10 ms·

Show HN: A Sales Tracking App Built For Freelancers and Small Businesses

31 points by andrewdumont 15y ago

rmason 15y ago
Everyone pays the same price whether they're a 100 person firm or just two people? So you can have five clients per server or fifty? I think that you need to give some consideration to those using more resources paying more.
- csytan 15y ago
  It doesn't look like it supports multiple users on one account. So a 100 person firm would need to use 100 individual accounts.
  - adrianpike 15y ago
    Correct - that's obviously something we need to support in the future, but we want to roll it in based on user feedback & demand. :)
ivyirwin 15y ago
Looks nice. Do you have a beta code for HN we could use to try it out?
- nathancarnes 15y ago
  Give the beta code hackernews a shot. (Creative, I know.)
mmcnickle 15y ago
Looks great. It seems to have the coarse level of detail that's great for my simple sales process. Anything more is just noise for me. Not a deal-breaker, but does it support other currencies, namely GBP(£)?
- adrianpike 15y ago
  There's no way to change the currency symbol right now. That's definitely something we should add to the list, I'll add it to our backlog! :)
w33ble 15y ago
This looks really promising from what I see in the screenshot. Since you're in private beta, why not add a mailing list signup? That way, those that don't get an invite code will still get reminders of this tool and a notification when they can finally get in.
- andrewdumont 15y ago
  We just set up a beta invite for all the HN folks, go ahead and use hackernews when signing up.
  - w33ble 15y ago
    Already did. Put some problems and suggestions up on getsatisfaction too. This looks like it could be quite a useful service.
j45 15y ago
Looks nice. Do you think lead generation and management is the sole problem of Freelancers? Or are you planning to move into the rest of the freelancing lifecycle?
- andrewdumont 15y ago
  Nathan did a fine job of summing up why we built Stride in this post -- http://blog.strideapp.com/post/18976926872/origin-story http://blog.strideapp.com/post/18976926872/origin-story It's clear that the problem extends to small businesses and the like, we just want to make it clear that we didn't build Stride for salespeople. The app is too simple for their use, and that's what we wanted. The idea is to tie in Freshbooks, Mailchimp, Rapportive and other integrations as we move forward, to help round out what small business and freelancers need.
m21 15y ago
need a code so that we can try.
nathancarnes 15y ago
We've just added the beta code hackernews to let all of you fine ladies and gentlemen in. Give it a shot -- we're looking forward to your feedback.
swombat 15y ago
Interesting. There's definitely a need for sales/pipeline tracking tools in small businesses, though I'm not sure the focus on freelancers is quite right. We're currently using Pipedrive for this, and it's a more mature and slicker product, but that's not to say there isn't room for another player (in fact, there are many!). I'm just not 100% sure that the focus on freelancers is right. Has this been validated with actual freelancers? Are any freelancers on HN willing to come out and say that this is a hair-on-fire problem for them that they'd be willing to pay $7/m for this?
- nathancarnes 15y ago
  For me, it's something that would have served me (and I would have paid for) in my freelancing days, and it's something that has been working great for me as a small business owner as I've been using the early builds. I'm obviously incredibly biased (I'm one of the creators), but I agree small business will be a large potential market in addition to freelancers. There will be some freelancers who won't want to put down $7/month, but most busy freelancers would certainly get $7/month of value out of the service. Here's my blog post about how Stride came about, which has a bit more: http://blog.strideapp.com/post/18976926872/origin-story http://blog.strideapp.com/post/18976926872/origin-story
  - swombat 15y ago
    Aha. Reading your blog post, I notice that you developed this for yourself while you were running a web design shop with 3 other people. That counts as small business rather than "freelancer", in my book. If I were you I'd go and furiously hunt down bona fide freelancers (who have no interest in hiring more people) and corner them as to whether they'd find something like this useful. I don't think the price is an issue - in fact, $7 is too low, if anything - but whether or not this is worth paying for at all, for a freelancer. It's definitely worth it for a web design shop - but then you need to market to those rather than to freelancers, and make sure you build your product for the right market.
