4 ms·

Well, you are competing with a behemoth with Zondervan publishing and The City (http://www.onthecity.org http://www.onthecity.org), and your pricing seems to be

by acrum 16y ago

Well, you are competing with a behemoth with Zondervan publishing and The City (http://www.onthecity.org http://www.onthecity.org), and your pricing seems to be only marginally better (for hosting.. I just now noticed the part at the bottom about being able to host it yourself for free). Do you know how many people are using it for free vs. paying for it? You may want to re-think the open source model, though I can't imagine there are TOO many churches that would want to bother hosting it themselves. You may be better served finding a smaller niche and doing it really well, rather than having such a huge feature set that may be overwhelming to people on their first visit. You don't necessarily have to pivot to something less social, but I'm sure you can do some research and find out something that you already provide that church staff think could be much easier, and make that an emphasis.

timmorgan 16y ago
Yes, the product is open source, and there are a handful of churches using (or trying to use) the self-hosted option. I don't have good numbers on that, but I think you're right -- more churches are paying me to host than doing it themselves. The City, and just recently, The Table are both bigger competitors. ...so you're saying, reduce the feature set and make the smaller product more focused? That's a good idea; thanks for the advice!
- acrum 16y ago
  You don't have to reduce the feature set by a lot, but you can at least put the technical features under an 'advanced' section or something so non-technical users are not intimidated.. or you can take them off completely. Facebook integration would also help, I'm sure.. Can't tell if you have it or not from the site but it looks like just twitter. The ability to share events and such on FB that would take members to your site would help (I would think).
  - timmorgan 16y ago
    You're right: no Facebook integration yet. I've been so discouraged about the whole thing lately, thinking I need to shut it down and do something else. Though, it sounds like, you're saying I'd be better off making some significant changes in my approach and seeing if that works. I just wonder... when do I say, this isn't going to work. I guess that's the whole point of entrepreneurship... not giving up. :-) [edit: not sure why I thought HN might advise me to give up. :-) ]
bitsm 16y ago
I agree with acrum, a niche would probably serve you best. You have a lot of features, but the benefits aren't crystal clear. Solve a real problem, which I'm sure you have insight into, and you'll be on your way. Having more features is actually a big problem, since it dilutes your core value, and creates customer confusion, as most will have differing ideas about what's "core".

by acrum 16y ago

timmorgan 16y ago

Yes, the product is open source, and there are a handful of churches using (or trying to use) the self-hosted option. I don't have good numbers on that, but I think you're right -- more churches are paying me to host than doing it themselves. The City, and just recently, The Table are both bigger competitors. ...so you're saying, reduce the feature set and make the smaller product more focused? That's a good idea; thanks for the advice!

acrum 16y ago
You don't have to reduce the feature set by a lot, but you can at least put the technical features under an 'advanced' section or something so non-technical users are not intimidated.. or you can take them off completely. Facebook integration would also help, I'm sure.. Can't tell if you have it or not from the site but it looks like just twitter. The ability to share events and such on FB that would take members to your site would help (I would think).
- timmorgan 16y ago
  You're right: no Facebook integration yet. I've been so discouraged about the whole thing lately, thinking I need to shut it down and do something else. Though, it sounds like, you're saying I'd be better off making some significant changes in my approach and seeing if that works. I just wonder... when do I say, this isn't going to work. I guess that's the whole point of entrepreneurship... not giving up. :-) [edit: not sure why I thought HN might advise me to give up. :-) ]

bitsm 16y ago

I agree with acrum, a niche would probably serve you best. You have a lot of features, but the benefits aren't crystal clear. Solve a real problem, which I'm sure you have insight into, and you'll be on your way. Having more features is actually a big problem, since it dilutes your core value, and creates customer confusion, as most will have differing ideas about what's "core".