5 ms·

Ask HN: Review my startup, tasskr.com

11 points by dan335 16y ago

Hi everyone! I made a list maker app and would like your feedback. A few months ago I went looking online for a todo list to help me get things done. I eventually decided to write my own and learn rails (and put things off even more). Tasskr is a simple list maker with due dates, time estimates, recurring tasks, reminders and graphs. I'm hoping it could be profitable. http://tasskr.com

sagacity 16y ago
Clickable: http://tasskr.com http://tasskr.com
jckay 16y ago
Aren't there a ton of apps that do this, or something very similar. I did a Google search and found a pretty solid top 25 list http://www.solutionwatch.com/450/25-to-do-lists-to-stay-productive/ http://www.solutionwatch.com/450/25-to-do-lists-to-stay-prod... I am just curious how this one stands out?
- dan335 16y ago
  Months ago I went through that list and couldn't find one I liked. Half are not todo lists, a lot of them are downloadable which I didn't want and most were way too complicated. The few that had the features I wanted were too complicated. Do you use one of those?
  - mathgladiator 16y ago
    That's why you will do well since people will try it. It's also why you are doomed as they will try something else. I wish you luck in getting a stable customer base to launch something bigger. You could use this product to start building pagerank and your brand. Look at http://www.6wunderkinder.com/ http://www.6wunderkinder.com/ for ideas on how they are doing it.
orlandop 16y ago
Looks great! Like the theme and after a couple of minutes trying it, I can see its uniqueness. Do you mind mentioning what gems you are using? The hide/unhide of the child tasks looks good, and also like the dragging to reorganize.
- dan335 16y ago
  Sure, here are the gems. nested_set, devise, jquery-rails, dynamic_form, chronic, chronic_duration, easy_dates, lazy_high_charts, recaptcha, rspreedly, redcloth, delayed_job, workless
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
euroclydon 16y ago
If you're really serious about making money on it, then you should do the following: 1) Add a couple more features that are geared around integration with people's workflow, like phone reminders, and maybe some ability to, oh, I don't know, send a grocery list to a husband, or a parts list to a delivery guy. 2) Research, research, research, where people are spending money on the internet for something like this. You'll find the usual suspects, like Basecamp, and you'll want to avoid being like that. Instead, you'll want to find underserved markets niches, dozens of them. 3) Once you've identified the markets, build a list of them, and outline the contents of a landing page for each niche. Do this on the computer, so that you can programmatically create all these landing pages and capture some of the long tail traffic. 4) This should really be #1, but get someone to start paying, anyone. This will force you to scratch someone's itch who has money. Make whatever changes they need so that the service is valuable to them. You really need to find one person out there, who's saying "I wish I had an online task list that met my needs! If I only did, I could make $X more this week/month/year."
- dan335 16y ago
  So go after business users. Do you think they are more likely to pay for an app like this?
  - crasshopper 16y ago
    Because "business users" = dumb, lots of $, willing to pay for anything, right? Sorry to snark, it just bugs me when people assume that because you slap a "for business" or "pro version" onto something, that business users will want to use it. Businesses like saving money just as much or more than people. If there's not a compelling profit purpose, businesses won't buy it.
gadders 16y ago
I'm more of a pencil and paper guy, but at first glance it looks very nice. A couple of quick thoughts: 1) You might want to make it clearer which features are in the basic model and which are in the "Pro" version on the landing page 2) I'd maybe change the wording around the "More Features" section. Maybe I'm being hyper-critical, but it sounds more like "here's my project, what do you think?" rather than "Here is my professional piece of software that is being actively developed and having new features added daily". Maybe something like: "Taskrr is under active development, with new features being added on a daily/weekly basis. Please feel free to suggest new features via [feedback form link?]. You can see our current roadmap here [link to dogfooded dev roadmap using Taskrr!]" Hope that helps. Mark
- dan335 16y ago
  Yeah that helps, thanks.
shiftpgdn 16y ago
I'd like to see something to trank time spent on a task. Perhaps in 15 minute increments?
- dan335 16y ago
  That's on the long list of things I'd like to add. If you have suggestions on best way to implement let me know.
maxbrown 16y ago
I really like: the up-front-and-center screenshot of what the interface looks like, before I even sign up. Personally, not a fan: forcing me to Sign Up before I get to see any more information. Why only one page? I looked around briefly for a pricing page, About, or FAQ. Couldn't find any. Maybe it's intentional - that's a different discussion I suppose.

