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Show HN: My Greg's Pulse. Get text message updates when stuff online changes

4 points by grigory 16y ago

grigory 16y ago
I've been working on this app for the last couple of weeks. This is a first actual "product" that I've launched, so I'm a bit shaken up by how people will, or will not, react to it. Any feedback and recommendations are highly appreciated!
michael_dorfman 16y ago
Congratulations! It looks like you have a nice MVP there. Good work. I found the "Pricing" page to be needlessly confusing. There's a lot of room for optimization there.
- grigory 16y ago
  Thanks! I completely agree with Pricing page being confusing... It felt fine when I initially created it, but hours after launching I want to remake it completely. There are only two main options to tell people about, and two different prices - seems like all that text isn't really required. Also, pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by MVP in this context?
  - michael_dorfman 16y ago
    Minimum Viable Product. In terms of the Pricing page, there are two possible ways to deal with the problem. One, of course, is to fix the page. The other is to fix the pricing model. I assume you've already given your pricing a good deal of thought, and have some reasons for having priced things the way you did, but off the top of my head, if it were me, I'd be offering pre-pay options, with steeper discounts for larger purchases. In other words: something like 20 messages for $5, 50 for $10, 150 for $20-- and forget about the "monthly" plan altogether. But, as I said-- that's just a gut feeling, without any real analysis. I imagine you know what you're doing.
    - grigory 16y ago
      Yeah, I've given it some thought. I'm still trying to decide which way to go (keep current model, or go in a direction that you suggested). However, your suggestion about dropping monthly plan is interesting. I thought it would be a matter of convenience for people? Given that they'll be using the service monthly, of course. Steep discounts does sound like a step in the right direction. Thanks a lot for your comments!
      - michael_dorfman 16y ago
        Are they really going to be using the product "monthly", or just continuously, on an ongoing basis? I was thinking, I suppose, of Google AdWords, which has a pre-pay model-- you pay a chunk of money (as much as you want, with a set minimum), and they let your pre-paid funds are getting close to running out, so you can add more.
        grigory 16y ago
        Well, this depends on how people will use the system. Say, you're just tracking down a used car with best possible price. So you sign up for text notifications so that you're the first one - and once you bought the car, you no longer need these notifications. Other usage patterns might assume regular, monthly usage. Since I just launched this and have only a handful of users, I'm yet to see how it'll be used. Edit: I misread your comment. They will be using this, in the best case scenario, regularly on ongoing basis - so not "monthly" in a sense of regular subscription services.
        michael_dorfman 16y ago
        The problem with the "monthly" concept is that it forces me to estimate how many notifications I am going to get each month, and then choose an appropriate plan. For me, that was pure friction. In addition, I try to avoid recurring charges on principle. So, from my point of view as a potential user, I'd be much more likely to just pre-pay a fixed amount.
1tw 16y ago
It might be a good idea to let users know where the service is available? (I entered a UK number complete with country code and the site claimed to have sent me a verification text, but nothing has shown up after five minutes)
- grigory 16y ago
  Thanks for trying this out! I use Twilio (http://twilio.com http://twilio.com) for sending text messages, and rely on them to provide somewhat global support. UK should be supported, but their logging does show that they couldn't deliver your text message. I filed the issue with their support system, so hopefully they'll resolve this. I will add list of countries that are supported though!
  - johns 16y ago
    John from Twilio here. We do deliver to a huge number of countries, but there's issues with some non-US carriers that prevent us from guaranteeing delivery to non-US numbers. It's unfortunate, and we try very hard to deliver as many messages as we can but there are some restrictions that are outside of our control.

4 points by grigory 16y ago

I've been working on this app for the last couple of weeks. This is a first actual "product" that I've launched, so I'm a bit shaken up by how people will, or will not, react to it. Any feedback and recommendations are highly appreciated!

michael_dorfman 16y ago

Congratulations! It looks like you have a nice MVP there. Good work. I found the "Pricing" page to be needlessly confusing. There's a lot of room for optimization there.

grigory 16y ago
Thanks! I completely agree with Pricing page being confusing... It felt fine when I initially created it, but hours after launching I want to remake it completely. There are only two main options to tell people about, and two different prices - seems like all that text isn't really required. Also, pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by MVP in this context?
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  Minimum Viable Product. In terms of the Pricing page, there are two possible ways to deal with the problem. One, of course, is to fix the page. The other is to fix the pricing model. I assume you've already given your pricing a good deal of thought, and have some reasons for having priced things the way you did, but off the top of my head, if it were me, I'd be offering pre-pay options, with steeper discounts for larger purchases. In other words: something like 20 messages for $5, 50 for $10, 150 for $20-- and forget about the "monthly" plan altogether. But, as I said-- that's just a gut feeling, without any real analysis. I imagine you know what you're doing.
  - grigory 16y ago
    Yeah, I've given it some thought. I'm still trying to decide which way to go (keep current model, or go in a direction that you suggested). However, your suggestion about dropping monthly plan is interesting. I thought it would be a matter of convenience for people? Given that they'll be using the service monthly, of course. Steep discounts does sound like a step in the right direction. Thanks a lot for your comments!
    - michael_dorfman 16y ago
      Are they really going to be using the product "monthly", or just continuously, on an ongoing basis? I was thinking, I suppose, of Google AdWords, which has a pre-pay model-- you pay a chunk of money (as much as you want, with a set minimum), and they let your pre-paid funds are getting close to running out, so you can add more.
      - grigory 16y ago
        Well, this depends on how people will use the system. Say, you're just tracking down a used car with best possible price. So you sign up for text notifications so that you're the first one - and once you bought the car, you no longer need these notifications. Other usage patterns might assume regular, monthly usage. Since I just launched this and have only a handful of users, I'm yet to see how it'll be used. Edit: I misread your comment. They will be using this, in the best case scenario, regularly on ongoing basis - so not "monthly" in a sense of regular subscription services.
        michael_dorfman 16y ago
        The problem with the "monthly" concept is that it forces me to estimate how many notifications I am going to get each month, and then choose an appropriate plan. For me, that was pure friction. In addition, I try to avoid recurring charges on principle. So, from my point of view as a potential user, I'd be much more likely to just pre-pay a fixed amount.

1tw 16y ago

It might be a good idea to let users know where the service is available? (I entered a UK number complete with country code and the site claimed to have sent me a verification text, but nothing has shown up after five minutes)

grigory 16y ago
Thanks for trying this out! I use Twilio (http://twilio.com http://twilio.com) for sending text messages, and rely on them to provide somewhat global support. UK should be supported, but their logging does show that they couldn't deliver your text message. I filed the issue with their support system, so hopefully they'll resolve this. I will add list of countries that are supported though!
- johns 16y ago
  John from Twilio here. We do deliver to a huge number of countries, but there's issues with some non-US carriers that prevent us from guaranteeing delivery to non-US numbers. It's unfortunate, and we try very hard to deliver as many messages as we can but there are some restrictions that are outside of our control.