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Tell HN: I'm launching in 30 days. No matter what. Hold me to it
First off, I'm sincerely grateful to this community. You blow me away with your generosity and honesty. I don't remember how I stumbled on HN but my life is better off because of it, and certainly my business.
I've been working on a web app for over a year now. It's more than a web app, it's a business I truly believe in, and have given all my heart and effort into. I've lived off our savings, and I've been procrastinating launching trying to get things perfect.
That's over now. I'm committing to launch in 30 days no matter what.
And I'm telling you this because I know that it will help keep me accountable.
Thanks for reading!
Edit: I guess we just launched. I was looking for a kick in the ass and I got it. Thanks!
Here it is: http://rm.bettermeans.com/
- empire29 16y agoInteresting. I think you need something that succinctly explains exactly what bettermeans is and why its something a company would want to use. It took me awhile to get a feel for what the product really does, and how.
- Blunt 16y agoagreed! "If a traditional company was a network architecture, it would be client-server. We’re building a platform for peer-to-peer companies that are more agile, resilient, and innovative." You say an awful lot of what you do but no where could I find the "HOW" and I, personally, hate high-level BS talk. Get to the point and put verbs in your sentences that say how you do these things.
- ryanjmo 16y agoCan you launch any sooner? How about tomorrow?
- kabuks 16y agoUmmm. It seems like I just inadvertently launched!
- delano 16y agoI'll email you on August 28th and if you aren't launching that weekend, I'll be very diappointed!
- illumin8 16y agoNow that you got our attention, why don't you tell us about your product?
- zyang 16y agois this it? http://rm.bettermeans.com/projects/bm http://rm.bettermeans.com/projects/bm
- kabuks 16y agoYes! How did you find it?
- jaxn 16y agoNo time like the present. Why not make this the front page and launch right now?
- mbateman 16y agoFYI, the columns on that page run into and obscure each other when you shrink the browser size (in Safari 5). This starts to happen well before 1000 pixels.
- misterbwong 16y agotbh, the project looks good enough to be launched. throw up a landing page NOW and take advantage of being on the front page :)
- moultano 16y agoI made an account, and logged in, but I still see the default set of stuff. Is that expected?
- kabuks 16y agoNope. Try again. There should be link to create a workstream.
- gilesc 16y agoThis is cool! I've was looking for something like this earlier in the week. Obviously this isn't the place for filing bugs, but after signing up, http://rm.bettermeans.com/my/account http://rm.bettermeans.com/my/account is a broken link for me? Which kind of makes it hard to try my hand at a demo project.
- Mc_Big_G 16y agoI've been working on a web app for over a year now. ...I've been procrastinating launching trying to get things perfect. If you're the only one who has used the site, you'll see both of these as mistakes in about 37 days. Just launch.
- kabuks 16y agoI totally agree. These are both mistakes. Which is why I posted this so that I have a fire under my ass. I know that being witnessed by people I respect is a motivator for me. I wish I did this 6 months ago.
- edo 16y agoYou're on the frontpage of HN, where is your landing page that explains what your app is about and captures our e-mail adresses? You don't have long before you lose your frontpage position!
- kabuks 16y agoWe don't yet have a landing page. Bettermeans is an open democratic project management tool. It allows people to work together on a project with a meritocratic governance as opposed to command and control.
- webwright 16y agoStop coding and spend 1-3 days on your launch plan, brainstorm some marketing and PR ideas, cook up some inspiring screenshots, etc. Not having a landing page now is REALLY FREAKIN' SCARY.
- ph0rque 16y agoIt sounds good, but please put this on the landing page and elaborate a bit more, as well as explain how hackers might find your service interesting. I think the HN community just launched your service for you :~).
- roobus 16y agoYou can launch 30 days later, sure. But if you put up a coming soon page now, today, it will be really great.
- jorangreef 16y agoNice slow reveal.
