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

Elastic (YC W11) launches Close.io, sales software designed by salespeople

pandodaily.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 64 posts

Re: Elastic (YC W11) launches Close.io, sales software designed by salespeople

#51

Post by andyakb »

Cant really comment much on the product itself, but can see the value it provides and have already suggested it to a few friends to look into more.

Wanted to just give a couple suggestions for changes you could test. First, I think it would be helpful to emphasize both the 14-day free trial and also the 1 free month with annual billing. The trial is barely mentioned and I think it is a huge selling point, especially when everybody who has used the product seems to immediately fall in love with it, so it is important to get as many people to try it [risk free] as you can.

Second, as was already shown in the comments, you may want to consider re-recording the video using a windows computer and display that for those who show up with windows. It may seem obvious to you that SaaS will run on any major OS, but it may not be so clear to customers. Further, even if a customer recognizes that they can use it on windows, it still helps to limit any potential "dividing" factors.

Re: Elastic (YC W11) launches Close.io, sales software designed by salespeople

#57

Post by nickpersico »

espeed wrote: post #55

What are the differences between the Web app and the native apps (I'm on Linux)?

The only major difference between the Web app and the native app is built-in calling. There's currently no calling in the Web version.

Re: Elastic (YC W11) launches Close.io, sales software designed by salespeople

#58

Post by espeed »

nickpersico wrote: post #57
espeed wrote: post #55

What are the differences between the Web app and the native apps (I'm on Linux)?

The only major difference between the Web app and the native app is built-in calling. There's currently no calling in the Web version.

Hi Nick. What about it being a Web app prevents it from being able to provide built-in calling?

Re: Elastic (YC W11) launches Close.io, sales software designed by salespeople

#59

Post by anemitz »

espeed wrote: post #58
nickpersico wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only major difference between the Web app and the native app is built-in calling. There's currently no calling in the Web version.

Hi Nick. What about it being a Web app prevents it from being able to provide built-in calling?

We aren't happy with the available web calling options, yet. The more traditional route, Flash, has obvious disadvantages. More recently, WebRTC has been used for calling, but it's still too immature for serious applications. Long term WebRTC is the technology we'll choose for web-enabled calling, but it needs wider adoption among browsers and proven rock-solid reliability and quality for us to trust our sales team (and yours) with it.

Re: Elastic (YC W11) launches Close.io, sales software designed by salespeople

#60

Post by noahc »

jgalt212 wrote: post #48
philfreo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@jgalt212 - All of our plans come with a "chat with engineers live" link, but I'm happy to offer you some unofficial phone support if you're serious about considering Close.io. [phil@our domain] As for being 6x more expensive than Salesforce? We've seen massive productivity gains over other CRMs and you need to ask yourself: how many more deals/month would a sales person need to close to make $100/mo? Probably not ve…

Phil--thanks for your response. I appreciate your offer of phone support. We are bringing in a new head of sales this week in fact. I will put your product in front of this person, and it will be up to them to decide to trial, or not. I am just speaking from my experience on both the selling side, and on the buying side, pricing at a significant premium (be that 1.5X or 6X) to existing players is going to make it ver…

A couple things:

1. Being cheaper doesn't mean more sales. I've often times chosen the more expensive option simply because it is more expensive and it has to be better right? If you're cheaper than salesforce, then I view you as an inferior product to salesforce. If you're the same price as salesforce, than you're a salesforce knock off, why not just get the real deal? If you're more expensive than salesforce, oh? Why is that? You're better in x,y,z ways? Perfect. That's exactly what I could use. Offering a lower price works when you view your self as a commodity. You probably don't want to view your SaSS product as a commodity.

2. "I"ll raise prices later" is a bad approach because SOMEONE will have looked at your sales page the day before and now want the old price. Also, if you say, "My real price is xxx, but I'm going to charge xx now", then you also have the added disadvantage of not knowing if you could actually charge xxx later. Furthermore, you might be attracting the wrong types of people via xx pricing, who then mass exodus at xxx, and you would reach the wrong conclusion. You're marketing and pricing brought in a bunch of cheapskates, and yet your revenue would triple by going to xxx, with decreased sales and support costs.

Post reply on HN