    - nathancarnes 15y ago
ColinD 15y ago
Having tried it out for just a few moments, I certainly see the value. Good work. That said, I do have a couple of snap judgements that I hope you don't mind me sharing. 1. The interface is simple to use, but when I closed a deal it immediately disappeared from the list. While it makes sense for a non-active deal to leave the list, it is a hinderance to me using the platform. In my business, "closing" a deal means receiving a purchase order. But the deal isn't done until I've completed my end of things (bringing in the product, shipping it, receiving payment). It would be nice if closed deals didn't disappear from the list for a day or week or month or whatever. It's nice to see the team's successes as well as the stuff still open. 2. It would be AWESOME if there were a way to add/edit the progress bar. In my business it would be useful to have "lead" "pitch/quotation", "negotiation", "closed", "processed" "shipped and invoiced" and "payment received." Tracking the whole process linearly from start to finish is something I would certainly pay for. 2. Piggy backing #1, it would be super helpful to be able to attach files to deals. Most of my company's projects take place via quotes that come via XLS and PO's that come via PDF. Being able to attach the files along the way would mean my GMAIL account wouldn't have to be the repository for quotes and orders. 2a. Tagging deals would be super useful. If I could tag a deal with the salesperson's name or "new customer" or whatever and search/sort by tag, that would be a great feature. 3. The reporting is nice, but I hope that a lot more filters come in the future. It would be nice to search/sort by customer, $ value, deal status, etc. and then run reports on that information as well. For example, it would be nice to pull all the deals we lost from customer XYZ between $5k and $10k and compare that number to the deals won in that range. Were are margins too high on the lost deals? Is there something else we could have done? 4. I don't know if you guys are enabling multi-user accounts but I'd gladly pay 5x your current monthly cost (or more) if would allow my account to have 4 user logins where each user could modify/edit a deal. We have a salesperson, a quoter, a purchaser, and a processer. If each person could access the same dashboard and update their part of a deal that would be fantastic and would no doubt improve our work flow. 5. I'd pay even more if I could add checkbox/lists to each piece of the status bar. So "Pitch" would have a checkbox for "emailed quote" and "2 day follow up" and 4 day follow up"...whereas Won might have a checkbox for "received PO" and "created invoice" and stuff like that. I realize that is sort of moving away from the simplicity that the app delivers on right now, but once again it is something I would pay a lot more $$ for. Aside from improving our current work, having checklists would help standardize our processes to make it easier to train new people. My team of four is CONSTANTLY in the dark about where everyone else is on a certain project. Task lists and project managers don't work because they are either complicated to use or don't have a linear flow like your tool has. Yes, a lot of these things can be addressed through other CRM systems and Quickbooks, but the opportunity I see here is for dead simple deal tracking and data extraction. Highrise, Salesforce, etc. are good tools in their own way, but a STRICT focus on pipeline, tracking, and highly/quickly customizable reporting would be great. I realize that I've broken the cardinal rule by suggesting you add MORE stuff when the goal is simplicity. But the things I've posted are the things that occurred to me right away when I signed up, started using it, and started saying "would I pay for this? How much would I pay? And if it had x, y, and z, how much more would I pay?"
Lukebream 15y ago
I really like the look of this but think, like others have also commented that you are hitting slightly the wrong Market. To my mind it provides a fantastic sales funnel angels. Having spent years in sales this gives me a snapshot view of where I am. So if I were you guys I would be targeting product owners who have affiliates. Think of all those click bank product owners. They need / want affiliates to sell there product. This is a fantastic tool for them to manage this process. You could Market it to the On one of the im forums like warrior or blackhatworld. The one feature I would like to see is the ability to click the individual step on any if the projects and for it to offer me the opportunity to enter a custom checklist that I can tick off before they are advanced to the next stage. Great product. Keep developing.