- kloncks 16y agoQuickly make a form on your website to gather our email addresses. Email all of us in a month and we'll make great beta users for you. Do this very quickly so that you can get as many email addresses as possible from the many people that will see you on the home page. You're the top story right now.
- kabuks 16y agoHere's the form. If you're interested in getting an email when I launch http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=408 http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=408
- loginx 16y agoDo you need help?
- kabuks 16y agoYes please. Do you speak rails?
- mattkern 16y agoIs the code out there somewhere? Do you want help?
- kabuks 16y agoThe code is in a private github repo I would LOVE help. If you're willing to please check this out, and shoot me an email http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=253 http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=253 We're an open enterprise, so everyone who asks, and agrees to our governance model can join. All dev worked is tracked here: http://rm.bettermeans.com/projects/platform/ http://rm.bettermeans.com/projects/platform/
- loginx 16y agoUnfortunately I do not. If there are python components involved though, I'll gladly provide whatever help I can.
- alain94040 16y agoHey BetterMeans... Alain here. I sure hope you will launch soon. You still owe me coffee :-) To everyone: Shereef is cooking something great. Make sure he ships in 30 days!
- kabuks 16y agoHey Alain! Thanks for the kind words, and for all your support in this process. Here we go :)
- Marticus 16y agoSigned up. Will bitch in t-minus 30 days and counting.
- kabuks 16y agoOk, here it is: http://rm.bettermeans.com http://rm.bettermeans.com Guess I didn't need 30 days! This is totally overwhelming. Thank you everyone. Please be generous with your feedback.
- shaunxcode 16y agoHey there is a typo on front page: "Using BetterMenas" I assume should be "Using BetterMeans".
- kabuks 16y agoThanks. Fixed it.
- SteveC 16y agoIt's having problems with Opera. The text is really huge.
- kabuks 16y agoShould be fixed now. Bad <h2> tag
- canterburry 16y agoEhm...what is it and what do I use it for? I just see posts from people, something called workstreams and reading the text in the description on the right just makes me want to shoot myself out of boredom. Oh...and how the heck do I get credits because I see some people are already loaded.
- kabuks 16y agoThis governance model explains who an open enterprise works. http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=312 http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=312 Would love your feedback
- canterburry 16y agoWell, the first thing I notice is the inconsistent navigation to "home". If I just go to the domain, I get /front, if I click the link "home", I get a different looking front (/home) page.
- 9oliYQjP 16y agoThe first thing that jumped out to me is "why should I care?". What's wrong with the "command and control" model? I don't know what the problem is which this tool is trying to solve.
- scrod 16y agoI think he answered that question here: http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=19 http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=19 with more of an introduction here: http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=306 http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=306
- sprout 16y agoIf anti-authoritarianism isn't in your blood I'd say you aren't the target market.
- shawn13 16y agoThis sounds and looks exactly like a more modern version of a worker cooperative (I am a member in a worker co-op). The laws around co-ops tend to be very 19th century but this is really what they are all about -- are you plugged in to the worker co-op community? There would be many interested users, potential grants and investment, etc.
- kabuks 16y agoThat's the idea. What would a worker coop look like if it was designed with the internet in mind. And what if the governance was baked into the project mgmt tool. Here's a detailed doc explaining what we're trying todo: http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=306 http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=306 It's a long read, and we need to make it shorter, but you're spot on. No, I'm not plugged in to the worker co-op community. Loop me in. This is the governance model we've come up with: http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=312 http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=312
- BeSublime 16y agoThat's awesome man, good luck and have fun! I hope to be taking similar steps soon (hell, maybe I'll make the same 30 day commitment, seems like it would be helpful!), and coming across little bits of motivation like this keep me and many other thinkers in motion.
