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A no-fluff assessment service for you and your startup

Hello, people!

Don't want to read this and directly see the website? You can visit the website here: https://examen.io

My first post here so pardon the jitters; I work at a small-ish startup in the plains of New Delhi, India and we were recently tasked with a problem which required a very thorough cost-benefit analysis.

We are only 5 engineers; the product we envision to create is going to be humongous: both in size and complexity. Many of you might suggest we make a MVP and go from there, but since this is a financial product, even the MVP requires a tonne of certifications and licenses. In order to make this journey smooth sailing for us, we decided to automate most of our hiring process: probably the first round or so wherein an online assessment can give us a good idea of the more general (or even specialized) skills a candidate has and whether or not they will be a good fit for the role. I tried out numerous such systems: HackerRank, Coderbyte, Codility, Qualifiedio, etc.

There were a few issues I saw with these services: they were either too expensive for an early-stage startup; or they didn't have features which we were looking out for in a product like this. For example, while one platform allowed us to have custom challenges, it costed $25/assessment; other costed us $299/month but has a very brittle process for adding new challenges.

I decided to create something on my own; it was a good side-project (or so I think). An online assessment platform create specifically for early-stage startups (but with the ability to scale with you) and with a starkly different method of assessment. In addition to the traditional web-based approach, the candidates can bring their own IDE and start out with just one cURL command. According to me, this gives a better assessment of the candidate's ability in the real world filled with CLIs, etc.

I decided to name the service Examen and created a landing page for it. My fellow Indies, I want your opinion on this service. The summary of such pontification is: would you be interested in such a service? Furthermore, is there anything I can change in the landing page to make it more friendly? (I know of the issues related to its responsiveness :-( )

You can visit the website here: examen (dot) io

Any and all feedback/feature requests/questions is welcome!

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Postscript: I hope everyone is taking abundant caution amidst this pandemic; take care. :)

  1. 1

    I'd recommend not linking out to your competitors from your "Compare Us" page. While I like the fact that you are being transparent about your pricing (w.r.t. your competitors), your user journey should not lead the user into the hands of a competitor.

  2. 1

    Reduce word count by 66%

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      Hey, @rab! Thanks a lot for the suggestion; I am still a little astray with regards to what needs reduction? Any specific reason for the reduction?

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        Just too wordy. You have 3 seconds to grab someone.who visits your page. I can barely read the tagline in that time. I'm not trying to be critical for the sake of it but helpful and hopefully am. You're not writing for the engineer. Imo you're writing for the person who want to assess engineers.

        Consider

        "A dead-simple, automated assessment platform for engineers by engineers.'

        V

        "Automated assessment platform of engineers, by engineers."

        V

        "Automated assessment of engineers"

        V

        "It's how you assess engineers"

        Check out @harrydry as he taught me that last one through his website.

        Which one of those would you remember?

        1. 2

          @rab, makes perfect sense! I will keep this in mind, thanks! :)

        2. 2

          Good advice rab. Tend to agree. This is the article he's referencing @spandey

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            @harrydry, I literally subscribed to MarketingExamples yesterday; awesome to see you here, and thanks! :)

            1. 1

              Oh, that's awesome. Welcome aboard. Wish you luck with Examen

  3. 1

    Great work on the landing page especially on the available comparison with other competitors on the market. I know when I wear a developers hat the entire page looks good, but when I look at the page as a non-developer and many startup founders are non-technical it sounds a bit difficult to comprehend. So maybe a simpler version of the copy with a more robust/technical/advanced version as a read more.
    Just my two cents

    1. 1

      Thanks a tonne, @manishb01!

      I really like this suggestion; since this is essentially a bridge between HR and Engineering, an overview for HR + in-depth for Engineering would be a great motif which echoes beautifully with the product. I will definitely incorporate this in the second version. :)

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