5 ms·

Show HN: Unlimited app designs, user stories, and landing pages

37 points by grosa 6y ago

grosa 6y ago
Being an iOS engineer for the past five years I decided to start a new journey by releasing Launch Disco. It's an online service that provides unlimited app designs, user stories, and landing pages for you app ideas. I've met many people who have pitched me their ideas but not knowing what to do next.With Launch Disco I'm going to be solving that problem.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  What does unlimited mean? This was all the rage a year or two ago and it just makes me think it’s shady bullshit. I can generate more specs than you can deliver in a month. I assume you also work on other peoples requests too. If you can’t deliver every single request I put in every month (and you can’t) then it’s not unlimited. This may only be my perspective as I know other people had success with this model but despite that I still don’t get it.
  - grosa 6y ago
    If you have 200 app ideas then I will set expectations. Will it take me a week to produce 200 designs? Nope. However, I'm definitely going to let you know what I can get done by communicating with you on a daily or weekly basis.
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      Ok, maybe don’t call it unlimited then
      - imwillofficial 6y ago
        “Ok, maybe don’t call it unlimited then” Why? It is unlimited. When I go to Chili’s and get unlimited soup and salad, my supply is constrained by how fast they want to bring it to my table. Same thing here.
        offtop5 6y ago
        It's also contained by human biology. If you come to my house I could probably make you more chili than you can reasonably eat, as long as I say I'm not going to bring you any more chili until you finish what you already have, there's no possible way for you to ever overwhelm my chili supply. Common Sense also comes in the play, in America it's not uncommon to see homeless people go to an all you can eat buffet and while they can pay for a meal, they'll try to camp out there and eventually a manager will escort them out. I definitely don't like unlimited when it comes to anything though, that goes for data as well. For example if you get an unlimited T-Mobile plan and you're using 10 terabytes a month, you're going to either get throttled or kicked off the service. I'd much prefer laws to be in place which would force T-Mobile to advertise 500 gigs a month or whatever the actual allotment is. Likewise charging someone $1,500 for unlimited revisions is almost soft fraud because it's absolutely impossible for that to scale. Once you get more than three or four clients you would end up telling them actually I can only do four revisions a month. As I said in my other comment here I'd much prefer to just pay his or her hourly rate.
        imwillofficial 6y ago
        I think we need to get to the real important topic unearthed here... Your chili making skills. You had me at “there’s no possible way for you to overwhelm my chili supply”
      - grosa 6y ago
        Open to hearing ideas.
        open-source-ux 6y ago
        A possible idea: one price with a fixed number of revisions. For additional revisions, you offer an add-on option i.e. the client can purchase additional revisions for a fee you set. As other posters have said, offering unlimited designs might give some customers unreasonable or demanding expectations. Will an 'unlimited' option swamp you with revision requests? Another suggestion: make your work a more prominent showcase on your website. Potential customers what to see examples of your app designs and user stories. Your current designs don't have any context - they are simply mockups (good-looking mockups) with no description. Do they need more detail and context? A case study for example. Make it clear to customers what they can get from your service - show off you work in the best possible light to catch their interest. Good luck :-)
        rorykoehler 6y ago
        There are good suggestions from others. I just want to say sorry if I came across quite harsh. I respect that you’re doing this at all and wish you the best of luck.
    - radley 6y ago
      > If you have 200 app ideas then I will set expectations. It's not 200 ideas. It's one idea that keeps evolving with feature creep. Low-price & unlimited mostly attracts cheapskates. If you're lucky, you'll have one client who has self-control. You'll quickly encounter a really really bad client who'll force you to use a different biz model.
      - grosa 6y ago
        Will ponder this. Appreciate the response.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
offtop5 6y ago
I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what your product even is. As far as I can tell you're a ux designer with some flat rate pricing, but it just looks so convoluted. Try to simplify your pricing a little bit, instead of having three tiers, have one. To be honest I prefer to just pay you your hourly rate for what work you do do.
- grosa 6y ago
  Really appreciate your feedback. I will reflect on your comment.
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  Agreed with the above, your work needs to be front and center. The fact that I had to hunt for examples of your work is not good. You should be wowing me with it like any other service. You got my bookmark youngun, now get off my lawn!
  - grosa 6y ago
    Thank you! I am taking fierce notes.
tubbyjr 6y ago
The current wix site you have up really looks broken on all my browsers, which doesn't instill confidence. The fact that it's wix alone is problematic, let alone that it doesn't even work on multiple browsers of mine.
- grosa 6y ago
  Will investigate. Brave, Safari, and Chrome appeared to be working fine.
imwillofficial 6y ago
With your simplified pricing, I’d ditch the “silver” and “diamond” names. No need. - All You Can Eat - A la carte Something like that. Simplicity is your weapon.
- grosa 6y ago
  This is great!
fabiofzero 6y ago
You really need to clarify exactly what you're offering here, including information that will set expectations to your customers. A key missing information is the size of your team, which will directly impact confidence in your turnover time and sustainability of your business model. I'm saying this because your pricing model is completely nuts. My gut feeling tells me it means one of two things: - I should set my expectations very low. For that price you're either outsourcing most of the work or making heavy use of one-size-fits-all templates. - You're working alone and don't sleep at all! This means the Diamond Unlimited pricing won't be worth it for a long time. Either way, best of luck.
- grosa 6y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! I am going solo on this at the moment and will definitely narrow down what I'm offering.
zffr 6y ago
What type of customer would want unlimited designs? Usually when people approach me with startup ideas they only have 1 or 2 that they may want to pursue.
- dawnerd 6y ago
  > What type of customer would want unlimited designs? Nightmare customers. Honestly this looks like its just a small retainer with poor upfront expectations.
  - grosa 6y ago
    Thanks for the feedback! I have some work to do.
- grosa 6y ago
  Great question! Businesses would be interested in unlimited designs whereas an individual would most likely have one or two ideas like you mentioned.
grosa 6y ago
*Update: Removed landing pages as part of the package.
osrec 6y ago
Unlimited designs for only $1500?! Can you survive on that? And more importantly, can you realistically service more that 3-4 heavy duty clients per designer? I mean, coming up with a UI is one thing, but understanding requirements, constraints etc, takes a lot of time. Imagine if a consulting firm like Accenture took your diamond package; they could easily swamp you with a huge amount of work. Perhaps you should keep a separate "enterprise" pricing level.
- grosa 6y ago
  You're bringing up a really valid point and one that I intend to think deeply on. I really appreciate the comment.
funkaster 6y ago
so... is this PM+UXaaS? at least the initial part of a project, what you mention here as initial product design and creating user stories is what I would expect a PM to deliver (with the help of UX designer)
- grosa 6y ago
  My primary focus is on the app design. The user stories are something I'm going to test the waters with but I'm confident I can hit the mark on both.
gamerDude 6y ago
There is someone with the same model who is doing very well or at least claims to be doing so on IndieHackers. I'd follow their website! https://www.designjoy.co/ https://www.designjoy.co/
- grosa 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing. I may have seen a post regarding Design Joy on indie hackers recently and the numbers seemed bonkers. Going to check out the website!
zigzaggy 6y ago
Congrats on getting started and on getting some traction here at HN!