- kabuks 16y agoJust don't post your 30 day commitment unless you're ready to launch in 30 minutes
- jhuckestein 16y ago"We’ve put together a new organizational design that allows anyone to join us, to gain equity share, to make decisions, and to make a living. And we’re building the technology platform to support it." That's really intriguing, congratulations! If done right this can probably have a profound impact on the way businesses are run. The best of luck to you, sir!
- kabuks 16y agoThanks. It's still very early, and very rough. But our hope is that others will come on board and make it way better than what it is right now. We're eating our own dogfood, and have are running bettermeans on the platform. Everything is transparent, and equity is shared.
- jhuckestein 16y agoJust some quick feedback on some of the site copy: It appears you like to use buzzwords and superlatives quite a lot. I'm not sure if this is appealing to everyone (it certainly isn' to me). After reading your three columns "Entrepreneurs", "Workers" and "Companies+Nonprofits" I still don't know what you do and how I would use your product. All I know is that you "exponentially increase my agility" (which is most likely untrue). If I'm a worker you apparently also engage all of my humanity (which, as everybody knows, is made of passion, purpose and creativity). And as an entrepreneur, I feel that you are somehow trying to offend me ;) Maybe a description of what exactly your product does (screenshots are better than stock images and icons) would be more helpful.
- kabuks 16y agoThank you for the feedback. I totally agree. The copy is vague, and was written before our product crystallized. It needs a serious rewrite.
- startupcto 16y agoWhy 30 days? If you are just making little minor changes, features for "perfecting" it, you could launch now or even latest in a week. You don't need 30 days. I'm not in your position so I don't know your product or what state your product's at, so I'm just basing this off the statement that you're been in the state of "perfecting" the web app.
- jcapote 16y agoThis sounds like a web site idea in it self. "Announce" launches with firm commitments to a beta user community, and everyday you can go see what was supposed to "launch" that day, and give feedback. It'll put the pressure of public failure on the founder where it normally wouldn't exist (as is the case here).
- kyro 16y agoJust wanted to wish you all the best. Nice to see some fellow Egyptians stirring things up!
- kabuks 16y agoSo you're the other Egyptian in the Bay Area. Thanks!
- lutorm 16y agoJust a question: If you haven't launched, how can you claim to a "most popular plan"? Seems dishonest...
- kabuks 16y agoIt is. Thanks for pointing it out. Right now it's our guess that it will be the most popular plan based on talking to customers. I'll change this very soon. Thanks again for holding me accountable.
- alain94040 16y agoI wouldn't worry about that. "Most popular plan" is marketing-speak for "we think that's the plan most people want". Even if you have 0 users, I wouldn't be shocked. Do not try to be 100% technically accurate. That leads to long, unreadable text. It's ok to rely on your reader's imagination to convey a message.
- lutorm 16y agoI guess that's why I'm not in marketing... ;-) I would prefer a statement that conveys that it's an opinion and not empirical fact.
- nerfhammer 16y agoYou could convey the same thing by saying "best value" or something like that
- djb_hackernews 16y agoThey have 1 customer, themselves. They prefer that plan, so it's the most popular.
- jackowayed 16y agoOn a similar note, that "Popular" ribbon looks really bad in Chrome. It's like ... fragmented. http://skitch.com/jackowayed/dq24n/bettermeans-popular http://skitch.com/jackowayed/dq24n/bettermeans-popular
- matrixownsyou 16y agoyou have "-->" on your frontpage
- kabuks 16y agoThanks. Fixed.
- matrixownsyou 16y agoit's still there (on my end) http://imgur.com/vamm8 http://imgur.com/vamm8, check the mouse postion on the pic. Feel free to be sponsortive :p http://zemanel.posterous.com/ http://zemanel.posterous.com/
- kabuks 16y agoHow on earth did you catch that! Thanks again. btw, I looked hard for a sponsor link but couldn't find one. might want to make it more visible
- ericingram 16y agoAs long as "open democratic" doesn't mean anti free-market (as it seems to in the political world), great job on the quick launch :)
- kabuks 16y agoNope. Not anti free-market. Just pro transparency, and meritocracy.
