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Your product is for people who write code, but your sales pitch is some vaporous hand-wavy thing. I'm writing my own guide on quality JavaScript, and I have abs

by bdg 15y ago

Your product is for people who write code, but your sales pitch is some vaporous hand-wavy thing. I'm writing my own guide on quality JavaScript, and I have absolutely no idea of what your product does beyond "Group errors and email people, also, unobtrusive!" I imagine (based only on your comments here) this is a JavaScript file that basically sends ajax data with `window.onerror` events from the browser. You need a user story for customers. "Bob's website, twitter.com, sucks because it throws thousands of errors only to suppress them by hacking in window.onerror = function(){} so nobody gets to see them in the console and make fun of them, why not do better and get reports of what your errors actually look like!" Your user story needs to explain value (which I myself as a potential customer of yours do not see, I will explain in a moment). Also, pricing on the volume of errors doesn't feel right. Especially if I'm using this for development. Some websites will pass even your $60 limit in a few days, never-mind errors that happen in loops. Why not just set one price? 20-25$/month or $200/year feels right to me. You also need to compete on something that shows value. Who are you targeting? What errors do your customers care about? Why might I not want to use your tool? Why does twitter suppress errors rather than fix them? Why might twitter buy your service? As for why you don't have my business, I see no advantage or benefit to your product. I've implemented similar features in the past only to move onto other things. Sending an web request (ajax or any other request type) with window.onerror is trivial. I even optimized it to not lag out pages when we have errors in loops through some other techniques. You haven't convinced me why a competent JS developer needs this, when the implementation for very basic functionality is trivial. Give me a reason to buy this; a spreadsheet of hand-wavy features doesn't answer the problems that keep me up at night. tldr: Marketers, marketers, marketers.

rakeshpai 15y ago
Thanks for taking the time for the comment, bdg. About the pitch/technology/complications: You are right - everyone here too has echoed that I should clarify how the tech works, why it isn't really trivial, and generally improve the marketing pitch too. I hear you. Expect a change coming up soon. Thanks for the feedback - it's invaluable.
sdepablos 15y ago
I suppose the main advantage would be information aggregation with each error next to the number of occurrences (I don't want to see a hundred times the same error), the same business model as airbrake or getexceptional. I mean, almost any developer could implement an exception logger, but I don't really want to spend that time on a non-core feature for my business.
- bdg 15y ago
  Sure, but that feature seems trivial to me, I can simply create a view in my database to shake the data however I would like. https://gist.github.com/1438654 https://gist.github.com/1438654 I could just select * from viewGroupErrors where error=12345 The cost of this app should be less than cost of my time to make it, right now the yearly cost is probably $50 to me.
  - rakeshpai 15y ago
    bdg, I mean no disrespect, but the matter is honestly not that trivial. Ultimately, you are right - it does come down to getting some queries right, but you quickly discover that it's an ongoing effort. Three months since I'm doing this, and even now I'd be happier if I could manage duplicates better. It's not a simple select query for sure.
  - sdepablos 15y ago
    So now you only need to manage that table so it does not grow out of control, create a basic interface, some kind of alerts... all for $15-30 month. I don't know you, my hours are way more expensive. For this kind of non-core features SaaS is the way to go.

by bdg 15y ago

rakeshpai 15y ago

Thanks for taking the time for the comment, bdg. About the pitch/technology/complications: You are right - everyone here too has echoed that I should clarify how the tech works, why it isn't really trivial, and generally improve the marketing pitch too. I hear you. Expect a change coming up soon. Thanks for the feedback - it's invaluable.

sdepablos 15y ago

I suppose the main advantage would be information aggregation with each error next to the number of occurrences (I don't want to see a hundred times the same error), the same business model as airbrake or getexceptional. I mean, almost any developer could implement an exception logger, but I don't really want to spend that time on a non-core feature for my business.

bdg 15y ago
Sure, but that feature seems trivial to me, I can simply create a view in my database to shake the data however I would like. https://gist.github.com/1438654 https://gist.github.com/1438654 I could just select * from viewGroupErrors where error=12345 The cost of this app should be less than cost of my time to make it, right now the yearly cost is probably $50 to me.
- rakeshpai 15y ago
  bdg, I mean no disrespect, but the matter is honestly not that trivial. Ultimately, you are right - it does come down to getting some queries right, but you quickly discover that it's an ongoing effort. Three months since I'm doing this, and even now I'd be happier if I could manage duplicates better. It's not a simple select query for sure.
- sdepablos 15y ago
  So now you only need to manage that table so it does not grow out of control, create a basic interface, some kind of alerts... all for $15-30 month. I don't know you, my hours are way more expensive. For this kind of non-core features SaaS is the way to go.