4 ms·

Hi all, sole developer here! Creodocs has been over 6 years of work in my spare time and it's great to finally launch it! The idea for Creodocs came about afte

by VelNZ 6y ago

Hi all, sole developer here! Creodocs has been over 6 years of work in my spare time and it's great to finally launch it! The idea for Creodocs came about after I launched https://LaTeXTemplates.com https://LaTeXTemplates.com and https://LaTeXTypesetting.com https://LaTeXTypesetting.com in 2012 and 2013, respectively. I noticed that academic documents and books consist almost entirely of content that changes across multiple instances of the template used to make them, but business documents are much more likely to consist of large proportions of static content. Think of receipts you receive from an online retailer; that company's information, branding and layout of the document doesn't change at all, but your account number, name, address and items purchased change. I thought, well, what if I use the power of LaTeX to create virtually any design imaginable (combined with the ability to do math, use variables, etc), but abstract away the code (which is hard to master and archaic by modern standards), to allow users to specify just those dynamic parts of a document they need to fill out and keep the rest unchangeable. Enter Creodocs, a document creation platform with a collection of templates available to all users, and the ability to add your own via a LaTeX template with variables specified. Variables each accept specific content types (int, bool, string, float) with a maximum length. Private templates can be shared with others, and there are billing groups to manage spending centrally. The idea is that a small/medium business would create (or have me create) a set of templates for documents they constantly produce, and then each of their staff (who don't know what LaTeX is) can log in and simply fill out a web form and get a consistent beautiful PDF document immediately. There is also the ability to create hundreds or thousands of documents at once using a spreadsheet, or create documents via an API without touching the website at all. I'd love some feedback on the idea and implementation! At this stage, if you're interested in using it for your business, send me an email and you're welcome to use it all you want for free if I can get some feedback. I'm also happy to chat about how the LaTeX world has changed in the last 10 years, or about how I've managed to have a steady stream of commercial clients willing to pay me to create custom LaTeX templates through my typesetting service.

pvg 6y ago
If you're looking for feedback, you might want to put up a demo template or whatever other bit of the workflow that's easy to expose (at least, temporarily) so you get comments from HN users without the friction of sign-up.
- VelNZ 6y ago
  Yes, I can see now that would be very useful going forward and I'll get on to it soon! Thanks!
frontiersummit 6y ago
You may wish to rethink the name, as you are likely infringing on PTC's trademark. PTC Creo (Formerly known as Pro/Engineer) is high-end CAD software, competing against Catia and NX.
- VelNZ 6y ago
  When I searched online for the name there were essentially zero results for it so I'm surprised it would infringe anything. I'm not sure how trademark law works so I'll look into this though, thanks!
  - frontiersummit 6y ago
    Google and Bing searches for "creo" give the PTC product as their first result. IANAL, but PTC could make the case that you are diluting their brand name by using it for your software, or worse, trying the phish their customers.
    - VelNZ 6y ago
      Is using part of someone else's name a violation of trademark laws? I'm genuinely curious! I chose Creo because it means "to create" in Latin (I'm a sucker for Latin names), with docs obviously being short for documents. I'd argue that Creo is just a generic word, it's not like the name is Leicadocs where that word is very firmly tied to a single company.
      - anonAndOn 6y ago
        Potentially. If you stay away from mentioning or advertising anything related to their line of work (CAD software?) they'll have less of a claim of infringement. Also, trademark the name in NZ, if you haven't already. IANAL, YMMV, etc...
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Are you a trademark attorney? Do these systems have any similarity beyond "create stuff on computers"? IANAL.
raylad 6y ago
My reaction to the expiring credits-based pricing was to feel anxious. Also the fact that cost is not easy to calculate creates a barrier to understanding what the cost would be, which less-motivated people may not bother overcoming. What made you choose this model?
- VelNZ 6y ago
  It was certainly hard to choose the pricing model. I tried to explain it in the "Why Credits? Why Not Dollars or Subscriptions?" section here: https://www.creodocs.com/support?section=credits https://www.creodocs.com/support?section=credits Ultimately, I don't know who is going to use the platform. It's created in a way that it can be just as useful for a random person who wants to make a few invoices per month, someone who wants to make 10,000 payslips every 2 weeks, and someone who wants to hook it up to their product to pump in data and receive a link to a PDF via the API. The first person would not pay for a subscription, it's just not worth it at their usage level. The second has burst bulk usage which should be discounted. The third has some level of sustained usage over time. Those 3 use cases are covered by the 7 days, 30 days and 2 years pricing structures. If you're a casual user, pay a bit more and don't worry about expiration. If you're a bulk user, you get a discount. Everyone else can treat it like a subscription and get the best of both worlds. I looked to websites that do similar things for ideas, and the closest I could come up with was sites like ShutterStock which also have a credit system where the more you buy the cheaper it is. I believe their credits expire after a fixed period too, but you don't get a discount for how long which is a bit more specific to my product. Thanks for the feedback! How would you prefer to see a service like this priced that wouldn't cause price anxiety? I'd love to hear different ideas since this can be changed.
  - smoldesu 6y ago
    >Credits may seem like a dark pattern of obfuscating cost and adding unnecessary complication. This is certainly not the intention and this section aims to explain why credits are a good system for you and for Creodocs. If something seems like a dark pattern, it is. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the ultimate judge of what is dark/what's not is the end user, and sending them a leaflet about how good it is doesn't do much to assuage their fears. I understand your motivations here, and sympathize with you as a developer: but as a user, I couldn't justify integrating this into my workflow.

