Ask HN: Please review my startup Pretty Graph | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Please review my startup Pretty Graph

prettygraph.com

19 pointsrevorad54 comments

A few random thoughts, as I write them. Disclaimer: after looking it over, I'm not really interested in using the product (right now, at least), I'm talking about the process up to that realization.

* The design of the front page itself is nice and pretty in general. Having said that, there are a few problems.

* The initial pitch is clear (make pretty graphs), the first two questions I had were "so what does this software look like" and "what would I use this for".

* To answer the second question, I clicked on the big "Blogger" button. For some reason, the text above it was updated, totally not what I was expecting (and I was close to missing it completely). I'd change that.

* The text "Click on the red button to sign up for a free beta account." is kind of superfluous. I'd remove it, the button is pretty self-explanatory).

* At this point I would normally just close the tab, since the three points you made for bloggers didn't seem too interesting. But I kept looking, and:

* Apparently, you can click on "Learn More". This page has most of the stuff I was looking for on the front page, like a video showing the software, and larger explanations on what it's good for.

* I would either make the Learn More button stand out much more, or (even better) put its content on the home page. Also, I'd put a "home" button next to the "Learn More" button and have it highlighted, to make it clearer that it's a "tabbing interface" and not just background noise.

* If you're putting the video on the front page, I would tweak it a little to make it more focused on showcasing the actual software (skip the whole login process, just get to where data becomes graphs).

Anyways, those are my quick first thoughts. Definitely looks interesting, but I'm guessing your hardest challenge will be to convince people they should use your software instead of Excel, all the more reason to put a video showcasing why your software is better smack-dab on the front page.

Best of luck to you on your startup!

Thanks a lot edanm. Those are really useful points. I should have a nice introductory video ready later this week which I will put up on the homepage. I will make a more prominent link to the Learn More page.

Edit: I replaced the "click the red button" text with a link to the Learn More page. Thanks!

Happy to help.

One more suggestion that I see getting made a lot: forget signup, let me make a graph in one click. I wouldn't necessarily put it on the home page (have to think about it), but definitely make it so I can get to your software in one click.

Also, preload the graph that I get with data that is easy to erase, just so I can immediately see what a graph looks like. This is almost like putting a screenshot of the product, except it's infinitely better.

Yes, I expected people on HN to not like the signup hurdle :-) I will definitely make it easier for people to try it out.

Preloading a graph is a good idea, will do that too.

Thanks so much for taking the time to write. I really appreciate it.

Make the homepage the app. There must be no marketing. You arrive at http://prettygraph.com and there's your new graph creator already up and running. Once you've created your graph (using the interface to add data points, or to import data from a uri or file upload) you can then choose to add an email address and password to enable changes to be made later, see all graphs you've made etc.

Don't focus on a "target market". Focus on making the best graph creator. The target markets will gravitate to you naturally if your graphs look the best and are the easiest to create.

Thank you. That was actually my very first version. Perhaps I need to go back to doing that.

And thanks for reminding my goal - to make the best graph creator.

Some more ideas: when in doubt, go for consumers, the every day Joe who needs a graph in their presentation but forgot how to use Excel charts or couldn't figure out how to get the Google Chart Api to return a result. Don't worry about building the next WolframAlpha for charts. Don't worry about a developer API. Make sure you have a great interface for adding a few data points and getting a graph back. Even better, make it real-time, as you add a data-point the graph adjusts or bends or morphs. Keep it simple. Focus on eliminating things.

The problem with going for consumers is that I don't see them paying for something like this. I agree about keeping it simple though.

Not all consumers will pay, but like Flickr, you can serve consumers and charge the loyal "pro" user subset. Focus on the basic interface first. Add the advanced features later.

- I would change "buy" into "pricing", I thought it was a downloadable product at first sight.

- Maybe you could change the design into a more corporate look, to attract business users.

