Tell me what your company does • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell me what your company does

#141

Post by mrhappyunhappy » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:05 AM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #132

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a number of reasons some websites do not list prices: 1. Pricing sets the wrong expectation for the true price you may actually pay once you get all the features you need and may not be aware of thus making the sale more difficult. 2. Pricing sets a transactional tone vs a mutually beneficial relationship 3. Pricing anchors your mind set to how much something costs vs how much value / ROI you get out of tha…

Yes - perhaps - but If I'm a small business looking for a thing that does X - I want to know if this is in the ballpark for me - or perhaps this is targeted at someone bigger. Price is a helpful way to determine that - because god knows, you can't figure that out from the marketing gobbledygook on the website anymore. The ROI doesn't matter if you can't afford the investment in the first place.

Then those websites are not targeting you and could care less what your needs are.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#142

Post by mrhappyunhappy » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:09 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #139

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand anything about business do you?

I understand they aren't getting my business without prices listed. I don't get to make any multi-million dollar decisions (except maybe in the extreme long term) but several times I've been tasked with research problems where commercial software or external services may be part of the solution. The ones with no prices get taken out of the evaluation process because I can't evaluate if they're feasible or not.

I feel sorry for your employer then.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#143

Post by hoodoof » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:10 AM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #14

I want to see this guy review the Tarsnap website. For all that some people don't like my web design, I'd like to think that it's very easy to figure out what Tarsnap is.

picodollars - you've lost me, even though I'm tech.

I don't think this website should be made to "look better" i.e turned into some corporate garbage, but it could definitely look better... looks kinda like an open source programmers best shot at making something look good.

There's a middle ground between looking corporate (irrelevant) and looking unprofessional.

In your shoes I would be going for a style of "very plain, but very neat" looking. Aiming for perfectly spaced between elements, attractive font, minimal but matching colors. Function graphics only.

This kinda looks OK:

https://weirdkid.com/emailchemy/

Re: Tell me what your company does

#144

Post by hoodoof » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:19 AM UTC

http://camel.apache.org/

Front page of the Camel website:

Camel empowers you to define routing and mediation rules in a variety of domain-specific languages, including a Java-based Fluent API, Spring or Blueprint XML Configuration files, and a Scala DSL.

This means you get smart completion of routing rules in your IDE, whether in a Java, Scala or XML editor.

Apache Camel uses URIs to work directly with any kind of Transport or messaging model such as HTTP, ActiveMQ, JMS, JBI, SCA, MINA or CXF, as well as pluggable Components and Data Format options. Apache Camel is a small library with minimal dependencies for easy embedding in any Java application. Apache Camel lets you work with the same API regardless which kind of Transport is used - so learn the API once and you can interact with all the Components provided out-of-box.

Apache Camel provides support for Bean Binding and seamless integration with popular frameworks such as CDI, Spring, Blueprint and Guice. Camel also has extensive support for unit testing your routes.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#145

Post by rdtsc » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:27 AM UTC

Maybe this is the equivalent of the scammers claiming they are from Nigeria even if they are not. That's how scammers filter out automatically all those who are smart enough to see through the bullshit and only get the suckers to respond. These companies filter out those who see through the bullshit and only get the suckers, too?

Startup marketing is not necessarily geared for customers (end-users). They are just as much geared towards VCs who are courted and who are expected to bankroll the company. Some non-negligible number of startup founders jumped on the bandwagon with the goal not necessarily make a product, get customers, but really just to be CEOs and play "startup". That can be done by fooling a few angels. Depending on who these prospective VCs are the message and marketing can be adjusted to appeal to them. Just because someone has a lot of money doesn't mean they can't be fooled or taken advantage of. They probably hear and see all this startup activity, unicorns left and right so they are eager to play the game. And so they are matched up with just as eager "founders" who also want to play the startup game.

The last paragraph was from experience. The person fooled some older wealthy guys to invest in their silly idea. They burnt though millions in a few years renting an office in SV, hiring lots of workers, going to conferences, rewriting their thing with the latest frameworks. And yes eventually it all failed, because they had 0 paying customers. But it also didn't fail, because now they speak at conferences and put ex-SV CEO and founder on their title and so on.

The idea is, if you just dig a bit deeper, it is easy to see things a bit more clear.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#146

Post by nathan_f77 » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:27 AM UTC

This inspired me to redo the landing page for my side project: https://formapi.io/

Would appreciate some feedback. Is the purpose clear enough? I know it won't make sense unless you're a developer, but it's a tool for developers.

It's just a rough draft, so it probably won't be that sparse when I launch. I need to add a proper pricing page, and a tab bar at the top. I'm also planning to add a demo API request that you can run, similar to mailgun.com.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#147

Post by samstave » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 2:44 AM UTC

sgustard wrote: post #116

My company squeezes juice out of bags. That was easy to explain, but didn't seem to help. Pretty sure we should have gone with "scalable antioxidant delivery systems."

Socially connected Intelligent nutrient extraction at you fingertips

Re: Tell me what your company does

#148

Post by acomjean » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 3:18 AM UTC

a coworker left my company to go work at pega-systems. They've been around for a while as a company but I visited their website to figure out what they do. Its a little better now, but...

"Pegasystems Inc. is the leader in software for customer engagement and operational excellence. Pega’s adaptive, cloud-architected software – built on its unified Pega® Platform – empowers people to rapidly deploy, and easily extend and change applications to meet strategic business needs. Over its 30-year history, Pega has delivered award-winning capabilities in CRM and BPM, powered by advanced artificial intelligence and robotic automation, to help the world’s leading brands achieve breakthrough business results."

https://www.pega.com/about

Re: Tell me what your company does

#149

Post by Tenobrus » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 3:19 AM UTC

nether wrote: post #105

Here's a fun one, from our very own YCombinator: > The Flex group uses technology to improve the range and fluidity of human expression. We invent new concepts and representations that amplify people’s ability to create, connect, and understand. We create tools that blur the line between using and creating, in order to provide a conversational medium for thinking and doing. What they really do is make graphical progr…

To be fair, those tools (videos and descriptions) are directly below that paragraph. Which makes it many times clearer and more direct than the majority of the websites discussed in the article.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#150

Post by _0nac » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 3:26 AM UTC

acomjean wrote: post #148

a coworker left my company to go work at pega-systems. They've been around for a while as a company but I visited their website to figure out what they do. Its a little better now, but... "Pegasystems Inc. is the leader in software for customer engagement and operational excellence. Pega’s adaptive, cloud-architected software – built on its unified Pega® Platform – empowers people to rapidly deploy, and easily extend…

So, um, what do they actually do? The only words in that that make any sense are CRM (customer relationship management) and CPM (business process management), and those are also hopelessly waffly business bingo buzzwords.