Please review my startup: Open, Democratic, Project Mgmt

Like the concepts a lot. (See an old HN comment of mine suggesting a tiny sliver of what you've done, here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=650361 )

But, all the text about the grand vision with new custom terminology is off-putting. Makes the software sound appropriate for running some sort of utopian hippie commune. A 'Manifesto' makes me think of Marx and the Unabomber.

I suspect that like ThePoint -> Groupon, your opportunity is some pragmatic subset of all the functionality you're currently offering, rather than the entire doctrine.

(This is not to say you're wrong about the big trends. Just that people will adopt the new ways of work via demonstrated success in baby steps, rather than understanding the vision and inevitability in a flash of insight.)

> open, democratic, decentralized social enterprise management

6 words and you've already lost me.

This is followed by a complicated screenshot with arrows pointing in various directions, then a manifesto in typefaces that jangle like a political donation chain letter. Then a quote from Albert Einstein. Then a bunch of diffuse conceptual words in different sizes and orientations. Seeing floaty words like "Distributed" and "Emergent" only solidifies the feeling that this product is hot air -- even if it isn't.

You're making it extra hard to understand what it does or why I'd want it. Smart HN readers will pore through and analyze what it does, because they are looking for product ideas of their own, but the rest of the world is damn busy and unlikely to spend that much time.

Perhaps try to cut your initial presentation down by 10x. If I have to scroll at all to figure out what you are talking about, you've probably lost me until I hear from someone I know that it's awesome. Do you already have users raving to everyone they know about how awesome it is?

Not trying to be harsh, just honest! I completely respect the challenge of what you're trying to take on, and I doubt I could do any better.

Edit: Having spent a bit more time on your site to try to find more constructive advice to offer, I have to say I am impressed with your ideas and development of them. I feel myself rooting for you to succeed. But the initial impression you offer is more opaque than it should be. And it seems like your system offers an entire architecture for project management that you'd have to buy into, making that a steep first step. Do you guys use this product internally? Is there anywhere you expose how you're using it?

I like this, but at the same time parts of it strike me as odd.

Nobody tells anybody what to do? Really? Who's taking out the trash next week? Who's working through the weekend to make sure the install goes okay? Who's working Christmas?

It has that open-source feel to it -- wonderful, cool, awesome -- and you wonder whether everything could really be like this, or just stuff people are excited about. After all, there are a lot of things to do in any organization that people do not like doing. And the normative payment idea? Wow! I'd love to see that actually being used. Whether workable or not, its a very powerful idea.

Having said all of that negative stuff, I think you are on to something. Congrats! I want to see real-world, for-profit organizations using this because it makes them competitive. I think that's the put up or shut up moment for this product. But if you're willing to pivot, I know you'll make it. Awesome job.

Now the critical part: traction.

I've been waiting almost two years to post this! Thank you HN for you support. From giving me a kick in the butt to launch: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1558154, to amazing feedback on content http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1836538 I continue to be grateful to this community.

Its certainly an interesting hypothesis and I wish you luck, but I can't see it working out the way it is now.

What you're introducing has to be implemented first as a cultural change by leadership, meaning larger organizations that exist today cannot simply adopt your system unless they fully dedicate themselves to changing. This is expensive and is pretty much guaranteed not to happen.

This leaves your target market to small and medium, fast growing businesses. The problem here is that these smaller companies want productivity tools that accelerate growth instantly; not an organizational revamp for tomorrow.

By the looks of it, it seems your product introduces more work and politics (IMO just as much bureaucracy as the system before) because members have to vote on initiatives, rate each other, etc. I can only guess that in a short matter of time, members stop caring about these artificial ratings or manipulate/game them, especially if management decides that "contribution rating" should be a form of how workers are paid. It is simply not a long-run solution; people don't want to casts votes everyday for the rest of their lives. Workers are motivated by their work, not extraneous organizational concerns.

I'm not really sure if the efficiency trade-off nets positive. But I like your different thinking, and you may be on to something.

//Bachelor of management & organizational studies...never thought I'd ever use it here lol.

Christ, how many sites did you steal the design from?

  http://bettermeans.com/front/pricing.html
  https://github.com/plans

  http://bettermeans.com/images/static/dashboard.png
  http://a.gaborcselle.com/blog/uploaded_images/pivotal_screenshot-708013.png

You didn't even change the class and id names. Gah!

Has this concept been tested? As a potential customer I don't have any reason to believe that this organizational structure works.

The video is downright inspirational though, great job on that.

I think there's too much text description on the main page. Try simply having bullets to convey what the site does and why it is better. Like me, there might be several folks who wouldnt have the time / patience to read through the entire text or view the video.

Love the idea, I feel like Noam Chomsky would dig this.