- I tend to forget data on my home computer a lot, with your product, that wouldn't happen. Market this! - maybe even with a "forgot your powerpoint presentation at home?" "you just have 20 min. until that important presentation?" "use prettygraph now, and the presentation is a wrap!" - not exactly in these words, but you get the point :)

Good luck!

Excellent point about forgetting data/powerpoint! I will definitely add that.

Thanks!

The Next Best Alternative to using Pretty Graph would be using Excel, for most people. How much better is Pretty Graph? Better enough to convince people to "pay" the extra cost (of using something new, via a web interface, rather than something they're familiar with running quickly on their computer, probably in the same place as their data sits)?

I'd suggest thinking about how Prezi came up with an offering that is sufficiently much better than Powerpoint to persuade some people to make the switch (or at least give it a try). What about animated graphs, a la Hans Rosling (see TED talks).

Of course, Excel is the default. However, I'm aiming to solve use cases which are either really hard or not possible to do in Excel or can't be done very well in Excel:

Making multiple panel graphs, boxplots, plots with error bars, heatmaps etc. Very useful for quickly summarising large amounts of data.

In research, a lot of people spend a lot of time adjusting figure margins and title sizes etc. I want to save them time by giving them something that just works.

Applying the same graph theme or formatting to a batch of data files. I'm trying to bring the power of R scripting to the masses who do not have any interest in learning programming.

A lot of people, such as PR and marketing firms, specifically don't want to use Excel to make charts. They use nicer looking alternatives (mostly Flash based solutions). I am making a simple web-version for them.

Those are some examples, there are more.

Our experience (at Timetric) is that selling visualization as a direct benefit is a real challenge. The people who know what a boxplot is are comfortable with Origin or R or whatever: everything else either doesn't care, or doesn't know they should care, or doesn't have the budget to care. What'll be critical for you is communicating a value proposition which gets past that. How does using PrettyGraph make you money?

The Verifiable deadpool post is an eye-opener, too, as to the dynamics of this market: http://stuartroseman.com/post/619953720/out-with-the-old-bus....

Thanks Andrew. In my limited experience in research, a lot of the most brilliant people were not interested in looking at anything to do with code (such as R). Others who didn't mind would rather spend their time doing their core research than programming, but they had no choice.

I am trying to build something which can save such people time.

Outside research, I have been contacted by a few different business people, who said they would love to use something like my product. There are some alternatives like Tableau Public out there (which is admittedly more than just a graph maker) but costs a lot.

I did read the Verifiable post but the key point there (as the name suggests) is that data quality killed them. They were trying to be a databank. Pretty Graph is not. It's just a website, where you put in your data and get graphs out.

Anyway, I'm sure I could learn more from your experience at Timetric. Are you going to the HN meetup this week? I'd love to have a chat.

In that case you're in a head-on battle with the Google Visualization API and a couple of other players - iCharts (http://www.icharts.net/), Wondergraphs etc.

There's definitely something in this space, though.

Google visualization API is not for end users, but I suppose there could be services built on top of that (although I haven't seen any yet). Thanks for pointing to iCharts and Wondergraphs. I hadn't seen them before.

Google Spreadsheets (and the stuff coming down the pike like Google Fusion Tables) is, though. Really, you're competing with Excel (plus custom styles/plugins) and with Google Docs, I reckon.

Only few of your examples show off these features. I can replicate the rainfall and sales graphs in Excel in less time than it takes me to log in to your service. The heat map on your blog on the other hand looks great - why not replace the boring graphs with this one?

Yes you are absolutely right. This is where I get to use my "I'm a poor overworked single founder" trump card :-P

Jokes apart, I agree I have a ton of work to do to make the messaging on my site clear. I just put it out today to get some kicks in my butt.

it's loading really really really slowly.

I don't like this sentence: "Make great graphs and charts easily on the web."

