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Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

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Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

#31

Post by _urga »

sr3d wrote: post #30

I peeked the code a bit and you got some good stuff there, like the Model class and the Http class to wrap on top of Prototype Ajax and also support Jsonp. I'm actually building an app that has the contacts feature as well so it's interesting to see another design and coding approach . With the foundation of your application right now, you can extend it to support CSV (or sources other) import in no time, or adding a…

Thanks you're right. I'm happy for early adopters to use a decent browser, and would prefer to innovate for them. I'm sure that's a large enough market. The idea is to enable everything to be done offline, and IE7 doesn't support that.

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

#32

Post by _urga »

OoTheNigerian wrote: post #22

I think it will help if you are more descriptive about the problems it solves and how it solves it. Before I am welcomed on your site you are already putting pricing in my face. Asking me to put a contact before I can 'have a seat'. It is all too sudden What I would advise is this, visit 37 signals and copy the format of their apps like BaseCamp. It is pretty the industry standard for productivity software. Best of l…

Thanks the idea is to not be too industry standard.

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

#33

Post by _urga »

jeroen wrote: post #18
harrybr wrote: post #14

The homepage has very little salesmanship going on, making the whole thing rather cryptic (On the other hand, the minimalism is very refreshing so there is a balance to be struck). You should go read "Sign up and ramp up design patterns" by Adaptive Path: http://j.mp/dynuJs I think you'll find it really helpful. Good luck.

Full url: http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2008/06/16/sign-up-ramp...

Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

#34

Post by _urga »

snitko wrote: post #5

Make a painless iPhone (and for some folks - Android) + GMail sync and I'll probably pay you $10. Although, I can still sync iPhone contacts with GMail (using a payed app because MS Exchange integration is a pain in the ass), so I'm not sure. I like that it's simple, but there should be some killer feature that would make me want to switch. But maybe I'm just not your target client. What's you target audience?

Stay tuned: import and GMail sync almost done.

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

#35

Post by _urga »

messel wrote: post #11

Might I suggest a fade in with a graphic of some type? $10/month for contact synchronization is too high. Dropbox's 50gbytes is at that level and I think that's over priced.

Good idea. I actually tried something like that but couldn't get it right. What price would you suggest?

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

#36

Post by _urga »

arnorhs wrote: post #13

Ok, I really like your app. It's very javascript based so I'll be viewing your source heavily, because I'm also creating similar javascript based applications and I get into a big problem with code growth/complexity, so I'm hoping to learn something from you. Here's some helpful criticism. I hope I don't come off too harsh, since I really actually like this app. Some questions: - What are your unique features? It see…

Thanks for the feedback and hope you get some good architecture ideas from the source. Copywriting re: "account" must be improved (an account could be a company/organization/project). Contact lists will come when I figure out how to do them right. For now, there's the search bar in top right. This is probably the easiest way to switch contacts or see all contacts in a company etc. Re: interface, the idea is to keep it "text as interface", and keep the color simple so your data can speak for itself. The goal is to keep cutting down on "app chrome". There is "max-width" on some elements. Re: feedback link, good point. The formatting of your name is a bug in a titleCase function (fix coming soon). Please check back on Monday/Tuesday for some new features.

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

#37

Post by sz »

_urga wrote: post #28
pmjordan wrote: post #7

I can't seem to find any screenshots of how your app does what it promises to do. And the only way I know what it's supposed to do is because you told us in the HN submission, not on the site itself. The first interaction is for me to type in some pretty sensitive information (email, phone number, etc.), which I am simply not going to do until I feel it's worth it. Also: your site breaks in weird ways in Opera (10.60…

Opera not supported.

For me that's an instant disqualification.

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

#39

Post by pmjordan »

fjabre wrote: post #38
sz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me that's an instant disqualification.

What!? You're joking I assume.. What % of the market does Opera have again?

For an Opera user, it's still damn annoying to have to start up another browser. I tend to have Chrome running as a fallback but it does always grate me when people don't bother to fix their sites. And it's not as if Opera was that fussy.

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Szpil

#40

Post by rprasad »

Hates_ wrote: post #9

Just focusing on the design aspect, I'm split between thinking "I love the simple, clean, minimalistic look" and "It looks like it's half built, I'll come back when it's finished". Perhaps even just the inclusion of a small logo or a bit of colour anywhere, would give the added impression that at least "something" has gone into the design and that this isn't just the default look & feel of a CSS framework.

It doesn't look any more inviting after some data has been added.

It's hard to tell what this site offers, since as far as I could see, it only stores name, email, and phone. I can get more than that free with more trusted, well-known services (Google, Plaxo, etc.). It's missing import/export, sorting, communications logging, attachments, related tasks, related documents, notes...

As currently presented, this product isn't compelling enough to use even for free. $10 a month is way too much.

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