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Comment by bowbles | Hacker News Reader

I’m one of the people who dropped off. Your chat person told me to try hiring your sample profile. When I went there, it was just a poorly made typeform. Your NDA process didn’t account for anything as simple as finding out what country the other person is in. Regions impact legal documents significantly. Everything else was basically the same. Overall, I think your premise of “I know we have a decent product” is flawed. Your product brings little to the table for me, it introduces risk, and extra costs.

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> Overall, I think your premise of “I know we have a decent product” is flawed.

Yea, I'm not seeing $29 a month worth of value being added by this product over, say, just using stock templates on Google Drive.

Can you please take a quick look, here is the actual product in the show. I think we failed at showcasing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wAeenBe-c

This plays more like an instructional video than a demo. You spend almost the entire time filling out forms. Consider doing a 30 - 60 sec explainer video that just shows off the sizzle if you really want to have a video.

I would also loose Bighetti. You're pitch is 'be more professional' and the first thing you see in the video is a character who's famous for being a lazy idiot.

Noted, now that we are here, can you please take a look at this one too? We had an explainer as well :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23V3LmRUb4

This is a MUCH better video for "getting" what the product is quickly. Show this one before anything else. But somewhere, please, explain what a "personal assistant" really means. If it's a real, breathing human being on call 24/7, say that. If it's someone that might be there, but will definitely get back to you within 6 hours, say that. Be transparent or nobody will bite... they are trying to calculate in their head if $29/mo is worth it to them, and they need to know exactly what they are receiving to make that calculation.

Its a real human being, will incorporate all these feedbacks soon, thanks for taking time to write :)

After getting the gist from that video and from personal experience freelancing, I would say the major pain points for freelancers are:

a) Clients being slow on delivery of requirements/content but once they deliver it, they want things done urgently

b) Clients being slow to sign off stuff after delivery

c) Late payments after a lot of chasing

Documentation and NDAs can vary from client to client and is usually initiated from their side.

These are my experiences, others may have a different perspective.

Will think about his more! Thanks.

That's a much better video - gets the point across quickly, and looks professional. I'd replace the "demo video" on your home page with that.

As a side note, I thought the animated video was well produced. Would you mind sharing how you made it? (email in profile, if you'd prefer to do so off-thread). Thanks!

Made it on fiverr with this guy https://www.fiverr.com/joeguilar

I watched/skimmed the first two minutes of this video. The lack of audio seems off-putting and amateur (so does the Big Head). It also seems a lot like a video of someone filling out a form. I feel like most people will be able to fill out a form without needing a video walkthrough and the video walkthrough doesn't really convey the usefulness of the product - which should be in the very beginning of the product.

I'd expect an explanatory video to have audio, and to cover the core utility of the project.

Will work on the suggestions! Thanks. We had an explanation video, commented in another thread.

That's because there's no product.

There are two kinds of freelancers/consultants:

1. Successful ones - those that bill tens thousands of dollars a month/hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. This group knows how to open a bank account, how to invoice a customer, how to setup cron jobs for nagging a customer, how to setup per customer support phone numbers, how to talk to attorneys and accountants. For them there's nothing in your startup that they already do not know or dont have someone else do for them.

2. Everyone else. That group does not have the money to throw at your promise because every schmuck on facebook or linkedin is promising them something for $30/mo.

:) Interesting comment. I was hoping we can serve both the groups, for 1, even when they are good at it, there is a lot of time expenses which can be reduced with Sieve. Thanks for the feedback, will definitely look more into this.

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