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Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

uk.techcrunch.com

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Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#11

Post by davidw »

sho wrote: post #9
pclark wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look past names and use them for the problems they solve.

Well, more power to you I suppose. I just see it as laziness on the part of the founder, and I can't overlook it. edit: you can mod me down all you like, swombat, but I'm just stating what I think, and I doubt I am alone.

He actually can't downmod your original comment, because he submitted the story.

I don't much care for the name either, but in the long run, I don't think it matters much. "Google" doesn't sound very serious, "Yahoo" speaks for itself. "Micro" "soft" has been the butt of jokes for a while. Unix is a pretty awful name in its own right. And so on and so forth...

Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#12

Post by edw519 »

swombat wrote: post #4
SwellJoe wrote: post #2

Dragging industries into the current century always seems like a great idea. But, there's often a reason why the industry is still stuck where they are, and it's usually not technical. (I can't say I haven't been tempted to try this on more than one occasion, though. So many industries are so old school as to be painful for a nerd to even look at. So much time being wasted every day on old processes and methods, it's…

100% agree. Woobius's success so far is not due to some especially advanced technology, but to the fact that we're strongly connected in that industry (Bob, my cofounder, is himself an architect) and so we've been able to build a tool that adapts to the way they already work, rather than trying to force them into some new processes. Essentially, what allows us to reach this market is the user interface work rather th…

"...we've been able to build a tool that adapts to the way they already work, rather than trying to force them into some new processes."

Good for you. Getting users to change is like trying to get them to eat an elephant. The best way to do it is one bite at a time.

Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#13

Post by mahmud »

swombat wrote: post #5
terpua wrote: post #3

Congrats Daniel. It's like Basecamp for architects. Re: your TC comment - is that 3000 users or customers?

Thanks. It's users, sadly :-) But we'll get there...

Please please please, set your aim really high: think International. Look into project management and scheduling. Look beyond the web app, and certainly beyond the typical $5/mo "monetization". Don't hesitate to offer customized versions and certainly solicit and implement user feature requests. Look into all the industry standards, laws and regulations. The more you learn about construction the better it will reflect in the quality of your product. Reach out to industry groups that your users are members of. Read their trade publications. Attend their conferences. Befriend architects, and actually become friends with them.

That's what I want to tell my younger self when I was working on my first start up, 1999 - 2001.

Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#14

Post by joel_feather »

The pricing is too low. It's a niche market, people are prepared to pay more for things that work. However, you need to offer desktop clients to upload the files, because I would believe that architects work with pretty large files - uploading using a webform on a website is painful.

Also, it's easier to sell an actual piece of software to old school companies than a pure web service. Throw together a 'POST' client in C# and you're done in a day.

Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#15

Post by bsyl88 »

mvaerle wrote: post #6

I think the title (and article) is a little over the top. The audit trail is a nice feature but the rest is just sharing files? The real problems are in annotating these drawings collaboratively, merging separate parts and layers of buildings and in general managing the actual flow of information in a design process instead of merely the drawings. Solutions with versioning IFC files, IFD libraries and solving the pro…

Hi, I'm the founder of Woobius. Firstly, thanks for your kind words on the user interface. We are fortunate to have Cliff Rowley who been a key driving force behind it.

With respect to the body of your comment. The reason Woobius is useful to architects and engineers is that it fits into their existing workflow - e.g. they produce a 2D drawing that forms part of their legal documentation. While this process is (for all intent and purposes), basic, it's often neglected. Being practicing architects ourselves, we realised that by making this easy and efficient, our collaboration cost can be dramatically reduced.

I believe that once we have achieved this first step, we can start to tackle the more complex issue of allowing collaborative annotation on drawings themselves. Hopefully, by which time we would be in position to annotate a 3D model even!

Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#16

Post by stcredzero »

joel_feather wrote: post #14

The pricing is too low. It's a niche market, people are prepared to pay more for things that work. However, you need to offer desktop clients to upload the files, because I would believe that architects work with pretty large files - uploading using a webform on a website is painful. Also, it's easier to sell an actual piece of software to old school companies than a pure web service. Throw together a 'POST' client i…

Niche market? The construction related part of the economy is huge! I think their pricing is just right. By charging more for additional storage space, they have an ideal "try before you buy" situation.

Mobile clients might be very useful. Missed collaboration in construction often results in stuff that cost money to put there and more money to correct. The ability for those in the field to get clarification quickly could save lots of money.

Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#17

Post by malte »

First of all, congrats on your TC coverage.

I'm interested in your approach for the pricing of the service. I have to agree with joel_feather that 12$/gb/month seems a little too low for a niche market. Do you have any estimates about the average storage needed by your targeted users?

Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#18

Post by bsyl88 »

sho wrote: post #7

It would be a cold day in hell before I decided to engage the services of a company called "Woobius". Seriously, am I the only person on earth who thinks all these new startup names are just utterly stupid ? What are these people thinking? "Woobius"!

It's very interesting what people say about our name. One thing for sure, the name Woobius is like marmite, some love it, some don't, but everyone remembers it.

Thanks for the honest comment though!

Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#19

Post by joel_feather »

stcredzero wrote: post #16
joel_feather wrote: post #14

The pricing is too low. It's a niche market, people are prepared to pay more for things that work. However, you need to offer desktop clients to upload the files, because I would believe that architects work with pretty large files - uploading using a webform on a website is painful. Also, it's easier to sell an actual piece of software to old school companies than a pure web service. Throw together a 'POST' client i…

Niche market? The construction related part of the economy is huge! I think their pricing is just right. By charging more for additional storage space, they have an ideal "try before you buy" situation. Mobile clients might be very useful. Missed collaboration in construction often results in stuff that cost money to put there and more money to correct. The ability for those in the field to get clarification quickly…

Mobile is a waste of time. Mobile apps are too cheap, people can just call each other. And the construction industry is a niche, because we're talking about the intersect of construction and web apps here.

The web designer industry is a niche in the overall economy, but it's one of the largest in the web based economiy. The reverse is true for the construction industry.

I have experience in selling B2B. Their pricing is wrong.

Re: Woobius introduces the construction industry to 21st century collaboration

#20

Post by khandekars »

Congratulations. I also read your article about document control, and immediately liked your approach. For example, restricting folders to just one level and not folders-within-folders, seems to have helped you in eliminating gratuitous complexity.

Side question out of sheer curiosity: Do you have AutoLISP/ObjectARX plugins that interact with your site?

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