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Is there a rule these days that your startup isn't allowed to clearly describe what its product is? Anyway, I guess this is an unmanned self-driving taxi servi
by Nition 7y ago
Is there a rule these days that your startup isn't allowed to clearly describe what its product is?
Anyway, I guess this is an unmanned self-driving taxi service. Looks good, honestly. If it's significantly cheaper than a taxi with human driver, then maybe it really could help people not need to own a car. Especially if they can optimise routes to get more people riding at once.
Having to hunt for what the thing actually is also got me to notice the small disclaimer though:
> All on-road images of the Origin are renderings.
- yingw787 7y agohttps://medium.com/hackernoon/for-the-love-of-god-please-tell-me-what-your-company-does-c2f0b835ab92 https://medium.com/hackernoon/for-the-love-of-god-please-tel...
- Nition 7y agoWell at least someone else has noticed. Off-topic but I've also started seeing modern software websites with no screenshots, to the point that I can get a better idea of what a product is like from the screenshots on Google Images than I can from all the text and pretty graphics on the site itself.
- prawn 7y agoI suspect they do that because every update to your software/interface then renders your example screenshots outdated. For a startup at least and in my experience, that's a painful distraction when you want to just focus on building and getting people to your site. But I also go looking for screenshots and appreciate sites that provide them up front.
- saberdancer 7y agoQuite possible but in that case I usually treat the website with scepticism. There are plenty of "fake it till you make it" type of products out there, and no screenshots or photographs on the site is a big signal for problem in my opinion. Getting new screenshots doesn't seem very work intensive plus you can easily put screenshots of an earlier version and a disclaimer that the screenshots may not be fully up to date.
- prawn 7y agoBig companies do it as well, to the point where I can't tell if it's split tested and proven more effective, or just a stylistic thing that they think is more important than effectiveness?
- true_religion 7y agoYou can automate the taking of screenshots. Many teams already do this for visual testing of UI. Doing it for marketing pages is similarly easy.
- jessriedel 7y agoA good critique for the Nth start-up no one's ever heard of. Less useful for a $20B company owned by, and the future of, General Motors.
- threeseed 7y agoThe Verge video explains it better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3E7p4S_1m4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3E7p4S_1m4
- zymhan 7y agoIf it can't be described without a video, that's not a great sign.
- unlinked_dll 7y agoOne distinct variety of company culture is one where the employees can't fathom a world where no one has ever heard of them. That's ok though, especially if you target your marketing towards early adopters who would know who you are. I doubt some of these companies could handle the hype or scale of being a household name.
- paxys 7y agoIt doesn't even have to be significantly cheaper. Being the same price as Uber & Lyft will be enough, as long as it is profitable/sustainable.
- taneq 7y ago> Is there a rule these days that your startup isn't allowed to clearly describe what its product is? 1) Release vaguely worded press release announcing your imminent thing-which-will-change-the-world. 2) Read all the guesses at what you might be about to release. 3) If any of those guesses are better than your actual idea, then they become your idea all along!