37 points by grosa 6y ago

Being an iOS engineer for the past five years I decided to start a new journey by releasing Launch Disco. It's an online service that provides unlimited app designs, user stories, and landing pages for you app ideas. I've met many people who have pitched me their ideas but not knowing what to do next.With Launch Disco I'm going to be solving that problem.

rorykoehler 6y ago
What does unlimited mean? This was all the rage a year or two ago and it just makes me think it’s shady bullshit. I can generate more specs than you can deliver in a month. I assume you also work on other peoples requests too. If you can’t deliver every single request I put in every month (and you can’t) then it’s not unlimited. This may only be my perspective as I know other people had success with this model but despite that I still don’t get it.
- grosa 6y ago
  If you have 200 app ideas then I will set expectations. Will it take me a week to produce 200 designs? Nope. However, I'm definitely going to let you know what I can get done by communicating with you on a daily or weekly basis.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    Ok, maybe don’t call it unlimited then
    - imwillofficial 6y ago
      “Ok, maybe don’t call it unlimited then” Why? It is unlimited. When I go to Chili’s and get unlimited soup and salad, my supply is constrained by how fast they want to bring it to my table. Same thing here.
      - offtop5 6y ago
        It's also contained by human biology. If you come to my house I could probably make you more chili than you can reasonably eat, as long as I say I'm not going to bring you any more chili until you finish what you already have, there's no possible way for you to ever overwhelm my chili supply. Common Sense also comes in the play, in America it's not uncommon to see homeless people go to an all you can eat buffet and while they can pay for a meal, they'll try to camp out there and eventually a manager will escort them out. I definitely don't like unlimited when it comes to anything though, that goes for data as well. For example if you get an unlimited T-Mobile plan and you're using 10 terabytes a month, you're going to either get throttled or kicked off the service. I'd much prefer laws to be in place which would force T-Mobile to advertise 500 gigs a month or whatever the actual allotment is. Likewise charging someone $1,500 for unlimited revisions is almost soft fraud because it's absolutely impossible for that to scale. Once you get more than three or four clients you would end up telling them actually I can only do four revisions a month. As I said in my other comment here I'd much prefer to just pay his or her hourly rate.
        imwillofficial 6y ago
        I think we need to get to the real important topic unearthed here... Your chili making skills. You had me at “there’s no possible way for you to overwhelm my chili supply”
    - grosa 6y ago
      Open to hearing ideas.
      - open-source-ux 6y ago
        A possible idea: one price with a fixed number of revisions. For additional revisions, you offer an add-on option i.e. the client can purchase additional revisions for a fee you set. As other posters have said, offering unlimited designs might give some customers unreasonable or demanding expectations. Will an 'unlimited' option swamp you with revision requests? Another suggestion: make your work a more prominent showcase on your website. Potential customers what to see examples of your app designs and user stories. Your current designs don't have any context - they are simply mockups (good-looking mockups) with no description. Do they need more detail and context? A case study for example. Make it clear to customers what they can get from your service - show off you work in the best possible light to catch their interest. Good luck :-)
      - rorykoehler 6y ago
        There are good suggestions from others. I just want to say sorry if I came across quite harsh. I respect that you’re doing this at all and wish you the best of luck.
  - radley 6y ago
    > If you have 200 app ideas then I will set expectations. It's not 200 ideas. It's one idea that keeps evolving with feature creep. Low-price & unlimited mostly attracts cheapskates. If you're lucky, you'll have one client who has self-control. You'll quickly encounter a really really bad client who'll force you to use a different biz model.
    - grosa 6y ago
      Will ponder this. Appreciate the response.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

