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Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues

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Re: Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues

#101

Post by nilkn »

jasonm23 wrote: post #100
nkohari wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spent 15 minutes looking at the beta version of a product, and you've made the decision that the creator is wasting their time? Have you considered that, having thought about it for months, they might understand the problem domain significantly better than you? What if the product actually has tremendous value, but suffers from a marketing problem? That's a pretty easy problem to fix. Rather than using your sever…

Wow, great advice there "just keep your mouth shut". For anyone who has actually invested a large amount of time in a dead idea, the above poster is right on the money. I think you should take you own advice and talk only about things you know intimately. Lest your sentimentality gets the better of you, when actually trying to address a problem that could suck OP's life down the proverbial toilet.

> For anyone who has actually invested a large amount of time in a dead idea, the above poster is right on the money.

I think the issue here is that the above poster has probably not done his due diligence to actually verify the premise of this statement (that the idea is a dead one).

I could be wrong on that, but I see almost nothing in the post that refers to anything about his experience actually using the app.

For what it's worth, I'm trying to use it right now but I think the site is getting slammed by HN, so I can't actually use it. Therefore, I'm not going to tell the OP that he just wasted all his time and money.

Re: Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues

#102

Post by jasonm23 »

tschellenbach wrote: post #92
leftnode wrote: post #28

I'll come out with a contrarian point of view: I think you're wasting your time and certainly your money. To have invested your life savings into this app which, uh, is really hard to determine what it does seems silly to me - especially since you have a family to care for. Slack Meets GitHub Issues? Doesn't Slack already meet GitHub issues in that it integrates with GitHub fine? The fact that you need a very long bl…

Don't let people tell you your ideas won't work!

Don't be too ready to listen to people's words of encouragement, unless they're telling you:

Shut up and take my money!!!

Re: Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues

#104

Post by idan »

I read both your post and your website copy. The short version is: you're failing to explain yourself concisely and effectively. I want you to succeed — here's some critique.

I think I'm in your expected early-adopter demographic. I am a heavy user of Trello, and this smells like a cousin of tools like Trello but with a very different information architecture. I couldn't understand your product and how it would be useful to me without actually signing up and using it.

An introductory blog post is great, but most people are going to discover your product from your product's website. The copy there fails to communicate the crux of your product in the first ten seconds. I'm awash in a kind of marketing babble of your own invention. Loops? InnerLoops? Why should I care about your invented terminology?

Start over with your copy — you've just started out, so it doesn't really matter what was there beforehand. Cut it down to a short 'graf which:

1. Explains what your product does in a concrete way. 2. Shows me where and why I would use it.

You don't need to communicate 100% of what you do or what your product could do. You need to communicate your product's _most important self_ quickly. Stay away from empty banalities about how more and more people are using your product to keep in touch, because that is generic to the point of meaninglessness. Focus on a use-case where your product excels and where you can tell a compelling story. The fact that people could use the hammer you're selling as a screwdriver doesn't mean that you ought to point it out.

Good luck! I'll be signing up and trying your product out.

Re: Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues

#105

Post by nkohari »

nilkn wrote: post #101
jasonm23 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, great advice there "just keep your mouth shut". For anyone who has actually invested a large amount of time in a dead idea, the above poster is right on the money. I think you should take you own advice and talk only about things you know intimately. Lest your sentimentality gets the better of you, when actually trying to address a problem that could suck OP's life down the proverbial toilet.

> For anyone who has actually invested a large amount of time in a dead idea, the above poster is right on the money. I think the issue here is that the above poster has probably not done his due diligence to actually verify the premise of this statement (that the idea is a dead one). I could be wrong on that, but I see almost nothing in the post that refers to anything about his experience actually using the app. Fo…

> I think the issue here is that the above poster has probably not done his due diligence to actually verify the premise of this statement (that the idea is a dead one).

Correct, and further, I don't think a passive bystander can make that judgement. The opinion of any one person is irrelevant. If the idea is bad, the market will reject it.

Re: Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues

#107

Post by verytrivial »

sankho wrote: post #48

Take the "How it works" section of your Medium post - _Particularly_ the excellent screen caps - condense the text, and then make this your homepage. Reading takes more time for me to understand what your product does than looking at pictures.

I can't agree more. Scrolled down and saw "This is Loops" section and wondered why this wasn't on the landing page, and whether other people would have scrolled as far down as me.

Re: Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues

#108

Post by svieira »

A few thoughts:

I like the setup - the layout is very nice, and once you get used to the concepts involved it becomes much easier to see what you can do with it. That said, "Loop" is not the word I would use to describe the main unit of content. It is not intuitive at all, which is a large part of the problem - I think "Stream" is a clearer name (or "Feed" if you prefer the FriendsFeed style of things). That also means you don't need "Bundles" for saved searches - everything is a "Stream", some of which are "pinned" to the sidebar.

I really like how composable streams are - the use of tags makes it easy to merge content across streams, but by not requiring the use of tags you make it easy for me to jump in and start adding content.

Tags with values is a genius idea - want to add ratings to your photos, simply add `#rating:{n}` - then create a stream of your favorite photos by simply pinning a search for `#rating:>3` ... awesome! I could also seeing using this for triaging bug reports, assigning priorities to #todo entries ... very elegant.

I will be adding more thoughts into @loop feedback stream as they come to me.

One last time, nicely done - and good luck with your next iteration!

Re: Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues

#109

Post by city41 »

Good luck with the project! Just thought I'd point out there's a fair amount of competition out there. Not just Slack, but Flowdock for example, which offers very "loop-like" functionality as well. If you've not looked into Flowdock, it'd be worth it to check them out

Re: Show HN: Slack Meets GitHub Issues

#110

Post by city41 »

sankho wrote: post #48

Take the "How it works" section of your Medium post - _Particularly_ the excellent screen caps - condense the text, and then make this your homepage. Reading takes more time for me to understand what your product does than looking at pictures.

yes but when you do it, put more effort into the screenshots. Create realistic conversations, realistic todo lists, etc. Realistic context can really help a user understand the app better.
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