I have just launched TermsBox.com - what do you think?
TermsBox.com provides terms of business for freelancers, contractors & small businesses.
Our unique terms guarantee to dramatically reduce late/unpaid invoices and provide overall protection for the users business/project.
Our research shows that many freelancers etc have no terms at all when doing work and so face this issues regularly.
If anybody has time to have a look and give some feedback I would be very grateful:
Thanks so much for any help and thoughts you have.
Andy
Congrats on launching. Always a big deal!
I definitely know freelancers that have the problem of not being paid. It's a huge problem and one that many will dance around the edges of without really trying to address it. Although having clear terms is helpful to resolve this, I'm not convinced that it will solve it. To do that I think there's an opportunity to go deeper into the problem and offer more a more comprehensive solution.
Here are my two favourite hacks I've found for getting paid:
i) Hiring someone on Upwork to chase my accounts receivable. The person I have for this is incredibly shrewd and has a knack for getting payments. Much easier and less stressful than doing it myself. And 10x cheaper than using an agency.
ii) Statutory Demands. Basically the nuclear option for settling small biz debts. I've only used it twice but boy, did it get quick results: http://henrydillon.com/post/20895007585/dealing-with-customers-that-dont-pay
Could these be incorporated into your offering?
Does the landing page portray the message
It certainly describes the problem adequately however I'm not sure what I'm getting until I am way below the fold.
Is the price of £19/$25 per year right
If you were going to solve my unpaid debt problems then this would be an amazing price, however in reality you're hosting a terms page. What is stopping me from ripping the content off and then hosting it on my own website? I do not say this to be mean, it is literally what I would be thinking as a customer. Hence the suggestions by others to create a single or per use payment might be better.
If it were me, I'd use the terms as a freemium acquisition channel and then provide higher value services off the back of that. Want to send a chaser phone call to all late paying clients? Wapow! £30 per month. Want to send a statutory demand for that 6 month old invoice? Boom! £50 prepopulated PDF.
P.S. - not sure if you were intending for people to sign up yet but I get an error when I try to subscribe using PayPal. "This feature is only available to Business and Premier Accounts."
Hi Henry.
Thanks you so much for your extensive and considered comments.
Ive been really thinking about the product over the past two days and all the input I've had here on IH.
I'm now definitely going to go down the route of freemium pricing for this. This will let me explain more about it on the landing page without worrying about someone just copying without paying - which was an issue I faced in building this first iteration.
Back to work!!
Thanks again
Hey Andy
Congratulations on launching!
Thoughts on the product/idea itself
What do I pay for exactly? Is it documents or contract templates? If so, why would I use the service after 60 days, if I already have everything I need?
Landing Page
It explains what it is. For me, as I am a "Text Averse" person and would rather see a video or visual explanation, there is a lot of text. The visual element (the iMac) looks not clean. The edges look pixie.
The price
If your documents save a freelancer from losing a few thousand $, then the price is too low I would say.
I'd personally go in a different direction with the USP. This would never have helped me get paid quicker. Those companies didn't give a crap about any terms and I don't think most people miss out on getting paid because of a lack of terms. Even putting 7 days payment will get ignored if the company has a strict 30 day policy. Just the way it is.
I'd go with having a legal backup option. These were my terms, you ignored them, see you in court (or more likely in a pre-court agreement). That's where you'll be able to help as lots of people get shafted but don't have any docs to prove what was agreed to - or at best have to piece together chains of emails to get to the same point (I never had to do that, honest...).
Ofc, make sure the terms are fully legally legit before pushing that angle!
My two cents:
It looks pretty cool. I like the direction this is going.
It's not really clear what I'm getting here though. The "pain point" is well communicated, but the solution is a little mysterious.
I think screenshots would be helpful -- maybe something that showed the different user options / setup screens / wizards etc that are involved. How configurable is the solution? Are there lots of customization options? (both visual and legal?). Does it allow a seamless theming / white labeling with customer websites?
