4 ms·

Founder here, would love to get feedback

by minhajuddin 12y ago

xSwag 12y ago
Why a $1 plan? What if that user asks for support, would you value 15 or 30 mins of your time at $1?
- minhajuddin 12y ago
  I don't foresee a lot of issues once a user gets the hang of it, and I am expecting each user to have approximately 10 websites which should eventually pay off. Hopefully it works out :) I will also increase the amount of documentation/videos which should reduce the support required.
  - wahnfrieden 12y ago
    Nice work! From where do you get that expectation?
    - minhajuddin 12y ago
      Thanks :) I didn't really do any research on that expectation, but from my personal experience many designers can host their clients' websites if they can get an inexpensive and reliable host, websrvr is trying to be that.
duncanawoods 12y ago
I deploy a statically generated site by pushing/pulling a production version from git. My feedback is that I don't have any pain points with my current work-flow. I would fear your service & dropbox to actually cause problems and be less useful than git. Sorry to be a downer :) What advantages do you think your service would offer me?
- minhajuddin 12y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Do you use github pages? or a server of your own? In the near future I am planning to allow users to host their sites on Amazon S3 and Cloudfront, that should remove the fear of reliability and also be a good feature. I understand that it may not be very appealing to people who can setup their own servers, but I foresee it being useful to many designers.
  - duncanawoods 12y ago
    Ah, I see. I didn't realise you are offering hosting. "Deploy your websites from dropbox." makes me think its just a deployment tool for existing servers. If its for designers, then with a better tag-line, I expect you can make creating a website from a drop-box folder sound like magic.
    - minhajuddin 12y ago
      Thanks, I changed the copy. It sounded better in my head :) btw, the website 'www.websrvr.in' is hosted on the same service :)
sandyshankar 12y ago
Some time back, I was in the market for similar sevices, I evaluated brace.io and site44. If I am not wrong, they both charge $5/month for 5 websites. As a user, I would not mind paying that, because if I want to quickly demo to a client, I would prefer a separate sub-domain/folder without having to pull my credit card for that. Second, I was looking for minification and compression, great to see that you have added that feature. Third, great to see that you have contact forms, the first obstacle where you might think of servers. I like brace.io's implementation. Additionally I liked brace.io's admin and shipping workflow. Do you have anything similar?
- minhajuddin 12y ago
  You don't really have to enter your payment information every time you create a website. Once you signup, you can make a deposit for $3 and we'll charge you only when you create a folder in your dropbox (that too 1 hour after you create the folder in case it was done by a mistake). Also, even if you don't have any funds in your account your websites will be live, we'll send you an email to clear your invoices :) In short, all you have to do to create a website is create a folder with an index.html file. I am also the creator of http://getsimpleform.com http://getsimpleform.com which is a service which allows simple contact forms with akismet integration for spam prevention, it also allows you to use templates for the email notifications on form submissions. websrvr will have all that functionality and a bit more :)
giovannibajo1 12y ago
Not sure what's your target, but your pricing plan shows the main differentiator being where the website is hosted (your server vs S3 vs Cloudfront) which requires people to be familiar with AWS services to understand the difference. Then you don't say how your servers are connected to the internet, what uptime they have, etc. My suggestion would be rephrasing without mentioning AWS (unless it's a specific user-level features like "upload to your own S3 bucket" or something like that).
- minhajuddin 12y ago
  Thanks for the feedback, I'll change the copy hosting it off of S3 or Cloudfront definitely adds to the cost that's why there is a price difference. I should make the text more understandable.

Founder here, would love to get feedback

xSwag 12y ago

Why a $1 plan? What if that user asks for support, would you value 15 or 30 mins of your time at $1?

minhajuddin 12y ago
I don't foresee a lot of issues once a user gets the hang of it, and I am expecting each user to have approximately 10 websites which should eventually pay off. Hopefully it works out :) I will also increase the amount of documentation/videos which should reduce the support required.
- wahnfrieden 12y ago
  Nice work! From where do you get that expectation?
  - minhajuddin 12y ago
    Thanks :) I didn't really do any research on that expectation, but from my personal experience many designers can host their clients' websites if they can get an inexpensive and reliable host, websrvr is trying to be that.

duncanawoods 12y ago

I deploy a statically generated site by pushing/pulling a production version from git. My feedback is that I don't have any pain points with my current work-flow. I would fear your service & dropbox to actually cause problems and be less useful than git. Sorry to be a downer :) What advantages do you think your service would offer me?

minhajuddin 12y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Do you use github pages? or a server of your own? In the near future I am planning to allow users to host their sites on Amazon S3 and Cloudfront, that should remove the fear of reliability and also be a good feature. I understand that it may not be very appealing to people who can setup their own servers, but I foresee it being useful to many designers.
- duncanawoods 12y ago
  Ah, I see. I didn't realise you are offering hosting. "Deploy your websites from dropbox." makes me think its just a deployment tool for existing servers. If its for designers, then with a better tag-line, I expect you can make creating a website from a drop-box folder sound like magic.
  - minhajuddin 12y ago
    Thanks, I changed the copy. It sounded better in my head :) btw, the website 'www.websrvr.in' is hosted on the same service :)

sandyshankar 12y ago

Some time back, I was in the market for similar sevices, I evaluated brace.io and site44. If I am not wrong, they both charge $5/month for 5 websites. As a user, I would not mind paying that, because if I want to quickly demo to a client, I would prefer a separate sub-domain/folder without having to pull my credit card for that. Second, I was looking for minification and compression, great to see that you have added that feature. Third, great to see that you have contact forms, the first obstacle where you might think of servers. I like brace.io's implementation. Additionally I liked brace.io's admin and shipping workflow. Do you have anything similar?

minhajuddin 12y ago
You don't really have to enter your payment information every time you create a website. Once you signup, you can make a deposit for $3 and we'll charge you only when you create a folder in your dropbox (that too 1 hour after you create the folder in case it was done by a mistake). Also, even if you don't have any funds in your account your websites will be live, we'll send you an email to clear your invoices :) In short, all you have to do to create a website is create a folder with an index.html file. I am also the creator of http://getsimpleform.com http://getsimpleform.com which is a service which allows simple contact forms with akismet integration for spam prevention, it also allows you to use templates for the email notifications on form submissions. websrvr will have all that functionality and a bit more :)

giovannibajo1 12y ago

Not sure what's your target, but your pricing plan shows the main differentiator being where the website is hosted (your server vs S3 vs Cloudfront) which requires people to be familiar with AWS services to understand the difference. Then you don't say how your servers are connected to the internet, what uptime they have, etc. My suggestion would be rephrasing without mentioning AWS (unless it's a specific user-level features like "upload to your own S3 bucket" or something like that).

minhajuddin 12y ago
Thanks for the feedback, I'll change the copy hosting it off of S3 or Cloudfront definitely adds to the cost that's why there is a price difference. I should make the text more understandable.