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I'm dealing with this right now in the worst way. My product actually depends on a subscription to another service, which is massive and priced ridiculously (JI

I'm dealing with this right now in the worst way. My product actually depends on a subscription to another service, which is massive and priced ridiculously (JIRA). It's a hard sell to say that my service is worth as much as the platform its built on, but it works out that way for some customers. I was considering dropping the price and making it a long-tail type of service, but I'm still excited about plowing lots of development effort in. This just reminds me that for businesses, the difference between 5 and 10 dollars is minimal, but for me, it's enough to keep the lights on (metaphorically, my office/apartment is very dim). I'd rather try to grow the customer base the hard way and then keep giving them more value for money. Edit: my app is FocusTi.me, at http://start.focusti.me http://start.focusti.me. I welcome any feedback, I haven't really started promoting it yet.

meritt 14y ago
Btw your font choice looks horrible on Windows (IE9, Chrome, FF): http://d.pr/i/qK9i http://d.pr/i/qK9i There has been a growing number of not-tested-on-Windows sites which need some serious testing on modern Windows machines because the fonts look really bad.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  Thanks for that. I actually develop on Linux, but either way Windows is definitely most of the market. I'll shop around and see what I can find.
  - cowsaysoink 14y ago
    Fonts that are not native always seem to have issues for me on Windows if they are not big enough. The best option is usually to use a native font like Calibri or some of the many other fonts that windows comes with or increase the size of the font quite a bit. The font your using looks kind of bad to me on my linux box because it seems more geared towards headings and larger font sizes because of how condensed it is. You may want to consider one of the more used but good looking fonts like PT Sans or Open Sans
    - alanctgardner2 14y ago
      In case my comments - or more likely my design - didn't give it away, I'm absolutely not a designer. Open Sans was a great tip, and the point about condensed versus paragraph text was eye opening. I've basically applied those points now, I haven't tested on a windows box yet but hopefully it's more legible. Thanks for the 5-minute font picking lesson guys :)
      - meritt 14y ago
        Looks a world better, great job!
edwinnathaniel 14y ago
Hey got an off-topic question regarding JIRA: is it possible to have a test-account to develop 3rd-party software for their on-demand (studio) web-app? and is there _THE_ stable developer document I can read + use to extend JIRA? (Their KB/Wiki is rather convoluted). Once in a while I'd like to implement a plugin or something for my current workplace internally but I tend to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of documentation and various versions of JIRA. Thanks!
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  I took advantage of their $10 for less than ten users plan and created a jira just for dogfooding. You do get one month free. Personally, their documentation is the stuff of nightmares. If you look at their REST API, you can do some good stuff with just HTTP basic authentication. Its all pretty well contained here: http://docs.atlassian.com/jira/REST/latest/ http://docs.atlassian.com/jira/REST/latest/ Personally I chose to host my app myself, to avoid the pain of their marketplace and get experience with Heroku and Ruby. But as far as I can tell they will also host your app if it meets certain criteria. Send me an email if you have any specific questions, I'd be glad to help you get set up. edit: keyboard exploded mid-word
  - edwinnathaniel 14y ago
    Hey thanks a lot for the info! Much respect for your focus and execution on shipping your app. I don't mean to criticize your work in any shape or form but I'd agree with some of the people in your sub-thread: change the font :) (maybe it's just my personal taste though). It's rare to see web to use this particular font these days and it may be a bit of a turn off (may not be a deciding factor).
halcyondaze 14y ago
I think you need a better landing page. Right now it's tough to see what your app does right away, the font's a bit tough to read as well. The sign up page doesn't do a good job of showing pricing in a clear way as well. I'd also consider drastically increasing your prices if you can chat with customers and see what type of value you're delivering...divide it by 10 and charge that much. I find it tough to believe you're only delivering $50-$100 of value to people if the service this app works with is a ridiculously priced piece of software.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  The thing is, their pricing goes from $5 to $1 a seat on a sliding scale. I meant ridiculous more in terms of commoditizing itself. My goal is that the current iteration does one thing well. I'm sure as I get requests I'll be able to add more features to offer higher tiers.
  - halcyondaze 14y ago
    Yea I suppose so, just seems like it's quite low priced...certainly worth a test!
bravoyankee 14y ago
What is JIRA? Sure I could google it, but when you talk all that JIRA stuff I have no idea what you mean or how much it will cost to get JIRA-fied or JIRA certified or whatever - and I am someone who may be interested in this. Democratize your service. Be more welcoming, even to those who haven't been baptized into the JIRA faith.