offtop5 6y ago

I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what your product even is. As far as I can tell you're a ux designer with some flat rate pricing, but it just looks so convoluted. Try to simplify your pricing a little bit, instead of having three tiers, have one. To be honest I prefer to just pay you your hourly rate for what work you do do.

grosa 6y ago
Really appreciate your feedback. I will reflect on your comment.
imwillofficial 6y ago
Agreed with the above, your work needs to be front and center. The fact that I had to hunt for examples of your work is not good. You should be wowing me with it like any other service. You got my bookmark youngun, now get off my lawn!
- grosa 6y ago
  Thank you! I am taking fierce notes.

tubbyjr 6y ago

The current wix site you have up really looks broken on all my browsers, which doesn't instill confidence. The fact that it's wix alone is problematic, let alone that it doesn't even work on multiple browsers of mine.

grosa 6y ago
Will investigate. Brave, Safari, and Chrome appeared to be working fine.

imwillofficial 6y ago

With your simplified pricing, I’d ditch the “silver” and “diamond” names. No need. - All You Can Eat - A la carte Something like that. Simplicity is your weapon.

grosa 6y ago
This is great!

fabiofzero 6y ago

You really need to clarify exactly what you're offering here, including information that will set expectations to your customers. A key missing information is the size of your team, which will directly impact confidence in your turnover time and sustainability of your business model. I'm saying this because your pricing model is completely nuts. My gut feeling tells me it means one of two things: - I should set my expectations very low. For that price you're either outsourcing most of the work or making heavy use of one-size-fits-all templates. - You're working alone and don't sleep at all! This means the Diamond Unlimited pricing won't be worth it for a long time. Either way, best of luck.

grosa 6y ago
Thanks for the feedback! I am going solo on this at the moment and will definitely narrow down what I'm offering.

zffr 6y ago

What type of customer would want unlimited designs? Usually when people approach me with startup ideas they only have 1 or 2 that they may want to pursue.

dawnerd 6y ago
> What type of customer would want unlimited designs? Nightmare customers. Honestly this looks like its just a small retainer with poor upfront expectations.
- grosa 6y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! I have some work to do.
grosa 6y ago
Great question! Businesses would be interested in unlimited designs whereas an individual would most likely have one or two ideas like you mentioned.

grosa 6y ago

*Update: Removed landing pages as part of the package.

osrec 6y ago

Unlimited designs for only $1500?! Can you survive on that? And more importantly, can you realistically service more that 3-4 heavy duty clients per designer? I mean, coming up with a UI is one thing, but understanding requirements, constraints etc, takes a lot of time. Imagine if a consulting firm like Accenture took your diamond package; they could easily swamp you with a huge amount of work. Perhaps you should keep a separate "enterprise" pricing level.

grosa 6y ago
You're bringing up a really valid point and one that I intend to think deeply on. I really appreciate the comment.

funkaster 6y ago

so... is this PM+UXaaS? at least the initial part of a project, what you mention here as initial product design and creating user stories is what I would expect a PM to deliver (with the help of UX designer)

grosa 6y ago
My primary focus is on the app design. The user stories are something I'm going to test the waters with but I'm confident I can hit the mark on both.

gamerDude 6y ago

There is someone with the same model who is doing very well or at least claims to be doing so on IndieHackers. I'd follow their website! https://www.designjoy.co/ https://www.designjoy.co/

grosa 6y ago
Thank you for sharing. I may have seen a post regarding Design Joy on indie hackers recently and the numbers seemed bonkers. Going to check out the website!

zigzaggy 6y ago

Congrats on getting started and on getting some traction here at HN!