It might be good to have kind of a short outline or guide on how this would be used, kind of like Joel Spolsky's guide on Mercurial:

http://hginit.com/

WOW! This is the most powerful and inspiring thing I have seen in a while. I really hope this catches on. Thank you, it is refreshing to see a webapp that is innovative at this stage of things. Your enthusiasm is contagious, it would be wonderful if it went viral.

Problems:

I can imagine a lot of CEOs laughingly dismissing this. They are not going to let some software take over. It has to be clear how this is beneficial for CEOs, and you make a point that CEOs are overburdened but still.

The overall feeling is that you are giving up control of the corporation. I think it would be better to market it as an enabling complement to traditional organizational structures. An evolution rather than a revolution. Make it clear that your product is a tool with which organizations decide the pace at which they want to move towards open governance, rather than a new set of rigid rules to be used from the start.

For the past 3 years in have been thinking and working in something somewhat related, but chose to focus on the enabling tools, rather than on the organizational ideas.

I'm actually conceptually working on something similar to this. A part of me wants to congratulate you, because I do truly think you are on to something. The concept of not paying for the service if your company is willing to transcend into a democratic process - superb. I sense that you got some of these ideas from working in a crippled work environment, as I.

My advice to you: push the democratic side, leverage the idea of selling to the employees rather than the employers through engagement and fandom, simplify your motions process and dashboard. If possible, have a "democratic functions" toggle somewhere in settings.

The other side of me wants to be upset that I can't post a link...yet.

Good luck.

Bravo! What an inventive and inspiring approach to something big and important. Best of luck with it.

I wonder whether you might want to simplify the landing page. I really had to watch the video (which I liked) to figure out what you're doing.

Maybe it's as simple as . . .

   A new way to work together

   Turbocharge your team with the decentralized
   workstyle pioneered by Wikipedia and Mozilla

I think the product is good, the message is wrong.

If your message takes a 4 minute video, it's too complicated to acquire customers. That 4 minute video should be part of a help document, not an explanation.

Also, you should focus on project management, not on organizational paradigms. While I applaud your aims for achieving a better impact in the world, I think it's a bit over-the-top: it's a project management tool, you're not re-inventing the global economy through democracy - or, in reality, you can't change the world economy and it's org structure, but you can influence it via a project management tool. Focus your copy on differentiating yourself from other products, but don't get all high-and-mighty about how someone should run their company.

If I were starting a business, I would instantly be turned off if I was told that in order to use your product, I had to give a copywriter equal say to product I created and built from day 1.

The video is fantastic and the product looks amazing, however I'm not sure if democracy is the best way to govern a company. It may work well for open source though or smaller startups where the equity is divided across almost evenly.

I think it's too "out-of-the-box" for most companies, it might fit better with non-profits which are largely driven by volunteers or startups though as their existing working model is closer to the BetterMeans model (i.e. people pick which projects to work on, etc.)

But I think there needs to be some level of hierarchical control rather than a complete free-for-all though, as things like budgets, etc. have to be managed (disclaimer: I told the Wikipedia founders the same thing when they started. I may have been a tiny bit wrong in that case ;-)

The product looks very slick though !

First, this looks like a huge project; congrats on getting it done and out there!

I think you should stick with your title here as the main hook at the top: "Open, democratic project management." The rest seems like too many buzzwords and still doesn't tell me what your app is/does.

I agree with a couple of the others that the front page has too much on it. I think you could definitely benefit from a tabbed set of panels with all of this info on it so people can navigate through it all.

Other than that I like the idea, and will be trying it out with some other team members.

Looks great! What lang/technologies are you using ?

I love the idea, it will make corporate world much better places to work for most of corporates out there, it also encourages ideas of each individual, and cultivates creativity. However, i think its insane to use a software/ IT product to take the power off those politicians, and create democracy within the corporate world. My best wishes to you, kabuks.

Really awesome looking app. I've definitely be interested in using it. I really like the 4 column dashboard.

Good luck to you Shereef. You know my interest in that space :-)

I still think the home page is terrible, because of the amount of vertical scrolling (5 pages on my computer!). But the video rocks!

You should try to streamline the landing page (and subsequent pages as well). It's not clear upon skimming exactly what you are offering.

Mozilla does a great job of this if you need inspiration.

Here's a vaguely related and open source app which covers group formation and decision making: http://www.oneclickor.gs/

i only watched the video, but i really dig the pitch. im a heavy user of Pivotal tracker (which looks very similar to your dashboard), but i find that it can be sometimes too focused on command and control (one person assigning a task to another person). it seems like your solution will encourage more collaboration off the bat, with people having to step up and willingly take ownership of projects, which could lead to better delivery times.

i do not understand the video's tie in with "social justice" and the environment? is this a manifesto or project management software?