Is this simply hosting of a terms of service? Or is there a client-agreement function where clients click-to-consent?
Any of the above is fine -- but screenshots would certainly help clear up that confusion, and clarify exactly what the product is.
Because the product features aren't clearly defined, I think the jump to credit card entry feels really sudden and premature as a result.
If I were you, I would focus on a different first-conversion: I would encourage free installation of embedded javascript first (assuming that's how you integrate). Then worry about upsell later.
Again, just my 2 cents. 'Grats on getting it live.
Hi James,
I'm really grateful for your input.
I was a bit limited when building the landing page as I did not want to show too much that people could copy without paying......
..... however after your and others great feedback here I'm going to go back to the drawing board a little and make this a freemium product.
This will hopefully allow me to lay everything out in the open to show exactly what TermsBox is and what it does.
Thanks again
Congratulations on the launch Andy! A little off topic, but I noticed your Twitter account has a good number of followers, even though it's very new. Is there any particular strategy you used to get this growth?
Other people have provided good feedback. I particularly agree that this feels like you should charge per use rather than a subscription. Also, I have a few grammar suggestions:
Sorry I know that's pretty pedantic and you were just looking to get your MVP out the door. There is a lot more text on the page so I didn't proofread through it all but it might deserve a look at. Hopefully those tips can help. Great job on the site!
Hi Carson
Wow! Some may say pedantic I say super helpful! I feel like I should pay you a proof reading fee!!
Thanks so so much for your help. I will action all of this.
I like the the idea.
Few comments on the landing:
Otherwise, great job!
Hi Baptiste
Thanks you for your positive feedback. I will definitely take this all on board and use the three points you raised to improve the design of the site going forward
He nice work on the site! The question on my mind as I took a look was just concerning an annual subscription. I notice on the bottom of the page with services provided you show that you offer a link to your site to show customers your terms of agreement. But do they change often?
I imagined that a client of yours would get terms based on what they wanted from you writen in legalese that they would post to their own site. Can they copy paste from your site to put on their own server, or do you require hosting the terms?
Also how does the ontime payment guarantee work? Is it just "your money back" if you're not paid on time in the first ninety days (first 60 free with 30 day money back)? Or do you offer a service to come after payment?
I think you got a great domain name. Good concept. I just had those questions regarding the service, thanks for sharing!
Hi Chris.
Thanks so much for taking the time to look over my site and give your feedback.
To be honest the pricing structure (subscription v one off payment v freemium) was what I agonised over most with this and in the end I just went for one to get it off the ground and produce an MVP.
My choice of annual subscription came top of the pile mostly to be able to offer customers the 60 day free trial and put them in a position to see me fulfill on the promises of the product without an upfront payment.
With the subscription the terms are hosted via TermsBox.
To go beyond the MVP my plan is to offer with a subscription not only the terms but also (i) chasing of invoices by us AND (ii) invoice factoring.
Maybe at the moment I've tried to take the middle ground and that's not achieving the desired result. Lots to consider for me!
The low contrast makes it hard to read the body copy. I'd recommend running a chrome devtools audit on the site, and check the accessibility section.
In the body copy, "nonsensicle of" should be "nonsensical for".
Guaranteeing no more late payment seems like an unrealistic claim. Just having strict terms doesn't mean clients won't pay late - it just puts you in a stronger position when you try to enforce against them.
As a freelancer, why would I pay an ongoing subscription for this service? It seems more like a one-time purchase.
Hi.
Firstly thank you for your input. I really value any opinions and criticism I get at this stage.
I will look at the contrast issue as you suggest.
The spelling mistake was a deliberate test for Indie Hackers so you win the prize!!! Thanks though I'll sort that out!
As per my reply to Chris subscription or one off payment was an ongoing indecision for me when making the MVP and possibly something I need to go back to and reconsider
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