Why not "Easily make great graphs and charts for the web - it's simple, and free"

Your transitions of the graph examples are too fast, and I can't manually click through them. they're also not that interesting. got any interesting data to plot?

The "click here to learn more and see it in action" feels like a distraction from the sign up button. do you need both? why not put that link below the charts, it feels like if the user cares enough to focus on the slideshow they might want to read more. You shouldn't really need an additional page to explain your service though.

Whats your nearest competitor? Guess its like, Excel? What are the pain points there and how do you solve them awesomely?

The blogger/student/designer links are too subtle, it isn't clear what they update. (eg: scroll down 20% and click them - nothing happens)

There is probably too much text. Try stripping out all the detail for each benefit (eg: Works with popular data formats) and have a simple bullet list of every feature. maybe tapping them shows more information regarding them to the right.

Chances are different people care about different features, it might be clever to reorganize bullet points based on what role they tap, eg: designers might care about themes, academics about latex, marketeer about pdfs.

From a design point of view I think the site looks nice, the logo at the top is maybe too high and pushes your content down 75px too much, the buttons are quite ugly. The twitter button stands out a bit too much and the free sign up button doesn't really pop - I like green for primary CTA.

The 6 examples of visualisations aren't clear and feel like I should click them and a light box will pop up showing an example.

the sign up page needs some polish. make the fonts consistent, change the heading from "Pretty Graph Basic Account Beta" to "Pretty Graph Registration" or some such. Scrap the line about the pricing, capture the data then tell them. When i clicked "sign up" it redirected me to a 403 for /users.

The "Creating account" text is too obscure, it should probably be a spinner, a nice rule of thumb is that if you need a spinner - do it faster.

i just accidentally reloaded, so i'll give more feedback in 15 minutes when the page has returned ;)

disclaimer: i am math retarded and charts confuse me. i do however know a thing or two about product messaging/marketing (IMHO)

Sorry about that. I think the server's not liking the traffic.

Edit: Changed the sentence as per your suggestion.

Thanks Peter. Those are really useful points - definitely something I was looking for to refine the site design. I've been tweaking for a long time, but decided to just put it out there today and see what people think.

My problem with the copy and general message of the site currently is that I have a lot of different types of target users in mind. I'm finding it hard to make a site which does justice to all of their different interests and needs.

totally the right thing to put it out there and see what people think. can never do this too early.

if i were you i'd pitch the initial messages as why you > excel, and then let users specify who they are and they can dig in from there.

video tours are a big deal btw, might wanna put that on main page.

also, targeted landing pages for each customer. (do this)

Yes, a nice fancy video tour is in the making, should be up by next week.

Targeted landing pages is a good idea. I should work on that.

I agree that generic charts aren't that enticing. Try to find some interesting data sets, and plot those.

Thanks Jamie. I will start updating the site with some good data sets.

make a faux chart based on efficiency of using your service vs excel and how it saves tons of money.

What a kickass idea!

The signup process is fixed now.

As I see it, you have a problem convincing people of the value of your service, particularly the value over a different solution (i.e. Excel). I like your Video on the Blog page and I'd move this to the first page. However, a scatter graph can easily be drawn in Excel - maybe add a more "awesome" example?

I don't know what you think of the freemium model, but it could be an alternative to your free trail. It could make sense to introduce a free product category with maybe 10 free graphs and datasets with less than n elements. This way, customers aren't bound by the 30 days and have more time to warm to your product.

You write that there are differences in the design themes across the different products (basic, designer, premium)? I'd explain the difference in detail - you could use a check list of the available features - so that it's clear why premium is better.

It's not a problem of convincing people. It's a problem of thinking you need to convince them. All this convincing is getting in the way. Just let them use it right there on the home page and spend your time improving your app, not your marketing. Ever seen any Excel marketing?

Then why not skip the sign up page completely? Let everyone upload non persistent data with a limit on the number of data points.

