I think you need some strong narrative examples of use. Show us a user with a problem that you solve. Show us something that a user can use to sell this to their boss.
Alternatively, use testimonials from actual users.
Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
41–50 of 79 posts
Re: Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
#42I really like this idea, but the pricing (to me) is astronomical. I'm guessing I'm not in your target market, though. That is, someone who would use this for say, RSVPs to church events or something. Though, your demo would tell me otherwise. I'm a little confused about market fit, I guess.
How are you going to survive? I could build this in a weekend and be profitable charging a quarter of the price. If this catches on I imagine someone will do just that.
Anyone willing to put in the work to create a serious clone product and talented enough to succeed at it probably has ideas of their own they'd want to implement instead.
Re: Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are you going to survive? I could build this in a weekend and be profitable charging a quarter of the price. If this catches on I imagine someone will do just that.
Doesn't that apply, or was applicable at some given point in time, to the vast majority of currently successful startups? http://www.quora.com/Startups/How-do-you-make-a-new-business...
potentially, but the vast majority also offer some benefit to staying with them. i.e. your friends are there, user incentives to promote growth crediting you to keep using the system, some form of retention. Here there is none and the price is outrageous for what is being done.
Re: Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
#44The tree manager is beautiful. It's the much prettier interface I didn't want to have to build for my educational SMS-based text adventure. All it would need to be ideal for me would be:
* a way to assign 'expected words' in responses, with intelligent dictionary/thesaurus lookups to assist (so a free text response that asks 'where's the meat?' will be handled by the 'where's the beef?' path in the tree)
* a way to add nodes to the tree in real time as responses come in that don't have a valid mapping yet (so someone who attempts something completely bizarre like 'screw bear' can get a custom response)
* a simple way to handle game state, probably in another tree accessible in each node.
Re: Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
#45I really like this idea, but the pricing (to me) is astronomical. I'm guessing I'm not in your target market, though. That is, someone who would use this for say, RSVPs to church events or something. Though, your demo would tell me otherwise. I'm a little confused about market fit, I guess.
We've been getting mainly B to E interest and our major competitors in those markets have starting plans of $1000/month. But we're interested in feedback. How would you revise the pricing?
I really don't get how this could be the case.
I built something similar to this for my startup; it didn't have a pretty UI we could let our marketing team use, but it also didn't cost nearly $0.10/text - it cost $0.01/text after we went into production, and was free while we were devving it.
I would charge a fixed rate per month for the pretty front-end; that's what startups/marketing teams/etc. would sub for. I'd then charge for the variable SMS cost at nearly what you can pay a Twilio/Tropo for them, and make it a unified, uncapped plan.
Re: Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
#46The tree manager is beautiful. It's the much prettier interface I didn't want to have to build for my educational SMS-based text adventure. All it would need to be ideal for me would be: * a way to assign 'expected words' in responses, with intelligent dictionary/thesaurus lookups to assist (so a free text response that asks 'where's the meat?' will be handled by the 'where's the beef?' path in the tree) * a way to a…
Very interesting! Couple of things. We're actively working on SMS to live chat, which might take care of editing tree in live time.
We've thought about the thesaurus and are thinking of going in that direction in the future, but right now it texts back the possible options. Does this seem good for the moment?
I'm not 1000% clear on your third bullet. Are you interested in nodes that you can access from any point in the tree, or are you interested in nodes that transfer you to another tree?
Re: Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
#47Good job on the launch! I'll second what jeremymcanally said: the pricing seems absolutely out of control. Other than that, its an interesting concept. Best of luck to you guys. A couple of UI problems I noticed: I keep my secondary monitor vertical—which makes your banner image look like this: http://imgur.com/3MGDYel,sxRuvJY#0 Also, the text on the first section below the banner clips a bit: http://imgur.com/3MGDYe…
Good catch! How much do you think we need to worry about vertical monitors?
Re: Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
#48This is cool. How does legal compliance work with people who do not want to be contacted?
Re: Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
#49So, if I set up a back-and-forth conversation where I asked five questions and got sent five responses, would that count as one text or ten texts towards the monthly limit? I can think of a case or two where the pricing might make sense. But if we're really being honest, I'd probably just use the service to test my assumptions and prove out the model. Then, if the numbers looked good, I'd do the Twilio integration my…
I think you're absolutely right about the HN audience. In terms of your question, it would be ten texts, so we count texts bidirectionally.
Hopefully you're right about business owners. We anticipate that they'll see the value. Trext is designed to make SMS app creation accessible to non-programers.
Re: Trext – Software that engages large groups in interactive texting
#50Small typo in the phone picture. The text says "its fantastic" when it should say "it's fantastic". Not a big deal obviously, good luck with everything.
Thanks!