31 points by andrewdumont 15y ago

Everyone pays the same price whether they're a 100 person firm or just two people? So you can have five clients per server or fifty? I think that you need to give some consideration to those using more resources paying more.

csytan 15y ago
It doesn't look like it supports multiple users on one account. So a 100 person firm would need to use 100 individual accounts.
- adrianpike 15y ago
  Correct - that's obviously something we need to support in the future, but we want to roll it in based on user feedback & demand. :)

ivyirwin 15y ago

Looks nice. Do you have a beta code for HN we could use to try it out?

nathancarnes 15y ago
Give the beta code hackernews a shot. (Creative, I know.)

mmcnickle 15y ago

Looks great. It seems to have the coarse level of detail that's great for my simple sales process. Anything more is just noise for me. Not a deal-breaker, but does it support other currencies, namely GBP(£)?

adrianpike 15y ago
There's no way to change the currency symbol right now. That's definitely something we should add to the list, I'll add it to our backlog! :)

w33ble 15y ago

This looks really promising from what I see in the screenshot. Since you're in private beta, why not add a mailing list signup? That way, those that don't get an invite code will still get reminders of this tool and a notification when they can finally get in.

andrewdumont 15y ago
We just set up a beta invite for all the HN folks, go ahead and use hackernews when signing up.
- w33ble 15y ago
  Already did. Put some problems and suggestions up on getsatisfaction too. This looks like it could be quite a useful service.

j45 15y ago

Looks nice. Do you think lead generation and management is the sole problem of Freelancers? Or are you planning to move into the rest of the freelancing lifecycle?

andrewdumont 15y ago
Nathan did a fine job of summing up why we built Stride in this post -- http://blog.strideapp.com/post/18976926872/origin-story http://blog.strideapp.com/post/18976926872/origin-story It's clear that the problem extends to small businesses and the like, we just want to make it clear that we didn't build Stride for salespeople. The app is too simple for their use, and that's what we wanted. The idea is to tie in Freshbooks, Mailchimp, Rapportive and other integrations as we move forward, to help round out what small business and freelancers need.

m21 15y ago

need a code so that we can try.

nathancarnes 15y ago

We've just added the beta code hackernews to let all of you fine ladies and gentlemen in. Give it a shot -- we're looking forward to your feedback.

swombat 15y ago

Interesting. There's definitely a need for sales/pipeline tracking tools in small businesses, though I'm not sure the focus on freelancers is quite right. We're currently using Pipedrive for this, and it's a more mature and slicker product, but that's not to say there isn't room for another player (in fact, there are many!). I'm just not 100% sure that the focus on freelancers is right. Has this been validated with actual freelancers? Are any freelancers on HN willing to come out and say that this is a hair-on-fire problem for them that they'd be willing to pay $7/m for this?

nathancarnes 15y ago
For me, it's something that would have served me (and I would have paid for) in my freelancing days, and it's something that has been working great for me as a small business owner as I've been using the early builds. I'm obviously incredibly biased (I'm one of the creators), but I agree small business will be a large potential market in addition to freelancers. There will be some freelancers who won't want to put down $7/month, but most busy freelancers would certainly get $7/month of value out of the service. Here's my blog post about how Stride came about, which has a bit more: http://blog.strideapp.com/post/18976926872/origin-story http://blog.strideapp.com/post/18976926872/origin-story
- swombat 15y ago
  Aha. Reading your blog post, I notice that you developed this for yourself while you were running a web design shop with 3 other people. That counts as small business rather than "freelancer", in my book. If I were you I'd go and furiously hunt down bona fide freelancers (who have no interest in hiring more people) and corner them as to whether they'd find something like this useful. I don't think the price is an issue - in fact, $7 is too low, if anything - but whether or not this is worth paying for at all, for a freelancer. It's definitely worth it for a web design shop - but then you need to market to those rather than to freelancers, and make sure you build your product for the right market.
  - nathancarnes 15y ago