by VelNZ 6y ago

pvg 6y ago

If you're looking for feedback, you might want to put up a demo template or whatever other bit of the workflow that's easy to expose (at least, temporarily) so you get comments from HN users without the friction of sign-up.

VelNZ 6y ago
Yes, I can see now that would be very useful going forward and I'll get on to it soon! Thanks!

frontiersummit 6y ago

You may wish to rethink the name, as you are likely infringing on PTC's trademark. PTC Creo (Formerly known as Pro/Engineer) is high-end CAD software, competing against Catia and NX.

VelNZ 6y ago
When I searched online for the name there were essentially zero results for it so I'm surprised it would infringe anything. I'm not sure how trademark law works so I'll look into this though, thanks!
- frontiersummit 6y ago
  Google and Bing searches for "creo" give the PTC product as their first result. IANAL, but PTC could make the case that you are diluting their brand name by using it for your software, or worse, trying the phish their customers.
  - VelNZ 6y ago
    Is using part of someone else's name a violation of trademark laws? I'm genuinely curious! I chose Creo because it means "to create" in Latin (I'm a sucker for Latin names), with docs obviously being short for documents. I'd argue that Creo is just a generic word, it's not like the name is Leicadocs where that word is very firmly tied to a single company.
    - anonAndOn 6y ago
      Potentially. If you stay away from mentioning or advertising anything related to their line of work (CAD software?) they'll have less of a claim of infringement. Also, trademark the name in NZ, if you haven't already. IANAL, YMMV, etc...
jessaustin 6y ago
Are you a trademark attorney? Do these systems have any similarity beyond "create stuff on computers"? IANAL.

raylad 6y ago

My reaction to the expiring credits-based pricing was to feel anxious. Also the fact that cost is not easy to calculate creates a barrier to understanding what the cost would be, which less-motivated people may not bother overcoming. What made you choose this model?

VelNZ 6y ago
It was certainly hard to choose the pricing model. I tried to explain it in the "Why Credits? Why Not Dollars or Subscriptions?" section here: https://www.creodocs.com/support?section=credits https://www.creodocs.com/support?section=credits Ultimately, I don't know who is going to use the platform. It's created in a way that it can be just as useful for a random person who wants to make a few invoices per month, someone who wants to make 10,000 payslips every 2 weeks, and someone who wants to hook it up to their product to pump in data and receive a link to a PDF via the API. The first person would not pay for a subscription, it's just not worth it at their usage level. The second has burst bulk usage which should be discounted. The third has some level of sustained usage over time. Those 3 use cases are covered by the 7 days, 30 days and 2 years pricing structures. If you're a casual user, pay a bit more and don't worry about expiration. If you're a bulk user, you get a discount. Everyone else can treat it like a subscription and get the best of both worlds. I looked to websites that do similar things for ideas, and the closest I could come up with was sites like ShutterStock which also have a credit system where the more you buy the cheaper it is. I believe their credits expire after a fixed period too, but you don't get a discount for how long which is a bit more specific to my product. Thanks for the feedback! How would you prefer to see a service like this priced that wouldn't cause price anxiety? I'd love to hear different ideas since this can be changed.
- smoldesu 6y ago
  >Credits may seem like a dark pattern of obfuscating cost and adding unnecessary complication. This is certainly not the intention and this section aims to explain why credits are a good system for you and for Creodocs. If something seems like a dark pattern, it is. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the ultimate judge of what is dark/what's not is the end user, and sending them a leaflet about how good it is doesn't do much to assuage their fears. I understand your motivations here, and sympathize with you as a developer: but as a user, I couldn't justify integrating this into my workflow.