Please rate my startup (again)

jkkramer · on Feb 11, 2011

Quick thoughts:

- You've clearly put a lot of effort into this. You seem to have a big collection of useful features. Congrats on that.

- I checked out the site before reading your post. I didn't really get what it was about -- something to do with bands or something. You wrote in your post, "It takes care of all the boring, tedious number-crunching aspects to being a professional in the industry." That kind of concise tagline is missing from your site. I would put all those boxes with features and stuff below the fold and summarize your service above the fold with a heading and maybe a short paragraph. E.g., https://www.wepay.com/

- The video, which should be featured more prominently, is way too long. It's clear you put a lot of work into all the features, but it's too much to show off all at once. Give a "big picture" view of the service and skip over the details. I'd aim for no longer than 1-3 minutes, the shorter the better. The video's job is to give people a taste, and get them excited.

- I tried going back to the site after writing some stuff here. It immediately took me to the video page and I didn't know how to get back to the homepage. Really confusing.

- I now see that when I click on "Bands" it gives me more of an overview video. I didn't expect that. That video still has a lot of details. Needs more summarizing to tell you what you're seeing and why it's the solution to your problems.

- The design could use some spunk. It may be handling "boring, tedious" details but you don't want people to think your app is boring and tedious. Not sure what to suggest other than maybe getting a designer's input.

Nice job so far, good luck!

TimothyBurgess · on Feb 11, 2011

Thanks!

The landing page uses the same framework as the actual app... I wanted to do that to keep things consistent and emphasize its flexibility.

I've also been trying to do something different/new but as everyone seems to be saying... maybe I should conform to a typical startup landing page. I just get tired of seeing such similar layouts all over the place. I'm sure it's for good reason though... so I'll probably end up conforming. I can actually do it myself and in a fraction of the time it took me to do all of this... but oh well. Just trying to break the mold! Maybe some other time haha...

jeffmould · on Feb 11, 2011

1. At first glance I am a little overwhelmed by the landing page. It may be because I am not in the industry, but it doesn't seem to give a clear, concise, quick overview of what your site is about. You put it simply above, "takes care of the tedious number-crunching aspects of being in the industry". So refine that line into a mission statement and clearly put that on the page. The items on the left and right of the screen should be more like bullet points below the top. Very confusing and hard to look at. Not sure what I should look at first or what is important to know.

2. It asked me to download a plugin. I have most of the standard plugins for media installed on Chrome, so not sure what it is asking me for. I assume it is something to do with Windows Media Player, but I can use other sites requiring it just fine. I would either check for the plugin and alert the user nicely with a message on the site that certain content requires a specific plugin or not include that content at all right off the bat. If I had just happened to come across your site I would have immediately navigated off simply because of this.

3. Clicking on the "more" links in each of the boxes just adds additional bullet points. Take me to another page. Let me explore, let me learn more about how your service is going to change my way of doing business.

4. I watched part of the video tutorial. It is a bit lengthy for an intro video and is definitely more of a tutorial. I was expecting it to be more of how does this service help me. Also, if you are going to have it as a tutorial, I would break it down into shorter segments for each aspect of the service.

JohnTitus · on Feb 11, 2011

I checked out the page BEFORE reading your description, so this is my impression as a normal web user. Sorry, but it's kind of brutal. I'm trying to be honest.

First thoughts: After viewing the page for about 20 seconds, I have no idea what it is. If I were a normal user, I'd be gone by now.

Seconds thoughts: Now that I've read all the boxes around the page, I get that it's for managing a band. Took way too long to figure that out. The 6 boxes need to be shrunk down into one "sound bite" to describe what the site is. You don't have to tell your users all your feature on the front page - that's what a "more info" link is for. Also - there's a SIGNUP UP NOW, below that there is an Enter, and below that is another Enter. Over on the bottom left is another Enter with a smiley face. Not sure what to do first.

Decided to pretend I'm a band: Clicking on Band starts a video tutorial. Wasn't expecting that. Video tutorial goes by pretty fast. How do I stop this video? The "Enter" button at the bottom of the page is apparently a free text field that does nothing.

Decided to sign up: Filled out the fields. Clicked Continue. Took me back to the form and told me the user was not found.

At this point, I'm done. In general:

Too much going on for a simple landing page. The idea of a landing page is to convert casual surfers into signing up.

I never saw the Terms of Service anywhere.

TimothyBurgess · on Feb 11, 2011

Also - there's a SIGNUP UP NOW, below that there is an Enter, and below that is another Enter. Over on the bottom left is another Enter with a smiley face. Not sure what to do first.