meritt 14y ago

Btw your font choice looks horrible on Windows (IE9, Chrome, FF): http://d.pr/i/qK9i http://d.pr/i/qK9i There has been a growing number of not-tested-on-Windows sites which need some serious testing on modern Windows machines because the fonts look really bad.

alanctgardner2 14y ago
Thanks for that. I actually develop on Linux, but either way Windows is definitely most of the market. I'll shop around and see what I can find.
- cowsaysoink 14y ago
  Fonts that are not native always seem to have issues for me on Windows if they are not big enough. The best option is usually to use a native font like Calibri or some of the many other fonts that windows comes with or increase the size of the font quite a bit. The font your using looks kind of bad to me on my linux box because it seems more geared towards headings and larger font sizes because of how condensed it is. You may want to consider one of the more used but good looking fonts like PT Sans or Open Sans
  - alanctgardner2 14y ago
    In case my comments - or more likely my design - didn't give it away, I'm absolutely not a designer. Open Sans was a great tip, and the point about condensed versus paragraph text was eye opening. I've basically applied those points now, I haven't tested on a windows box yet but hopefully it's more legible. Thanks for the 5-minute font picking lesson guys :)
    - meritt 14y ago
      Looks a world better, great job!

edwinnathaniel 14y ago

Hey got an off-topic question regarding JIRA: is it possible to have a test-account to develop 3rd-party software for their on-demand (studio) web-app? and is there _THE_ stable developer document I can read + use to extend JIRA? (Their KB/Wiki is rather convoluted). Once in a while I'd like to implement a plugin or something for my current workplace internally but I tend to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of documentation and various versions of JIRA. Thanks!

alanctgardner2 14y ago
I took advantage of their $10 for less than ten users plan and created a jira just for dogfooding. You do get one month free. Personally, their documentation is the stuff of nightmares. If you look at their REST API, you can do some good stuff with just HTTP basic authentication. Its all pretty well contained here: http://docs.atlassian.com/jira/REST/latest/ http://docs.atlassian.com/jira/REST/latest/ Personally I chose to host my app myself, to avoid the pain of their marketplace and get experience with Heroku and Ruby. But as far as I can tell they will also host your app if it meets certain criteria. Send me an email if you have any specific questions, I'd be glad to help you get set up. edit: keyboard exploded mid-word
- edwinnathaniel 14y ago
  Hey thanks a lot for the info! Much respect for your focus and execution on shipping your app. I don't mean to criticize your work in any shape or form but I'd agree with some of the people in your sub-thread: change the font :) (maybe it's just my personal taste though). It's rare to see web to use this particular font these days and it may be a bit of a turn off (may not be a deciding factor).

halcyondaze 14y ago

I think you need a better landing page. Right now it's tough to see what your app does right away, the font's a bit tough to read as well. The sign up page doesn't do a good job of showing pricing in a clear way as well. I'd also consider drastically increasing your prices if you can chat with customers and see what type of value you're delivering...divide it by 10 and charge that much. I find it tough to believe you're only delivering $50-$100 of value to people if the service this app works with is a ridiculously priced piece of software.

alanctgardner2 14y ago
The thing is, their pricing goes from $5 to $1 a seat on a sliding scale. I meant ridiculous more in terms of commoditizing itself. My goal is that the current iteration does one thing well. I'm sure as I get requests I'll be able to add more features to offer higher tiers.
- halcyondaze 14y ago
  Yea I suppose so, just seems like it's quite low priced...certainly worth a test!

bravoyankee 14y ago

What is JIRA? Sure I could google it, but when you talk all that JIRA stuff I have no idea what you mean or how much it will cost to get JIRA-fied or JIRA certified or whatever - and I am someone who may be interested in this. Democratize your service. Be more welcoming, even to those who haven't been baptized into the JIRA faith.