).

"Fax me a copy of your license" is out of the question ... the only thing I've come up with is to have a pretty crippled free demo that at least gets you a chance to see half of it in action.

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

#18

Post by sgk284 »

timf wrote: post #16
sgk284 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right." I'm torn between this. On the one hand, it's less friction for the user to sign up... but then you wind up bugging the user later on. I feel like it's better to just get all of the "administrative non-sense" out of the way at the start. Also, if they're willing to give you their credit card (even if you…

One reason I think it should be required is to do vetting up front. That is, say you are offering something ISP/colo-like through your SaaS, something along the lines of a web proxy service. Not good to have people on free trials doing illegal things and having no way to identify them. I understand credit cards are not great vetting but it's better than nothing in these situations. I wish there were a way around this…

There is a large company I used to work for that we all use everyday and most of their services are free, but before I left they were discussing using credit cards as a means to defend against abuse in a free service. (The specific service being discussed hasn't been released yet) While it would cut back greatly on abuse, it'd probably significantly reduce adoption. I was always against the move... but in the start up I'm working on now, I feel it'd be more convenient for both sides to just take care of the credit card stuff up front. The big difference, to me at least, is that what I'm working on is a paid service.

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

#19

Post by symptic »

With a name like MightyBrand, while I think you've got a solid design already, it just doesn't come across to me as something bold enough to sport the name 'MightyBrand'. I'd look to add bold, heavy, red coloring rather than orange. The white feels clean, but it also feels a bit too open.

Also, in terms of conversions, placing the icons with links to the social sites themselves will drive some traffic away. Instead, create case studies for each one with very bold and obvious calls to action on the pages inviting the user to get involved.

The screenshot is good, but the border is bigger around the screenshot than the 'Free 30-day Trial' button. I'd sugegst either making the button 'louder' or simply increase the border's size, or decrease that of the screenshot.

Internally, one thing I notice is very wide columns for your content. This makes the text a burden to read. Make them more narrow. it looks like the line-height is good, but it may need to be bigger. A lot of the text is bold when it shouldn't be. You want a larger contrast between the content and the headers.

The Pricing page is a good start, but it's too bland right now. Spice it up by adding short descriptions of each benefit under the price chart. Add background colors to the chart items themselves. make the most important item larger and in the center. The little blurb underneath could do with some shortening I think. "Special Request? Contact us." As it is, it's too much text for something so simple. You can have more text on the contact page if need be.

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

#20

Post by jdamer »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #4
redorb wrote: post #2

I think your prices should be $5/month "blogger" then I would just rename the others and perhaps shift the price downward too, "startups" will probably do this themselves with google alerts or other services. I think your market is small; I feel those who know enough to care about brand mentions - care enough to already have ideas of how to do it, and those who don't won't probably 'get it'. Good luck in your endeavo…

Thanks for the feedback. We're definitely still working through our pricing model, so I appreciate the suggestion. As we state in our FAQ, there's a number of ways you can cobble together a free solution on your own that will accomplish some of the same things, but it'll take longer and will lack a lot of features. At $20 / month, our solution doesn't have to save much time to be worth it, or at least that's the thin…

Pricing really seems to be the most troubling point. I really think there should be some free scaled back option. The question is where to draw the line of what you can give away for free and what people absolutely must pay for. I guess you could draw the line at "things you can't do with a Google Alert" so things like responding directly, monitoring multiple brands, filtering, etc. But at least let me see buzz about 1 brand for free. Then I'll sign up and I'll consider paying for premium services.
Post reply on HN