This front page is using the same framework behind the rest of the app. I figured I'd do that to keep everything consistent. The free text field that says "Enter" is the name of that particular layout (it matches the smiley face icon)... I figured I'd leave all layouts editable on the front page just for people to tinker with if they wanted.

Video tutorial goes by pretty fast. How do I stop this video?

It's actually all javascript. :| I've considered adding pause/stop/forward/back buttons.

d0m · on Feb 11, 2011

It seems to me that you are really trying to be original in your landing page. So much that I felt a bit lost looking at it.

- There's like an input text on the bottom saying enter.. ?!?!?

- I find the overall font/structure really weird.

- And most importantly, I really have no idea what your application is doing.

- And then, the bottom bar.. I clicked somewhere near video and it went fullscreen.. and I couldn't close that video.

Anyway, overall, I'd suggest:

- Try to focus on what your application is doing - Try to be more standard in your landing page

It's ok if we don't see all the features.. Just focus on the most important one and if people are interested, they'll dig in to learn more.

JamesDB · on Feb 11, 2011

Sorry but it's appalling.

I went to the site before reading what you explained the site does, and left it almost immediately.

It comes across as spammy and complete information overload.

Hire a designer, or get a friend at least, just to make some visuals for it. It'll be well worth the money. It needs serious work.

TimothyBurgess · on Feb 11, 2011

Believe it or not my design sense isn't lacking as much as it would appear! It's just that I was trying to do something different with this particular app. The landing page uses the same framework as the actual app but it looks like that wasn't the way to go. I'll probably end up conforming to typical landing pages and repost within a few days. Please keep an eye out as proof that my design sense isn't as terrible as you think haha!

biznickman · on Feb 11, 2011

1. You need a designer. While a poor design was acceptable 10 years ago since web design was a relatively new concept, it's no longer acceptable by the consumer.

2. You name seems like a bit of a stretch

3. This is an extremely crowded market.

4. This is exactly how I started. 10 years ago I wanted to help bands connect with their fans and so I built a site for them to sell their music online (CD Baby at the time was delivering CDs). Unfortunately iTunes launched and killed my idea so I created a social network that included music. Myspace then launched music and killed that idea as well and Facebook came along and all the girls at my school were using it so I knew I was going to fail. The result was that I eventually gave up but not on entrepreneurship. I also now had learned how to program and was getting paid $30+ an hour which was a serious upgrade for me from Baskin Robbins or Home Depot.

The reason I say this is not to discourage you but simply that I think you have a long way to go. I was approximately 21/22 at the time so it sounds like we're in a similar position. Keep focused and keep trying to make something work. If an idea doesn't stick, try another (I tried importing liquor ... it failed, online bookstore ... it failed, about 6 other things ... they all failed). I eventually got really good at programming over the past 10 years and 8 years after starting my crappy looking (it really looked like crap when it started) music website, I sold my first company.

I'm going to be brutally honest about your website: it's not presentable and the name is horrible. That's not a bad thing though ... you're just getting started on the path of entrepreneurship! Keep doing the side jobs (as they'll pay the bills) and keep studying how to program and maybe look into learning some design. If you want to be a successful internet entrepreneur you'll make it happen.

I know that didn't answer your question the way you wanted but as soon as I saw this site, I knew we had a lot in common. I'd also suggest taking some business courses or read business books ... you are entering an extremely saturated market and performing market research will often help you improve your idea and find the proper niche. Also try working at some local internet startups. I worked at a bunch that failed but I learned a hell of a lot. It's a much cheaper way to fail :) Best of luck!

5. Just thought of one other thing: I'm not sure if you're a musician but create a product that solves YOUR problems. It's much easier to be passionate about a problem when it's fixing your life. If you're a musician, congrats!

TimothyBurgess · on Feb 11, 2011

I appreciate the kind words. But believe it or not my design sense isn't lacking as much as it would appear haha... it's just that I was trying to do something different with this particular app. The landing page uses the same framework as the actual app but it looks like that wasn't the way to go. I'll probably end up conforming to typical landing pages and repost within a few days. Please keep an eye out as proof that my design sense isn't as terrible as you think haha!

I should also mention that my app does something completely new for that market but it's my fault that you didn't know what it does.

Lastly, I actually don't plan on becoming a huge internet entrepreneur... just using this to have some kind of self-sustaining income so I can work on what I'm really good at: robotics.

biznickman · on Feb 11, 2011

Thanks for replying. Definitely let me know when you have the new landing page b/c the homepage right now really isn't good :) As for new for the market you'll definitely have to explain that aspect. In terms of starting a business: if you are passionate about robotics ... focus on robotics. My passion happened to be starting businesses so in that regard we're probably different then!

