Ask HN: Review My Startup - KickoffLabs.com
10 comments
In my opinion, the entry-level pricing plan is too expensive. $10 for just one site? I guess it depends on how much functionality you provide. Also, once someone has a potential customer list, will you make it easy to integrate with services like Mailchimp?
But on a higher level, has anyone shown that lean-startup launch pages like this and Launchrock actually work? To me, the whole practice seems a little anti-consumer - saying you're going to launch something before actually putting any real effort into launching it. If one person does it, yeah it's clever, but if everyone does it, we're going to have this environment where people won't know if they can trust sign-up pages because half of the time they'll be for non-existent products.
And can putting up a launch page without a product to back it up really produce a significant volume of data? Getting people interested enough to sign up with a product seems like a difficult enough task.
To me, if you have an idea, you should have more conviction to put at least some effort into it. If you're just indifferent and throwing ideas out there to see what sticks, are you really going to be passionate about the idea that gets interest?
But on a higher level, has anyone shown that lean-startup launch pages like this and Launchrock actually work? To me, the whole practice seems a little anti-consumer - saying you're going to launch something before actually putting any real effort into launching it. If one person does it, yeah it's clever, but if everyone does it, we're going to have this environment where people won't know if they can trust sign-up pages because half of the time they'll be for non-existent products.
And can putting up a launch page without a product to back it up really produce a significant volume of data? Getting people interested enough to sign up with a product seems like a difficult enough task.
To me, if you have an idea, you should have more conviction to put at least some effort into it. If you're just indifferent and throwing ideas out there to see what sticks, are you really going to be passionate about the idea that gets interest?
> Integrate with Mailchimp?
We are certainly going to make it easy to export and import your data.
One of the things we have tried to do is minimize the need to use third party services. You are certainly welcome to use something like Mailchimp (we do today), but hopefully we can provide simple alternatives to get you going at the beginning.
We are certainly going to make it easy to export and import your data.
One of the things we have tried to do is minimize the need to use third party services. You are certainly welcome to use something like Mailchimp (we do today), but hopefully we can provide simple alternatives to get you going at the beginning.
Once someone gets their site set up, what is the plan for actually getting eyeballs on it? If you can figure that out then you are on to something.
I see that you are using social networking with Twitter/FB, etc, but that is a chicken/egg problem. To use social networking to advertise your site, you need to actually have an audience to begin with. In which case, you probably wouldn't be interested in this type of product.
What would be really valuable, I think, is a way to get people you have no social networking connection with on the site, ie, via AdWords. Using AdWords is some kind of alchemy - find a way to simplify and integrate with that, and that is a fine product.
I see that you are using social networking with Twitter/FB, etc, but that is a chicken/egg problem. To use social networking to advertise your site, you need to actually have an audience to begin with. In which case, you probably wouldn't be interested in this type of product.
What would be really valuable, I think, is a way to get people you have no social networking connection with on the site, ie, via AdWords. Using AdWords is some kind of alchemy - find a way to simplify and integrate with that, and that is a fine product.
Agreed there is a huge opportunity in solving the "eye ball" problem. Unfortunately the days of 1 to 5 cent clicks on Adwords is a thing of the past.
I still think there is more we can do to help the organic stuff, but getting started today still requires rolling up your sleeves and doing real work.
I still think there is more we can do to help the organic stuff, but getting started today still requires rolling up your sleeves and doing real work.
I've got to agree that the pricing is too high. The free plan is useless to me, because 50 signups is basically planning for failure, to me.
I will definitely be using this. Great job. My only advice would be to add features slowly. It's great right now because it is simple.
Thanks. If you have suggestions, please drop us a note at [email protected].
Nice job thinking of the little guy!
Yep, this is great. We signed up!
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We are building KickoffLabs to help business owners (or would be business owners) get an idea launched. The basic premise is that starting is hard and most people either over think the start or ignore it all together.
We recently released the first version of the product and would like to solicit some feedback from the community.
Thanks, Scott