- ericingram 16y agoGreat, merit based compensation could be a powerful way to run a company. I sincerely agree with your belief that purpose-driven enterprises are more successful, especially when that purpose is to produce a fantastic product. I read a bit of your "open enterprise manifesto" (which is way too long to read in my opinion, but that may not be your goal), and found conflict with this statement: "We made our government democratic, and our corporations everything but..." Actually, we made our government a Republic, with a set of laws and inalienable rights. The process for changing those laws was made democratic, but the system was created as a Republic to protect the rights of individuals from the arbitrary force of government. I don't understand why so many people focus on the "greed" and "corruption" inherent in "top-down" corporations, but ignore the greed and corruption inherent in centralized government. Those who operate the government are no different than those who operate corporations. They're all human. If you can't trust corporations, then you DEFINITELY can't trust government, because they are all run by humans of the same nature.
- kabuks 16y agoI agree with what you're saying. The system of government is definitely far from perfect. The reference to it in our manifesto is that we at least see the value of democracy in our attempt to govern ourselves politically, but have made very few strides in that in our attempts to govern our businesses. I would trust our government much more if it ran all its work transparently on bettermeans, and allowed me to vote, discuss, and comment freely. Also, "greed" and "corruption" are IMHO not a function of human nature, but a function of poor governance systems that we find ourselves in. Our entire model is based on an inherit trust in our nature. That given the right circumstances, and a fair, transparent, accountable system we can rise above "greed" and "corruption" We wrote a post about it here: http://bettermeans.org/front/?p=565 http://bettermeans.org/front/?p=565
- numbchuckskills 16y agoLooks confusingly close to freshbooks.com in design (and logo)
- slater 16y agoSpelling mistake on the homepage: the red text should read "Open democratic", not "Open democractic"
- mkramlich 16y agoI believe on launching on day 1 of a project, and then just incrementally improving it afterward. Start with nothing, add something, add something else, repeat.
- roryokane 16y agoThe video “Better Means, Changing the World of Work” on the home page of your website has an incorrect aspect ratio. Everything is slightly horizontally stretched, so the text is wider than normal, all of the people look slightly fat, the proportions of people’s heads change when they tilt them, the Wikipedia logo isn’t circular as it should be, etc. You should fix that; it looks unprofessional.
- kabuks 16y agoThank you. Should be fixed now.
- poundy 16y agoDon't forget to tell your loved ones, your friends, family, etc that you are working on the launch in 30 days. This way they know that you are not to be bothered, etc. I picked this up from this link here http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-get-your-side-project-launched/ http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/how-to-get-your-side-proj...
- vishaldpatel 16y agoSince this is a democratic model of governing a company, is there a way to create a coalition to slowly overthrow the governing members and take over the treasury and ownership of the project? How would this then affect the actual ownership of BetterMeans - are all current members also equal shareholders?
- kabuks 16y agoThis video explains exactly how the governance works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdcAxGGRafc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdcAxGGRafc Yes. It would be totally possible to overtthrow the governing members of bettermeans. However, shares are not tied to your membership. Ownership is based on contribution, and cannot be taken away from you. Just wether or not your votes are binding. This video explains our model in detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdcAxGGRafc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdcAxGGRafc As does this doc: http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=312 http://bettermeans.org/front/?page_id=312
- kristofferR 16y agoLooks like a awesome webapp that I'm probably going to try out when it's ready! Note that the images on the sales page are HORRIBLY compressed. Drop JPG for illustrative images and screenshots, start using PNG instead.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- dulipak 16y agoThere's typo on http://rm.bettermeans.com/front/features.html http://rm.bettermeans.com/front/features.html "Get things done together, don't just doument"
- kabuks 16y agoThanks. Fixed.