I still wish you the best of luck!

makeramen · on Feb 11, 2011

I'm no designer, but I'm pretty sure you're violating a whole handful of design guidelines here. The site just feels like one giant fullscreen flash ad.

rabidonrails · on Feb 11, 2011

I think you have too much information on the front page. Give a static tour of your service so I can figure out what you're really offering. It looks, to me, like you have way to much text on the front page -- I don't think people will move around the little boxes to explore the service.

I can't really understand what you offer from your the video on the front page video -- (i.e. I know I can track gas consumption, but I want to be able to really see what that table looks like for more than a second).

Your front page is complicated because you're trying to quickly describe a complicated service...why not offer a live demo on the front page? Also, forget the "rely, relate..." I'd use words that completely describe the service..."track, engage..."

Cool idea, make the front page simpler. My .02

ecaroth · on Feb 11, 2011

Some design suggestions... The second 'play' button looks like the css was messed up, positioning the text in weird places all around it. Until I realized it's an image. You should DEFFINITELY clean those up, it looks like an accident. Maybe vertically stack them above or below the appropriate play buttons. Second, you can barely notice that tooltip to see the video on the bottom. You have a lot of empty black space right under the RELA on top... maybe have some intro text or a link to the video there the first time somebody visits the page. It took me a good 45 seconds just to figure out what the purpose of the site was. A couple sentence description right at the forefront would really help.

TimothyBurgess · on Feb 11, 2011

I'm guessing your on a bit higher resolution? This is how it looks on my resolution: http://i.imgur.com/XmpRl.jpg

But I'll definitely have to figure out a way to satisfy all resolutions. I was trying to go for something atypical... not a big fan of the cookie cutter startup landing pages I see all over the place... but I guess there's a good reason they all look similar.

As for the forefront description, my app does a ton of stuff so I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with something short and sweet that describes it all.

mattcurry · on Feb 11, 2011

Congrats on getting your idea built. Without knowing the industry I think the idea is great.

However, I think the landing page still needs a lot of work. I was suspicious when you were asking about monitor resolutions and had a separate mobile version. It really needs to be simplified greatly. There are a million articles out there that can help (clear/short desc of value, clear call to action...).

I realize it probably took you a lot of time to do the animation, but I would scrap all of that. Sorry :(

Also design wise there is nothing "music" about the landing page.

A 9 minute video seems excessive for a landing page. Cut it to 60 seconds to get the customer interested. Save the 9 minute version for after they sign up.

abofh · on Feb 11, 2011

You're going to HTTPS on full-screen very fast; you might get better performance with some HTTP+CDN integration (if possible, I've not examined the code at all).

The mobile landing page should probably provide a link to what the app does (since the fs didn't load at first for me, it's what I saw first).

The main page is very cluttered -- try reducing the amount of text, and adding more significant white padding between your columns, and remember that not everyone comes to see your site with a 29" screen.

Still looks far better than my UI skills any day :-)

Edit; Just tried to play the videos, and the audio is clipping badly (linux, chrome); A filter pass through on peaks/troughs would probably be wise

ahrens · on Feb 11, 2011

Focus on your USP, try some A/B testing to figure out what people react to best. Maybe a 1 minute intro video to what you do on the front page.

When you know a little bit more about what makes people tick, get a complete redesign from 99designs or similar. You need to show people quickly what you are selling! I usually look at a landing page, read maximum 5 sentances of description that is prominent on the site. If I am still interested, I check out the video on the front page. If I'm still interested, I check for a prominent "pricing" link.

makethetick · on Feb 11, 2011

Based on the design/workings of the site, the blurry onmouseover images are quite hard to read, especially with the small font. Also, to avoid using plugins (which everyone hates), can you not use HTML5 or flash?

On a large screen (1920 x 1080), the site still works but it's pretty spaced out and harder to read. Maybe try limiting the size by setting a fixed width/height?

mleonhard · on Feb 11, 2011

I believe the best time to post on HN is Tue-Thur, in the morning in the U.S. eastern time zone. The problem with Friday is that the rest of the world is already enjoying the weekend.

How about pivoting into a field where the customers are spending more money and have more money to spend?

nyellin · on Feb 11, 2011

The page takes too long to load. It is blank for a very long time. Then everything suddenly appears on the screen at once.

If you can't fix the load time, at least add a better loading indicator so that people don't close the window.

huhtenberg · on Feb 11, 2011

This is what I see - http://i55.tinypic.com/29pusn5.jpg - Firefox on Windows

nyellin · on Feb 11, 2011

Furthermore, the "Sign up now" call to action shouldn't disappear when you play the demo video.

ozziegooen · on Feb 11, 2011

As Mark Zuckerberg would say, your startup is "too useful".

