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16 Comments

Looking for feedback on my first product (TurnShift)

๐Ÿ‘‹ Hi there, I'm Vincent, and here's my product:

TurnShift

Shift Scheduling for Slack Teams - https://turnshift.app

TurnShift allows Slack teams to share recurring tasks like whole-company support in a self-booking way. Instead of spending time planning, you create open schedules and let assignees book their shifts.

Why

TurnShift idea comes from working 4 years at Algolia where my last role was coordinating our whole-company support. We had 40 engineers, and every day we needed 2 of them to be ready to provide awesome support to Algolia customers.

To organize ourselves, we had an internal tool called ๐Ÿ‘ทโ€โ™‚๏ธ Bob. Bob provided a calendar view with shift slots for engineers to book, together with Slack reminders like "Your support shift is starting in 10 minutes" or "It's time to book slots for next month!".

TurnShift is 100% a rewrite of this tool, with Algolia permission, sold as a SAAS solution. Discussing with multiple tech companies I understood that, for whole-company support, most of them were either using employee scheduling tools, creating internal tools and spreadsheets, or even shared calendars.


Looking for feedback

This is my first product and I am really looking for feedback on it. Especially:

  • Validation: Did you ever encounter a similar need?
  • Design: What do you think of the landing page, is it easy to understand the tool?
  • Anything else?

If you're experienced or not, if you're curious about anything, discuss in the comments!

Quick bytes

  • There are multiple similar tools, for example Shifts for (Microsoft) Teams. But most of the time they are bloated and aimed at call centers, restaurants, or bars.
  • I tried to get turnshift.com but the owner is unresponsive
  • Before doing support at Algolia, I wrote and contributed to most of their JavaScript tooling. For example, the Indie Hackers search results you see are using the JavaScript code I wrote.
  • I created Next.js News, if you're using Next.js, go subscribe.
  1. 4

    I like the simple design, its clean and provides all the details.
    Maybe you could also record a small video to show the product in action. I would personally prefer that instead of scheduling a demo.

    1. 2

      I agree, I need to schedule a demo on a website? Sorry, I'm out. Simple as that.

      1. 1

        Hey there, to be clear, anyone can log in with Slack to TurnShift. At no point I require people to schedule a demo, it's just an option.

        Thanks!

    2. 1

      Thanks for this feedback! The video is a good idea indeed. I am not a video person but I can understand it would be more efficient to convince people.

      Are you thinking:

      1. No sound video demonstrating the UI
      2. Video + voice over style video

      ? Thanks.

      1. 3

        I prefer short 2-3 minute videos with voiceover that explain and show the product. If I find it interesting I will probably try to login with Slack. And if then I can't figure out something I may try to schedule the demo.

      2. 1

        But I think this in-person demo can bring lots of values to you. Having a video will decrease the need for demo. Maybe make it 30 minutes? (40mins sound a little long)

        And you probably can add shorter option, so like 15 minutes & 30 minutes.

        If they choose 15 minutes, you go through real quickly and ask them a question or two. If they choose 30 minutes, you can have more conversations. You can get feedbacks. You can give them secret discount as an early bird :)

  2. 2

    Hey, first of all, congrats!
    Before posting my first impression, I asked my wife what she thinks (who used to work as a designer).
    She thinks the logo and the header(Shifts Scheduling for ..) seem to clash. Their characteristics are quite the opposite (one with big letter spacing and less bold, another one with little letter spacing and bold) and they stick together. So she didn't know what to look at first.
    And another think I also find was on mobile there are too many texts on the above fold. You may want to push some of the texts down, or reduce the amount. And she said "much more margins, here and there."

    ---

    As a person who has never launched any product of my own, I'm curious what was your process to decide the pricing? I'm especially curious about "per user" part. Ummm but while I'm writing this, I just realized that I was only thinking of software companies who are able to make this stuff or at least capable of running some sort of open source on their own. Yeah but still I'm curious. It can be "<=10 members", "<=50", etc.

    1. 1

      I'm also a designer. I would agree that the logo is out of place. Otherwise it's a high-level design + execution.

      The logo also, desperately needs to come down about 30px ๐Ÿ˜…

      If you aim for a simple typographic logo with similar tracking and weight as the headline copy on the page, you won't have this issue. A quick solution would be Inter all caps italic. But that icon's not a great fit for ultra-heavy type (due to the fine details and thin lines).

      https://mr365.b-cdn.net/imgs/turnshift.png ๐Ÿคท๐Ÿผ

      1. 1

        I missed your comment initially but now reading it! Thanks a lot for the feedback, I will immediately implement two three things:

        • reduced height
        • bigger top padding for top of the page
        • I like the indigo/black split for turn/shift

        About the font: not sure yet what's the best solution. Thanks for doing a screenshot of another go still, really appreciate it.

    2. 1

      Hi eunjae, thanks for this. When looking at the homepage, multiple times, I thought: "Something is off in this logo compared to the rest of the page", but I was never able to really put words on what's wrong. Now I can but not sure where to go from there.

      And another think I also find was on mobile there are too many texts on the above fold. You may want to push some of the texts down, or reduce the amount.

      Definitely valid, thanks.

      And she said "much more margins, here and there."

      Where? :D

      About pricing, the current price is a test. If customers are going for it that's fine for me. How do I price this? I look at other similar tools like http://standuply.com/. And I also think of: are there alternatives? If there's not really an alternative then why not go for a high price first?

      I never launched a product before this one so not sure if all of that is valid though.

      I thought of doing "buckets" but then the pricing is no more "simple" so I wanted to give a try at something easy for now (for me, for customers). I am not against discounts of sure if you need 100 seats :D

      1. 1

        Hey I just talked to her and she says she's not sure until she actually tries it. You might get some insights from other designers if they can point out things better.
        Just a rule of thumb is choose which one between the logo and the headline to make visible at first sight. And make another one smaller, or make the color lighter, or put it distant. And she's not exactly sure where to put margins.

        And about your approach about pricing, I think it makes sense. Make it simple and aim high at first. Makes sense!

  3. 1

    Good job, the page has really nice look and feel. The first turnoff for me was that I needed to schedule a demo.

    The second this was that I always feel cautious when signing in directly with something like Slack. I'd like to first log in via email/pw or something, then later on integrate with other platforms after I've seen what's inside.

    1. 1

      Hi there, thanks for the feedback.

      When you say "I needed to schedule a demo", is it because you did not want to "Login with Slack"? Because there's no pressure to schedule a demo, it's just an option if you prefer not to login with Slack and would like a presentation of the tool.

      The issue is that to see what's inside since this is really a Slack application, you have to add the app to Slack, so you can get users and channels and start scheduling shifts, assign users, and link to channels.

      What about I provide a live demo of an example application, where you can test the UI for yourself? Would that be better maybe?

      I try to be precise on the landing page, the "login with Slack" is really just a login, I am not adding any Slack application and I will only get YOUR data (email, name, avatar), that's it.

      But I totally get that people could think "no way I am gonna login with Slack right now, tell me more first". Not sure what's the best solution here, let me know!

      1. 1

        Sorry I need to clarify this; I feel like I don't want to log in with Slack to an unknown service (personal demons maybe?) but then I also don't want a demo. I'd like to just test the app some other way. This might be just me though :)

        Your idea about the live demo example, where people can test it freely with no strings attached sounds like a really good plan, I would look into it if I were you.

        Hope this helps

        1. 1

          Definitely helps, I feel the same as you when I see those login with slack buttons.

          Someone else said a video could help too, Ill find something :)

          1. 1

            Glad to help, good luck !

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