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Review my startup: ShopTalk

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Re: Review my startup: ShopTalk

#11

Post by jamwt »

joepestro wrote: post #9
trickjarrett wrote: post #5

Looks very useful, my question is what makes this better than say Meebo, or other in-browser chat solutions? Frontpage design is clean but it doesn't feel smooth enough. It seems rather flat I guess. What are your plans for monetization? Sell memberships? You have no mention of this on the site now, if that is your plan you should probably make that clear before a company gets set up with it thinking it will be free.

Looks cool, but while we're on the subject - what makes this better than the established players like Campfire ( http://campfirenow.com/ )?

We looked closely at Campfire before we started, and it's certainly the offering we've found that's the closest to what we're shooting for.

I think the target audience is one of the big differences. 37S, as usual, is targeting small teams with simple needs, and doing so with a diverse set of complimentary products, including campfire. They're doing 80/20, and doing it very well.

We're focusing on chat specifically, and we'd like to add a lot more depth--background room notifications, sophisticated group/room access rules, LDAP/AD integration, marketing ourselves to medium-sized organizations (several hundred users/company) that have higher standards when it comes to integration with existing systems, management ease, etc. We're shooting for a more complete solution.

So, I think Campfire is one comparison where recognize we're competing along a difference of degree, not really a difference of kind.

Re: Review my startup: ShopTalk

#12

Post by trickjarrett »

Further ideas:

1) I appreciate the demo video and it's quite good, but you may consider doing a 30 second high-level overview. The demo is rather slow moving for someone who wants to get in, understand the product, and get out or get in further.

2) Logging. I think you'll be well served by offering logs of all chats to the admins for record keeping.

Re: Review my startup: ShopTalk

#14

Post by mrshoe »

joepestro wrote: post #9
trickjarrett wrote: post #5

Looks very useful, my question is what makes this better than say Meebo, or other in-browser chat solutions? Frontpage design is clean but it doesn't feel smooth enough. It seems rather flat I guess. What are your plans for monetization? Sell memberships? You have no mention of this on the site now, if that is your plan you should probably make that clear before a company gets set up with it thinking it will be free.

Looks cool, but while we're on the subject - what makes this better than the established players like Campfire ( http://campfirenow.com/ )?

I think we do see Campfire as direct competition, but we believe this market to be largely untapped. As jamwt mentioned, we do serve a slightly different audience. I think (and hope!) that as more people start recognizing how useful this type of application is to their organization, some portion of them will choose us over Campfire.

Re: Review my startup: ShopTalk

#15

Post by mrshoe »

trickjarrett wrote: post #12

Further ideas: 1) I appreciate the demo video and it's quite good, but you may consider doing a 30 second high-level overview. The demo is rather slow moving for someone who wants to get in, understand the product, and get out or get in further. 2) Logging. I think you'll be well served by offering logs of all chats to the admins for record keeping.

Thanks, trickjarret, for the useful feedback. I think a shorter intro would definitely be helpful.

We will definitely have searchable logs of all conversations in a future version. They will be searchable by everyone (based on room permissions). So, keep watching.

Re: Review my startup: ShopTalk

#16

Post by jamwt »

trickjarrett wrote: post #12

Further ideas: 1) I appreciate the demo video and it's quite good, but you may consider doing a 30 second high-level overview. The demo is rather slow moving for someone who wants to get in, understand the product, and get out or get in further. 2) Logging. I think you'll be well served by offering logs of all chats to the admins for record keeping.

We also intend on offering downloadable archives, along the "your data belongs to you" lines. We're just a service.

Re: Review my startup: ShopTalk

#17

Post by ckjohnston »

I think the idea has promise. I could definitely see larger companies using it to communicate within departments on a real-time collaborative basis (versus in-person meetings or blasting a one-way email to a group and then having to resend any valuable feedback).

And while I'm no design expert, I agree with everyone else about the design. If your target customer is companies & it's going to be a service that they'll ultimately have to pay for, then the design should look professional. The current design doesn't seem like it represents an "Enterprise" offering. And I personally don't like the black background and the logo font/color/image.

Good luck!

Re: Review my startup: ShopTalk

#18

Post by brandon272 »

There are a lot of reviewers here asking, "What makes this product different from ____?", which requires that you follow up to explain (in quite a few words) what makes this product different/better than your competitors. To me, this is bad, because your potential customers are probably going to wonder the same thing. If you're going to sell this thing, you need to make it clear to your potential customers exactly what your product is and what makes it great within seconds of them hitting your homepage.

In your case, I would think that the very least you will need to do is make your product look at least equally impressive to something like Campfire right off the bat (which will necessitate having a very well thought out, professionally designed homepage) that rivals what 37Signals has, so that people are at least intrigued enough to dig further to see what your product really has to offer.

I'm going to echo comments that have already been made about the site itself. I find the design bland and dreary. There also isn't much information on the site at all. What happens if I don't watch the video? I have no idea what the product is about or even looks like.

Re: Review my startup: ShopTalk

#19

Post by umbrae »

brandon272 wrote: post #18

There are a lot of reviewers here asking, "What makes this product different from ____?", which requires that you follow up to explain (in quite a few words) what makes this product different/better than your competitors. To me, this is bad, because your potential customers are probably going to wonder the same thing. If you're going to sell this thing, you need to make it clear to your potential customers exactly wh…

Couple this with the fact that many professionals don't even have speakers on their machines and can't use headphones at work and you've got a real problem.

Re: Review my startup: ShopTalk

#20

Post by mrshoe »

umbrae wrote: post #19
brandon272 wrote: post #18

There are a lot of reviewers here asking, "What makes this product different from ____?", which requires that you follow up to explain (in quite a few words) what makes this product different/better than your competitors. To me, this is bad, because your potential customers are probably going to wonder the same thing. If you're going to sell this thing, you need to make it clear to your potential customers exactly wh…

Couple this with the fact that many professionals don't even have speakers on their machines and can't use headphones at work and you've got a real problem.

Thank you for this very helpful thread of feedback. ShopTalk is better than Campfire in many respects (and there's more to come), but we definitely need to communicate that better on the site. We also need to do so without relying on the screencast.
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