I'm surprised that everyone here seems so focussed on your landing page. It may be a thousand times better than the first, and it may still need improvement, but what is more important is the actual product. And right now from what I've seen that needs work.

I think the main concern I have comes from the fact that you spent "7 months by myself glued to a computer". How much have you talked to users in this time? Have you had any bands use some of the functionality while you were working on it to get an idea of what they really wanted?

The home video looks like you have an incredible amount of features, but with little emphasis on usability or design. I'm intimidated by your website. It may be able to produce 30 kinds of graphs, but if I don't like using it or won't take the time to learn most of them, it doesn't matter. There is some stuff there that sounds really cool; like the idea of Myspace integration. But the cool stuff gets lost with all of the features that band members may not really care for (the merch section with pictures seems quite separate from event planning).

I think it's a cool idea with potential. I'm not sure what the technical expertise and design expectations of band managers is, and perhaps they only have really poor software to do similar things. But if I were a potential user, I'd like you to select one or two really cool features, make those well designed, and take the rest away until I ask for them or put them in the back menus for the hardcore users. That would give your site a really simplistic message and could leave me demanding more; maybe in the form of an additional pay-for content. Which features should these be? I don't know, talk to band managers.

If you can find one, it would be really useful if you could get a designer to help you with this. If not, just bring it to bands that you know, get them to use it (for free), and talk to them regularly.

I really don't mean to sound critical. I'm a 20, and I've been working on a website for 4 months now, though probably not as hard as you have (because of school). It's still been pretty tough for me, and I give you a ton of credit for lasting so long while working on something you care about. This is an incredibly comprehensive website. If you did cut it down a bit, the nice part is that it seems like all the backend is already done, so most of the work is complete. I just don't know how much longer you are willing to endure on this. Websites can be quite depressing when you have few users.

Having gone seven months working on this alone, based on your own idea, is something few of my friends are capable of. In the case that it doesn't work out you have still done something very impressive and can live knowing that you've finished something original. Best of luck to you, and if you ever want more advice let me know.

TimothyBurgess · on Feb 11, 2011

Thanks for the kind words and actually taking the time to try it out! :)

How much have you talked to users in this time? Have you had any bands use some of the functionality while you were working on it to get an idea of what they really wanted?

My old band used the original version of this app (it was overall much more basic than this but with all of the same functionality - if that makes any sense)... not to mention I know bands and exactly how the majority of them think when it comes to this boring stuff - I've been planning on adding a more guided approach. I also know exactly what tour managers have to do... and the app takes care of 99% of it - which is actually mainly who this is for. You'll just have to take my word for it... this app is exactly what tour managers need. They do everything on paper first and transfer it to excel later.

I really like the idea of reducing the feature set,,, but at the same time I feel like the culmination of all of the features is really what's going to reel in the management, booking agencies, and record labels - which is who I'm really after (more money there!)... individual bands are a plus.

profitbaron · on Feb 11, 2011

I tried to look at your site to give you feedback but saw "Alright HN! Thanks for the input! I get it now. I should conform to a typical landing page and not try to be different. :)"

However, I was able to see it using Google's Cache and the site design is terrible, if I was a user I would instantly close the screen seconds after loading the page - it may be the best thing since sliced bread - but there is so much information to take in that you can't instantly tell what you do AND you don't know which bit to take in first.

After fixing the design, you also need to cut down the length of the video down since especially the part where it says

"Check this out to see what RELA can do in less than 9 minutes."

You need 9 minutes to tell me what your product actually does? REALLY?! This would definitely drive a user away, if you want to have a video which shows what you do then make sure that it is only about 30-60 seconds long and if you still love the "9 minute video" then allow users to see that after they've signed up.

Additionally, I can see that you say this landing page is based on the whole framework of the site, and if that is the case as you haven't provided us with a login to test//the site is now down I can't go further into the site and check out if the framework design is suitable for the rest of the site because, it may require you also altering other aspects of the website to make a more fluid design which has a better UI so users can use it better.

Afterall, user number is nothing these days, its all about the active user numbers!

TimothyBurgess · on Feb 11, 2011

Google's cache on the site is all kinds of screwed up... it's missing quite a bit. Either way it doesn't matter though because I'll be conforming to a "standard" landing page to appease and appeal to the widest audience possible. :P

There are actually a couple of 1.5 minute long advertisements if you click play... that 9 minute vid is actually a tutorial for people who want to learn how to use it from start to finish.

TimothyBurgess · on Feb 11, 2011

Fullscreen: http://www.rela.cc

Mobile: http://m.rela.cc