ColinD 15y ago

Having tried it out for just a few moments, I certainly see the value. Good work. That said, I do have a couple of snap judgements that I hope you don't mind me sharing. 1. The interface is simple to use, but when I closed a deal it immediately disappeared from the list. While it makes sense for a non-active deal to leave the list, it is a hinderance to me using the platform. In my business, "closing" a deal means receiving a purchase order. But the deal isn't done until I've completed my end of things (bringing in the product, shipping it, receiving payment). It would be nice if closed deals didn't disappear from the list for a day or week or month or whatever. It's nice to see the team's successes as well as the stuff still open. 2. It would be AWESOME if there were a way to add/edit the progress bar. In my business it would be useful to have "lead" "pitch/quotation", "negotiation", "closed", "processed" "shipped and invoiced" and "payment received." Tracking the whole process linearly from start to finish is something I would certainly pay for. 2. Piggy backing #1, it would be super helpful to be able to attach files to deals. Most of my company's projects take place via quotes that come via XLS and PO's that come via PDF. Being able to attach the files along the way would mean my GMAIL account wouldn't have to be the repository for quotes and orders. 2a. Tagging deals would be super useful. If I could tag a deal with the salesperson's name or "new customer" or whatever and search/sort by tag, that would be a great feature. 3. The reporting is nice, but I hope that a lot more filters come in the future. It would be nice to search/sort by customer, $ value, deal status, etc. and then run reports on that information as well. For example, it would be nice to pull all the deals we lost from customer XYZ between $5k and $10k and compare that number to the deals won in that range. Were are margins too high on the lost deals? Is there something else we could have done? 4. I don't know if you guys are enabling multi-user accounts but I'd gladly pay 5x your current monthly cost (or more) if would allow my account to have 4 user logins where each user could modify/edit a deal. We have a salesperson, a quoter, a purchaser, and a processer. If each person could access the same dashboard and update their part of a deal that would be fantastic and would no doubt improve our work flow. 5. I'd pay even more if I could add checkbox/lists to each piece of the status bar. So "Pitch" would have a checkbox for "emailed quote" and "2 day follow up" and 4 day follow up"...whereas Won might have a checkbox for "received PO" and "created invoice" and stuff like that. I realize that is sort of moving away from the simplicity that the app delivers on right now, but once again it is something I would pay a lot more $$ for. Aside from improving our current work, having checklists would help standardize our processes to make it easier to train new people. My team of four is CONSTANTLY in the dark about where everyone else is on a certain project. Task lists and project managers don't work because they are either complicated to use or don't have a linear flow like your tool has. Yes, a lot of these things can be addressed through other CRM systems and Quickbooks, but the opportunity I see here is for dead simple deal tracking and data extraction. Highrise, Salesforce, etc. are good tools in their own way, but a STRICT focus on pipeline, tracking, and highly/quickly customizable reporting would be great. I realize that I've broken the cardinal rule by suggesting you add MORE stuff when the goal is simplicity. But the things I've posted are the things that occurred to me right away when I signed up, started using it, and started saying "would I pay for this? How much would I pay? And if it had x, y, and z, how much more would I pay?"

Lukebream 15y ago

I really like the look of this but think, like others have also commented that you are hitting slightly the wrong Market. To my mind it provides a fantastic sales funnel angels. Having spent years in sales this gives me a snapshot view of where I am. So if I were you guys I would be targeting product owners who have affiliates. Think of all those click bank product owners. They need / want affiliates to sell there product. This is a fantastic tool for them to manage this process. You could Market it to the On one of the im forums like warrior or blackhatworld. The one feature I would like to see is the ability to click the individual step on any if the projects and for it to offer me the opportunity to enter a custom checklist that I can tick off before they are advanced to the next stage. Great product. Keep developing.