- AndyKelley 16y agoYour features page should be very well done and professional because it's how people will decide whether or not to sign up. Here are a couple issues: spelling error: The home screen of your project is the first page your will see. It shows an overview of your team’s work with: "Your" should be "you" Also use PNG instead of JPEG for the screenshots. It's a big deal.
- kabuks 16y agoThank you Andy. I'm ignorant about why PNG is better. Can you teach me?
- ElliotH 16y agoPNG is lossless compression so you won't get the artifacts you do with JPEG. (e.g the noise around the text at the top of your first screenshot) EDIT Better explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Comparison_with_JPEG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Compa...
- AndyKelley 16y agoShort answer: Use PNG for everything except photos, in which case you should use JPEG. It will be better for both file size and quality. Long answer: ehhhh, look them up on wikipedia.
- fezzl 16y agoHow many people who hit your landing page actually make it to the end of the 3:56 introductory video?
- kabuks 16y ago200 people 'viewed' the video on youtube. I don't know how to tell how many watched all the way through. Around 180 people signed up to be notified when we have an 'official' launch, and over 100 people created an account for themselves. This story has been on the front page for around 10 hours now. Don't know how many people hit the landing page until google analytics tells me tomorrow.
- resdirector 16y agoHow does this app scale to really big projects and team sizes? Is it for the 1-3 team size? Or can it work for the 20+ company?
- kabuks 16y agoThe governance model borrows very heavily from the apache foundation. They use a similar voting / membership mechanism to self-govern. Thousands of devs on dozens of high visibility OSS projects. So far it's scaled easily for us up to 15 people.
- Trindaz 16y agoLove that tag line - answered the first objection I had in mind! -- Trindaz on Fedang
- Prospect 16y agoI'm late to the party but I have been looking for something exactly like this. To make a tool like this to work, I would need to get the team on board, so I'll probably wait a bit for the initial bugs to get worked out, But we'll be a customer...just do regular email updates so I know when to jump in.
- kabuks 16y agoWill do. Thanks for the encouraging words.
- Prospect 16y agoAn idea for the future might be to somehow tie in with sites like elance or have your own outsourcing program. It'd be nice to be able to manage the internal projects and outsourced projects in one place.
- eagleal 16y agoCongrats on launching! I would append this css (for the footer) #top-footer .footer-logo {left:-21px;} #top-footer h3 {background:none;padding-left:0;} There is no reason to use bullets (dots) when you use inline lists (#top-footer h3). #top-footer .footer-logo is not aligned with the paragraph below it.
- kabuks 16y agoDone. Thanks!
- setori88 16y agoMate, think about open sourcing your software and doing a wordpress clone.
- kabuks 16y agoThat's a very valid option, and we're giving it a lot of thought (come on board and think with us!) Our business itself is open though, so anyone welcome to join us (no permission needed from anyone) and contribute to the code base, and gain equity. As a member of bettermeans, you still can't take the code and run it elsewhere, but you do get full access to it in order to contribute to it. So it's more 'shared' source, and 'open' business. My sense is the wordpress business model works with very large numbers, and an already established community. Two things we don't have.
- vkdelta 16y agoMabrook! Good work. Few cosmetic issues on main page. Remove "!" in "read more!" button. Does not look professional. There are some minor language errors on the main page which need to corrected. On pricing page(http://rm.bettermeans.com/front/pricing.html http://rm.bettermeans.com/front/pricing.html) please change to 'take a tour' from 'watch the tour'. Surprisingly it there was only one video after clicking the button. I was expecting multiple videos to highlight features of your product. Include Safari 5 on browser list. Made a good decision by announcing it to the public. Hopefully, it will make up and running smoothly soon.
- kabuks 16y agoJust took a look at google analytics from yesterday. 4000 unique visitors from HN, and only 4.4% use IE!
- yayitswei 16y agoTypo on your features page (http://rm.bettermeans.com/front/features.html http://rm.bettermeans.com/front/features.html), search for "esitmate"