11 points by dan335 16y ago

sagacity 16y ago

Clickable: http://tasskr.com http://tasskr.com

jckay 16y ago

Aren't there a ton of apps that do this, or something very similar. I did a Google search and found a pretty solid top 25 list http://www.solutionwatch.com/450/25-to-do-lists-to-stay-productive/ http://www.solutionwatch.com/450/25-to-do-lists-to-stay-prod... I am just curious how this one stands out?

dan335 16y ago
Months ago I went through that list and couldn't find one I liked. Half are not todo lists, a lot of them are downloadable which I didn't want and most were way too complicated. The few that had the features I wanted were too complicated. Do you use one of those?
- mathgladiator 16y ago
  That's why you will do well since people will try it. It's also why you are doomed as they will try something else. I wish you luck in getting a stable customer base to launch something bigger. You could use this product to start building pagerank and your brand. Look at http://www.6wunderkinder.com/ http://www.6wunderkinder.com/ for ideas on how they are doing it.

orlandop 16y ago

Looks great! Like the theme and after a couple of minutes trying it, I can see its uniqueness. Do you mind mentioning what gems you are using? The hide/unhide of the child tasks looks good, and also like the dragging to reorganize.

dan335 16y ago
Sure, here are the gems. nested_set, devise, jquery-rails, dynamic_form, chronic, chronic_duration, easy_dates, lazy_high_charts, recaptcha, rspreedly, redcloth, delayed_job, workless

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

euroclydon 16y ago

If you're really serious about making money on it, then you should do the following: 1) Add a couple more features that are geared around integration with people's workflow, like phone reminders, and maybe some ability to, oh, I don't know, send a grocery list to a husband, or a parts list to a delivery guy. 2) Research, research, research, where people are spending money on the internet for something like this. You'll find the usual suspects, like Basecamp, and you'll want to avoid being like that. Instead, you'll want to find underserved markets niches, dozens of them. 3) Once you've identified the markets, build a list of them, and outline the contents of a landing page for each niche. Do this on the computer, so that you can programmatically create all these landing pages and capture some of the long tail traffic. 4) This should really be #1, but get someone to start paying, anyone. This will force you to scratch someone's itch who has money. Make whatever changes they need so that the service is valuable to them. You really need to find one person out there, who's saying "I wish I had an online task list that met my needs! If I only did, I could make $X more this week/month/year."

dan335 16y ago
So go after business users. Do you think they are more likely to pay for an app like this?
- crasshopper 16y ago
  Because "business users" = dumb, lots of $, willing to pay for anything, right? Sorry to snark, it just bugs me when people assume that because you slap a "for business" or "pro version" onto something, that business users will want to use it. Businesses like saving money just as much or more than people. If there's not a compelling profit purpose, businesses won't buy it.

gadders 16y ago

I'm more of a pencil and paper guy, but at first glance it looks very nice. A couple of quick thoughts: 1) You might want to make it clearer which features are in the basic model and which are in the "Pro" version on the landing page 2) I'd maybe change the wording around the "More Features" section. Maybe I'm being hyper-critical, but it sounds more like "here's my project, what do you think?" rather than "Here is my professional piece of software that is being actively developed and having new features added daily". Maybe something like: "Taskrr is under active development, with new features being added on a daily/weekly basis. Please feel free to suggest new features via [feedback form link?]. You can see our current roadmap here [link to dogfooded dev roadmap using Taskrr!]" Hope that helps. Mark

dan335 16y ago
Yeah that helps, thanks.

shiftpgdn 16y ago

I'd like to see something to trank time spent on a task. Perhaps in 15 minute increments?

dan335 16y ago
That's on the long list of things I'd like to add. If you have suggestions on best way to implement let me know.

maxbrown 16y ago

I really like: the up-front-and-center screenshot of what the interface looks like, before I even sign up. Personally, not a fan: forcing me to Sign Up before I get to see any more information. Why only one page? I looked around briefly for a pricing page, About, or FAQ. Couldn't find any. Maybe it's intentional - that's a different discussion I suppose.