5 ms·

Interstate (YC S11) Plots Your Development Progress On The Map

90 points by tomblomfield 15y ago

olivercameron 15y ago
Ever since I saw the Cultured Code status page[1] a few months ago, I have been wanting this product. I think a lot of companies would benefit from being more open with their customers about progress. 1. http://culturedcode.com/status http://culturedcode.com/status
- tomblomfield 15y ago
  Yeah, I really like the ability to make certain sections of the roadmap public. Good luck to the Interstate guys!
davidwhodge 15y ago
Congrats guys!
flyosity 15y ago
Some really beautiful, pixel-perfect design across the site and the app. Did they do it in-house or hire an outside contractor/agency?
- sim0n 15y ago
  In-house! My co-founder (Greg) is a UI designer and so his main task is making the site look beautiful :)
- jeffremer 15y ago
  It is very nice looking, well done guys. Though it is strikingly similar to Lighthouse, at least at first glance: http://lighthouseapp.com http://lighthouseapp.com. Perhaps a source of inspiration, or just coincidence?
  - sim0n 15y ago
    I don't see too much resemblance myself and there was no conscious effort of mimicking their design but a lot of project management apps do look fairly similar, UX wise.
    - jeffremer 15y ago
      Maybe it's just that I use LH daily, and that bug trackers and project management apps have only so many possible options for UX - but to me, these two look more alike than any other combinations I can think of. Not implying it's a rip off - it just struck me as funny.
joshuahays 15y ago
I'm excited about this project and even more excited that we were able to utilize it with our startup. I know these guys personally and this is only the beginning... I promise you.
timdorr 15y ago
I'm surprised Github integration isn't on their own roadmap. It would be killer to mark things as completed via commits and see code activity in one application.
- vnorby 15y ago
  It definitely is! Congrats Greg and Simon, on a perfectly timed TC article :)
- sim0n 15y ago
  GitHub integration is now very high on our list of ideas (added it to our roadmap as per your suggestion - http://roadma.ps/8d#road-4e1ca10c8927f6eb50000273 http://roadma.ps/8d#road-4e1ca10c8927f6eb50000273)! We've already added support to pull in your commit log to your Overview feed (see: http://cl.ly/2r2K3N052j0G3w2G2i2O http://cl.ly/2r2K3N052j0G3w2G2i2O - you can enable this via your roadmap's settings page) and we're now looking at pulling in individual commit messages and posting them to roads as update messages, etc (like you suggested). We're just now trying to decide on the best way to do this :)
  - timdorr 15y ago
    Ah, missed that section down the page. Very good!
hagyma 15y ago
Well done. Watch out! We are chasing you! :)
mvid 15y ago
For some reason I thought they would actually overlay this onto a map, and that sounded bizarre and cool. Guess not though.
- tortilla 15y ago
  No, I was visualizing the same thing when I read the title.
  - sim0n 15y ago
    Haha, sorry if the title mislead you. We didn't pick it ourselves although it does fit in with our whole 'Interstate' brand and theme which is nice!
ethank 15y ago
Having sub-tasks would be cool that auto-percentaged the completion of a milestone. IE: "Wireframes" as a milestone/road, should have stops per wireframe. Otherwise its way too abstract to use to manage a granular project.
mkeblx 15y ago
I've been playing around with it for a week and I really like it so far, enough to transition everything over from Basecamp. I really like that I'll be able to incorporate the development progress easily into an internal status page for our startup. (Actually thinking of doing a road-based metaphor visualization of the 'interstates'.) I'm very hesitant to have a publicly visible progress page though, out of concern that would encourage people to wait to pay until a certain announced feature was in place. Would at least have to be handled carefully.
- sim0n 15y ago
  First of all, great to hear you're finding the app useful! We've somewhat surprisingly already heard stories regarding the opposite of users waiting to pay until a feature is added; where users have actually joined a site because they noticed a feature which they thought was missing was actually in the works on the app's roadmap! I do see and understand the worry that it can be risky for /some/ larger businesses to share all the inner workings but we haven't yet heard anything negative back from our users. Also, you aren't required to share everything that you have planned. If you want to, you can start off by just the information that you think you think would be great to share with your users, whatever that may be.
naeem 15y ago
I've started using Interstate with my team. The core features are great, and it definitely helps to get organized. The one fundamental problem that I've found early on with the product, which will be a severe detriment unless they can find a workaround, is that there isn't much that keeps me coming back. The only thing that would keep me coming back is a constant stream of updates, but the way that the system is set-up currently, updates come infrequently enough that I'm not concerned enough to regularly check it. This might change with a bigger team and once we get more involved, though. I think one way to improve is to build some type of real-time collaboration platform to supplement the core product. That may be too great a pivot, but the ability to actually use it as a communication suite for my team while building our roadmap is compelling.
- sim0n 15y ago
  We've got a some new features which will be arriving across the next few months which will improve the communication aspect of Interstate, among other things. As you would expect, keep checking our roadmap for more info on what we're working on :) (http://interstateapp.com/roadmap http://interstateapp.com/roadmap).