By the way, I think you're onto something great. Everyone will one day use a web-based graph creator. And it could probably be simpler than you think. Make it easy for Steve Jobs to add a graph to his next presentation. He's not going to need to import a massive data file. He's going to want a few data points. He's going to want the best looking graphs you can imagine.

Hey jorangreef, thanks for your comments. I especially liked your conversation with yourself :D

Having just the application itself on the homepage was in fact my very first ugly version. A couple of people have mentioned it now, and I'm wondering if thats what I should do again.

Thanks sdfx. I do need to show better examples.

I'm not exactly sure of the pricing yet, it is an experiment still. I'm considering making it free for students.

It's been like 45 seconds and it still hasn't loaded so you should probably figure out performance first.

I'm sorry about that. I'm trying to fix it now.

From a design perspective, your fonts really don't degrade well on Windows. Your Lucida Grande just degrades to (very) BIG old ugly Arial without a line-height or size set. Also, your Avant Garde "See Plans and Pricing" defaults to Times New Roman.

EDIT: Also you have spelled Marketer: "Marketeer".

Thanks for the heads up on the font.

I believe Marketeer and Marketer are both acceptable.

Well I'll be. I've never seen that word before in my life but it appears in dictionaries!

There are plenty of other great (and by the looks of it maybe even better) graphing utilities out there - including Excel.

It looks like people have covered some of the other points I would have raised - except for these two. (1) Your audience already owns Excel, and they won't stop owning if they use your service. Don't forget that. (2) People use graphs to show other people their conclusions. They do it using either Powerpoint (or Prezi etc, but mostly Powerpoint.) If your charts can't plug in to a presentation utility, you'll lose a lot of users. If they _can_ plug into a presentation utility, you need to make that clear up front.

- Take a look at oomfo (from the fusion charts guys) to get an idea of what I'm thinking of.

Thanks for your feedback, David.

The comparison with Excel always comes up first. I'm not trying to suddenly move people from using Excel. I'm making something which does what Excel cannot do well or easily. I guess I need to make this message clear on my site.

Pretty Graph has a PDF download feature which addresses the presentation issue. I can also add copy saying that you can use the images also in Powerpoint. I am also looking to add a direct export to PPT feature.

I had a quick look at oomfo. It looks nice, but it's not web-based and although I'm not saying desktop apps are no good, I've chosen the online space.

Other planned features, which should hopefully be useful (and "viral") are easy sharing and collaborating on graphs.

Very cool idea. The graphs really aren't that pretty yet, though. They need to be really breathtaking. I'm imagining it being open to designers to submit themes, for which they can earn money.

Thanks kadavy. I'm working on improving the graphs; there are daily updates. It will be open to designers once I am happy with the core working alright.

Hi guys,

Last year, after getting inspired by a lot of you here on HN and dreaming for a long time, I took the plunge and started my own startup Pretty Graph - http://prettygraph.com. It is a simple web-based tool to make graphs. It is aimed at a number of different users, as I'm still trying to figure out the best target market. I'd much appreciate any feedback.

Thanks,

Hrishi

Hrishi, on the "Learn More" page I think there is some content on the tail end of the "How does it work?" video that accidentally got left in the video. Starting at minute 2:55 you can see yourself editing it in Windows Movie Maker and then the first 30 seconds of the video again.

Thanks for pointing that out. That's really embarassing. I do apologise.

EDIT: Video fixed now.

The video seemed to start over when I watched it.

Otherwise, I think you need to show some examples that make my mouth water.

Thanks for your feedback. I'm just fixing the video (thanks for watching it all the way through!).

Mouth watering graphs in the works.

EDIT: Video fixed now.

no freemium offer? why not?

The pricing is still an experiment. I am not sure about having a free option for everyone, but I might make it free for students.

How would you verify that those who sign up as students are in fact students? It may be simpler to go with the other suggestion of x number of free graphs per month.

Can't I use university email addresses as proof? Of course that means university staff (professors) could also get it for free.

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