MeetingMix (YC S08) Gets Your Co-Workers To Cut To The Chase | Hacker News Reader

MeetingMix (YC S08) Gets Your Co-Workers To Cut To The Chase

techcrunch.com

43 pointssgupta17 comments

"This mode also includes a timer at the top of the screen that helps you keep track of how long you’ve spent on a given topic so that you don’t run over time."

Makes me think of Pardon the Interruption on espn (one of my favorite tv shows). Smart idea.

Also similar to something Google often does in meetings (according to some article I've read on here). They just project a giant timer on one wall. I can't remember if it's usually timing the meeting as a whole or one section.

I prefer the Meeting Ticker: http://tobytripp.github.com/meeting-ticker/

Someone should make one of these as an iPhone app for people stuck in boring conversations, only it shows an emailable invoice at the end based on the time wasted. ;)

"MeetingMix charges meeting creators $4.95 a month"

I like the pricing which is so low (especially for the app which is aimed at busy corporates for whom probably $5 is worth less the time it takes them to yawn). Shawn, would be interested in your comments on how you arrived at the pricing?

We want someone to see this and start using it without worrying about the cost. Before launching we met with managers to understand what prices they're able to expense without needing additional approval. We learned that this wildly varied depending on the company's size though, so we decided to go with the simplest model and price it at the lower end. Hope this helps!

Yes, thanks for reply. But do you mean that you could change the pricing depending on the initial feedback? In that case, won't it be difficult to break the perception?

We might some day shift to a tiered strategy with different features/prices, but existing users won't be affected.

I'd suggest rethinking this post-haste, because a) pricing is a signal of quality and you being cheap makes it unlikely any "serious businessman" will use you and b) the true price of your offering is not the amount of money you charge but the hassle I incur getting the charge authorized either by myself or my line manager, and that hassle does not bear anything like a linear relationship to costs at low dollar amounts.

(Dragging my credit card out of my wallet is far more of an annoyance to me than spending $5 a month, and you should see the form I'd have to fill out to get comped for it. I pay for my own hotels when I work overtime because it causes me less stress to pay $60 than it does to babysit a reimbursement request for two to four weeks.)

If you were to guesstimate a price of what you would charge per month, what would you choose?

This is exactly the technique that the more efficient managers I know use: make people commit to exactly what they want to say and discuss at the meeting beforehand.

Me as well. What I don't see is people saying "I want to have great/efficient meetings, but I just don't know how."

Maybe this can make the job slightly easier for people who already run good meetings, but I'm skeptical it's going to convert anyone.

Great app. I like the interface, it seems simple and easy to use, and I dont think it'll be too hard to get everyone in my company to use it.

Congrats on the launch guys! Getting everyone on the meeting team to buy into using this tool is key. I had pretty good success with using Etherpad for this purpose - found less resistance to using it since it was dead simple.

I agree, congrats. Great idea and nice design

Thanks for the kind words!

The TC article mentions collaborative editing (creating powerpoints - to be specific) as one of the features they could add. Given that EtherPad is now opensource, MeetingMix can seriously consider adding this feature.

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