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12 Comments

Can we get some feedback on our SaaS app?

Hey everyone!

Joe and Alex from London here! We're two brothers and we've been working on our side project, TinyTracker, in our evenings. TinyTracker is a simple and easy to use issue tracker for small teams.

We’d love some feedback on our website ahead of releasing TinyTracker!

We both work for software companies who use overly complex issue trackers that are slow and unfriendly to our non-technical friends and colleagues. We realised that we didn't need all the bloat that came with products like Jira and just needed a place to track bugs, feature requests and technical tasks!

The more we thought about it, the more we thought things could be done better, so we thought we’d put our money where our mouth is and actually build it, and so; TinyTracker was born!

We’re in the process of putting the finishing touches to the product and we'd really appreciate some:

  • Feedback on the website
  • Thoughts on the name and the branding

We’d also love to hear anything else you may think is useful or any advice you have for us!

Looking forward to your feedback!

Thanks in advance,
Joe & Alex

Ps. If you are interested checking out TinyTracker, you can get access here: tinytracker.co/early-access

  1. 3

    Hey Joe and Alex,
    here are my thoughts from the first few looks:

    • The landingpage is appealing (fresh and good looking) but it does not convey the "simplicity" you are advertising on the first look. Not sure how to solve this as you want to showcase the screenshot with real data and every feature on it...
    • I like the explanatory "notes" besides the screenshot. But are they really your #1 USP which resonate with the desired target group? What is it, the users want/need and why they choose you over another thing?
    • If its a real alternative to XYZ tool (and if this is your main selling point) I would clearly state the differences more prominently right below the screenshot. Probably the visitor is currently looking for "easy issue tracking tool" and has already seen a few dozend others or at least the well-known ones. So he needs to know the difference to those other tools
    • You show a lot of features, can you also show/tell the benefit of using your solution over another one?

    In terms of marketing you might want to think about having lots of "alternative-to-xyz" pages like Zapier has for each (also not-existant) integrations and try to be featured in those "alternative-to-portals", Quora and other forums. I remember searching for "alternatives to Jira" once...

    Good luck!
    Patric

    1. 1

      Hi Patric,

      Thanks for your feedback, I think you're right; there is a lot we can do to convey the simplicity that is actually offered by TinyTracker.

      We can survey some prospective users to understand what they are looking for.

      You show a lot of features, can you also show/tell the benefit of using your solution over another one?
      Because we are unknown we went with more "what" messaging as opposed to why/benefit marketing - do you think we should change this?

      Yes, alternative pages are actually on our Trello, but we haven't had a chance to get to them yet!

      Thanks again for taking the time to give us some feedback :)

      Joe

      1. 2

        Hey Joe,
        you're welcome! I'd go forward as you already planned to, or at least as I understood ;-)

        • try to sign up a few users now, hand-holding them trough the onboarding phase
        • interviewing your trial users
        • interviewing users of your main competitors (where you want to get market share from)
        • try to find out a lot of "why" from those interviews
        • change the messaging to show "We understand your why and your pain points with other solutions, and your why is solved by our feature X"
        • quickly set up 3-7 alternative-to pages with initial content to get them at least indexed by google, then add content over time

        All the best!
        Patric

        1. 1

          Awesome! Thank you for the feedback, that' really helpful :)

          I shall get some alternative-to pages up this weekend and try and hone the messaging :)

  2. 2

    Nice design.

    Doesn't seem simple. Seems like it has tons of features.

    Maybe have a few use cases that show the simplicity.

    File a bug - Step 1, Step 2 done.

    Find a bug - Step 1 done.

    Close a bug - steps etc.

    Good luck!

    1. 1

      Hey Josh,

      Thanks for the feedback! I think you are right it could do with showing how simple it is to add an issue.

      What gave you the impression it was too complex? The screenshot with the annotations or the features below?

      1. 1

        Not sure it is any one thing. But if the whole thesis is 'simpler issue tracker' the site didn't sell that to me. Seems like any other issue tracker.

  3. 1

    Hey, you can try the design feedback service: https://www.basil.chat/
    They can help to get feedback on the landing page

  4. 1

    Aren't you afraid people will confuse .co with .com?

    1. 1

      Yes I am, but hopefully I can make up for it with good SEO

  5. 1

    I like the name and design. Your strategy and value proposition might need a little work, however. Competing on simplicity can be a hard sell.

    First, simplicity isn't all that valuable. It's not the driving force behind why anyone uses anything. It's not a benefit. Rather, it's simply the promise of less friction and fewer disadvantages. So it's kind of like selling ice cream by saying, "The line is short!" Okay, maybe that's kind of cool, but the real compelling reason I'm buying ice cream is because it's delicious. In your case, maybe you should talk more about actual benefits, like how TinyTracker is "for the whole team," and show the whole team using it.

    (You can kind of tell from your landing page that you guys don't even buy into the simplicity thing. You say you're simple at the top, then you spend the rest of your page competing on features and showing complex UIs.)

    Second, it's hard to demonstrate simplicity. Customers kind of just have to take your word for it, sign up for your product, and use it for a while before they can conclude, "Yes, this is simple." Ideally, the value you provide would be much more obvious up front. I suppose you could show a very simple screenshot, but that brings me to my next point—

    Who can't? Anyone else can say their product is simple, too. In fact, every single new entrant in your space who has a product with fewer features than yours can make a reliable claim to be simpler. So it's almost impossible to differentiate on simplicity, unless you're in an industry where it's difficult to make a simple product that works. That's never really the case for CRUD apps.

    In fact, I think a lot of the stuff on your landing page fails to differentiate you. Anyone can say, "Simple. Powerful. Fast." Those are universally positive descriptions. Nobody is trying to make an app that's complex, useless, or slow, so as a visitor, I don't get what makes you better than anyone else. Similarly, you spend a lot of time listing issue tracking features, but am I really going to choose you because you've got drag-and-drop uploading, searching, labels, and collaboration? Altogether, this is a bit like a restaurant saying, "Our food is delicious, and we also have napkins, tables, and great silverware."

    You're in a crowded market with a low barrier to entry, so what you want is to stand out for some people. Sacrifice something. Take a firm position that makes you better for some customers, even if it makes you worse for everyone else.

    Maybe you're laser focused on small teams of <5?

    Maybe you're only for non-technical teams? Or non-profits? Or open-source projects? Or designers?

    Maybe you're the best option for teams that rely on Twitter for customer support?

    I wouldn't choose something randomly. It needs to align with what brings value to some niche of customers. But it really needs to stand out and not just be indistinguishable from 100 other similar tools.

    1. 1

      First, simplicity isn't all that valuable.
      I guess in my mind, I am thinking it is valuable to people who currently use Jira.

      But I hear what you are saying about trying to sell simplicity, I think that you are right, it is a hard sell.

      I shall change the focus of the messaging to be more benefit-driven rather that "what" it is.

      Sacrifice something. Take a firm position that makes you better for some customers, even if it makes you worse for everyone else.

      You are right, we need to find our niche and then become the best solution for that segment of the the market. I read Zero to One once a year solely for this lesson and yet it is still so easy to forget.

      Out of interest which issue tracker do you use for IH?

      Thanks for your feedback, lots to think about! Ice Cream analogy 10/10!