90 points by tomblomfield 15y ago

Ever since I saw the Cultured Code status page[1] a few months ago, I have been wanting this product. I think a lot of companies would benefit from being more open with their customers about progress. 1. http://culturedcode.com/status http://culturedcode.com/status

tomblomfield 15y ago
Yeah, I really like the ability to make certain sections of the roadmap public. Good luck to the Interstate guys!

davidwhodge 15y ago

Congrats guys!

flyosity 15y ago

Some really beautiful, pixel-perfect design across the site and the app. Did they do it in-house or hire an outside contractor/agency?

sim0n 15y ago
In-house! My co-founder (Greg) is a UI designer and so his main task is making the site look beautiful :)
jeffremer 15y ago
It is very nice looking, well done guys. Though it is strikingly similar to Lighthouse, at least at first glance: http://lighthouseapp.com http://lighthouseapp.com. Perhaps a source of inspiration, or just coincidence?
- sim0n 15y ago
  I don't see too much resemblance myself and there was no conscious effort of mimicking their design but a lot of project management apps do look fairly similar, UX wise.
  - jeffremer 15y ago
    Maybe it's just that I use LH daily, and that bug trackers and project management apps have only so many possible options for UX - but to me, these two look more alike than any other combinations I can think of. Not implying it's a rip off - it just struck me as funny.

joshuahays 15y ago

I'm excited about this project and even more excited that we were able to utilize it with our startup. I know these guys personally and this is only the beginning... I promise you.

timdorr 15y ago

I'm surprised Github integration isn't on their own roadmap. It would be killer to mark things as completed via commits and see code activity in one application.

vnorby 15y ago
It definitely is! Congrats Greg and Simon, on a perfectly timed TC article :)
sim0n 15y ago
GitHub integration is now very high on our list of ideas (added it to our roadmap as per your suggestion - http://roadma.ps/8d#road-4e1ca10c8927f6eb50000273 http://roadma.ps/8d#road-4e1ca10c8927f6eb50000273)! We've already added support to pull in your commit log to your Overview feed (see: http://cl.ly/2r2K3N052j0G3w2G2i2O http://cl.ly/2r2K3N052j0G3w2G2i2O - you can enable this via your roadmap's settings page) and we're now looking at pulling in individual commit messages and posting them to roads as update messages, etc (like you suggested). We're just now trying to decide on the best way to do this :)
- timdorr 15y ago
  Ah, missed that section down the page. Very good!

hagyma 15y ago

Well done. Watch out! We are chasing you! :)

mvid 15y ago

For some reason I thought they would actually overlay this onto a map, and that sounded bizarre and cool. Guess not though.

tortilla 15y ago
No, I was visualizing the same thing when I read the title.
- sim0n 15y ago
  Haha, sorry if the title mislead you. We didn't pick it ourselves although it does fit in with our whole 'Interstate' brand and theme which is nice!

ethank 15y ago

Having sub-tasks would be cool that auto-percentaged the completion of a milestone. IE: "Wireframes" as a milestone/road, should have stops per wireframe. Otherwise its way too abstract to use to manage a granular project.

mkeblx 15y ago

I've been playing around with it for a week and I really like it so far, enough to transition everything over from Basecamp. I really like that I'll be able to incorporate the development progress easily into an internal status page for our startup. (Actually thinking of doing a road-based metaphor visualization of the 'interstates'.) I'm very hesitant to have a publicly visible progress page though, out of concern that would encourage people to wait to pay until a certain announced feature was in place. Would at least have to be handled carefully.

sim0n 15y ago
First of all, great to hear you're finding the app useful! We've somewhat surprisingly already heard stories regarding the opposite of users waiting to pay until a feature is added; where users have actually joined a site because they noticed a feature which they thought was missing was actually in the works on the app's roadmap! I do see and understand the worry that it can be risky for /some/ larger businesses to share all the inner workings but we haven't yet heard anything negative back from our users. Also, you aren't required to share everything that you have planned. If you want to, you can start off by just the information that you think you think would be great to share with your users, whatever that may be.

naeem 15y ago

I've started using Interstate with my team. The core features are great, and it definitely helps to get organized. The one fundamental problem that I've found early on with the product, which will be a severe detriment unless they can find a workaround, is that there isn't much that keeps me coming back. The only thing that would keep me coming back is a constant stream of updates, but the way that the system is set-up currently, updates come infrequently enough that I'm not concerned enough to regularly check it. This might change with a bigger team and once we get more involved, though. I think one way to improve is to build some type of real-time collaboration platform to supplement the core product. That may be too great a pivot, but the ability to actually use it as a communication suite for my team while building our roadmap is compelling.

sim0n 15y ago
We've got a some new features which will be arriving across the next few months which will improve the communication aspect of Interstate, among other things. As you would expect, keep checking our roadmap for more info on what we're working on :) (http://interstateapp.com/roadmap http://interstateapp.com/roadmap).