You might consider some simplification of your web page... there was a cool automatic "tutorial" JS app posted here a few days ago... and maybe security as a selling point. I'd like to throw suspicious pages at it and see what happens if anything... big market for that and you can charge a lot more than you are if you make it remotely "cyber" related. Feel free to talk to me/pm if you want some pointers on the security side of the house.
Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
101–110 of 166 posts
Re: Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
#102Having great ideas and failing to get any traction is something me and I would be many people are familiar with. Of course we mostly hear about the successes.
Re: Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
#103In the whole first month of Buffer, we had less than 100 signups. For comparison, we now have 560,000 users (2.5 years later). We now sign up 100 people within a couple hours. It amazes me to think about it. I had a previous startup that also started slow, but never really changed. The key difference between the two, was retention. So I would highly recommend anyone who's getting started to closely watch retention. D…
I recently hacked together a product that aligns with buffer's philosophy, but is inherently different. I have about 70 users, but zero paid users and not much activity. I've been ignoring it from a development standpoint in favor of other projects. Meanwhile I still use the site daily. I hope I can put some more time into it, but for now I'm just letting it scratch a personal itch. If anyone is interested: https://t…
I was wondering why no one was tackling the issue of posting to multiple social networks, and instead all we saw were services that clone posts from one network to the next, services that usually get shut down from the networks. So I made my own a while back that can post to Twitter, Facebook, G+, etc in customized ways depending if I have a URL or not, automatically shortening it, etc. Otherwise I would give yours a try.
Re: Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
#104My advice: stop advertising PhantomJS and let me sign up for your service. Why did I have to scroll down 80% of the page to get to a sign up button? And nothing on your page convinced me that I should. I am in your target market - I build websites for a living, and I hate testing in multiple browsers. Convince me, in one sentence, why this is a good idea, and give me the option of doing something about it. Good luck.
This. It's a wall of text. I guarantee you, 90+% of people who go to your page are going to hit the back button long before they finish getting to the “sign up” button. -Condense the value proposition into a few sentences, or better yet, one. -Use pictures, include screenshots or drawings of what it does. People don’t like reading a wall of text. -Use multiple sign up buttons. Top, bottom, and between the text. See h…
Good luck to the OP! This seems like a potentially useful service. Having said that, on to the constructive criticism.
It's not clear on what kind of service it's trying to be, and thus what problem it should try to solve.
If it's for running a product's suite of automated tests, then it's going to be competing with Tddium and CircleCI. I can't imagine choosing it over one of those for my company's continuous integration, because it only runs PhantomJS tests and we also have tests that don't require a browser.
If it's for making a crawler-friendly version of a single-page app, that sounds really involved to get working, and requires you to insert this new service into the loop of your interaction with Googlebot. It also makes me wonder if Google will decide this is cloaking and ban your site for doing this.
Also, each of the plan names should be clickable. Right now it looks like I'm going to get the $199/mo plan when I click on Sign Up (and when I click on that I get taken to some other domain, and I'm on a Sign In form rather than a Sign Up form). Also, typo in "absolutly".
Re: Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently hacked together a product that aligns with buffer's philosophy, but is inherently different. I have about 70 users, but zero paid users and not much activity. I've been ignoring it from a development standpoint in favor of other projects. Meanwhile I still use the site daily. I hope I can put some more time into it, but for now I'm just letting it scratch a personal itch. If anyone is interested: https://t…
I was wondering why no one was tackling the issue of posting to multiple social networks, and instead all we saw were services that clone posts from one network to the next, services that usually get shut down from the networks. So I made my own a while back that can post to Twitter, Facebook, G+, etc in customized ways depending if I have a URL or not, automatically shortening it, etc. Otherwise I would give yours a…
Do you have to constantly change your web page scraper to maintain G+ support, since it has no API?
Re: Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
#106My advice: stop advertising PhantomJS and let me sign up for your service. Why did I have to scroll down 80% of the page to get to a sign up button? And nothing on your page convinced me that I should. I am in your target market - I build websites for a living, and I hate testing in multiple browsers. Convince me, in one sentence, why this is a good idea, and give me the option of doing something about it. Good luck.
I was to lazy to scroll the entire page, so thank you for mentioning that there is a Sign up button at the end. To the op, please remove that block of text that definitely kills conversion, show an example instead and let me play with it.
Re: Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
#107As a former PhantomJS user, I certainly would have used you guys. I went through a lot of shit trying to set it up (this is phantomjs v1.3 i am talking about - mainly xvfb - which kept sending shitty screenshots). I am pretty sure you have a good market out there.
My suggestions: 1. Change your name - since you are doing a hosted phantomjs browser as a service, try to have either the word phantom or browser in your name. 2. Change your design - Go with bootstrap-based template for SaaS apps. 3. Too much content on your page. Cut them down. 4. Spin off couple of specialized tasks as separate services - screenshot capture and web scraping. 5. Quite a bunch of phantomjs and casper.js user groups/mailing lists. Actively participate in them.
Good luck!
Re: Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
#108Right off the bat.
I'm kind of buzzed so take my advice as twice as important related to usability
No pictures = not interested (for 'scripts' this is okay.. but if its something that you expect users to sign up to it must have imagery).
If its a script that you put into your own app, then make a video to show how it works.
You need a much better summary at the top of exactly what it does and why i should sign up.
You use ALL your prime real estate explaining what a headless browser is. I already know what it is, and lose interest immediately.
just my .02, now I will go back for real and look a second time in detail but I wanted to give you my raw first impressions.
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At second glance, your call to actions are terrible (raw but honest, I want you to succeed).
My eyes move around the page like a dead rat rolling around in the wind.
look at examples of places that do it well:
Your signup button is literally -100/10. I can't rate it worse. I looked around how to sign up (I actually tried and still couldnt see it)
Re: Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
#109OMG
Re: Tell HN: My Web App has 13 Users
#110Re Pricing - I'd be interested in being able to buy a number of "credits" for this service instead of paying a recurring monthly fee. Something like $20 for 500 requests that I can then use anytime over the next 12 months.
Your service looks interesting but also something I'm likely to use a lot for a few days then possibly not at all for a while so I'd be reluctant to pay a monthly fee for it. A "credit pack" or pay-per-use ability would be a great alternative