Comment by nic-waller | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nic-waller | Hacker News Reader

I really think there is an under-addressed niche here. I haven't tried your product yet, but I was pretty hopeful when I saw this posted here. That being said, I have some feedback already:

- $29/user/month just feels too high. My per-service spend on any other SaaS ranges from $3/user/month to $18/user/month. What makes this service so valuable that I would spend more on it than any other SaaS that supports my business?

- There's obviously some overlap here with Jira. It would really be nice to see a page on your website showing what RoutineOps can do that Jira can't already do.

- Some people really, really like learning about products by video instead of text or screenshots. Videos aren't as information dense, I know. But in the past I've found them useful in my goal to influence budget holders.

- Your screenshots don't illustrate how the recurrence flow actually works. If I schedule a new task every day and then do nothing for seven days, do I have one task or seven?

- There is no obvious way to contact you. The page footer isn't just spartan, it's barren. It's missing some really essential stuff. Privacy policy is another important one.

- My primary use case for scheduling and tracking recurring work is based on audit compliance. Are you intending to address that market segment? If yes, then tell us.

- When I'm buying software to help with audit compliance, it's especially helpful to know whether the SaaS organization I'm purchasing from also has passed some audits (like SOC 2 or ISO 27001) I guess it's too early stage for you at this point, but something to think about.

- Thanks for the feedback! Really appreciate the thoughtful notes, particularly on the marketing site which is admittedly very barebones right now.

- Also super helpful note on the pricing - honestly hadn't put too much thought into it yet as I'm still validating that it solves a real problem. Agree that I will need to experiment a bit with pricing once the team option is available.

- As for audit compliance - I definitely had that use-case in mind eventually, but I would love to hear more about your specific use-case and requirements

Agree on the pricing. It looks like a very nice tool but since it's at core just a different way of organizing/bringing together information I can store in other places, at that price point I'd simply improvise with the other tools we had.

This price is bananas.

As CTO for an enterprise, I’d shared this to our chief of staff as a possibly interesting lightweight tool to pilot.

Then I saw they want a multiple of retail or enterprise cost per user of full Microsoft O365 (Office) which includes One Note, Wiki, To Do, and Planner as well as native mobile apps for these.

Also per your last bullet on SOC 2: for us, it’s not just helpful. We require the reports.

For anyone thinking of starting a SaaS enterprise productivity tools business, here is the benchmark enterprise sourcing and procurement will compare you to:

Office 365 Business Essentials. This comes in at the cost of at $5 per user with an annual commitment or $6 with a monthly commitment. It also comes with access to Microsoft Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Planner, and Hub. This plan only includes access to the web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

The second, more expensive, option to getting Teams is with Office 365 Business Premium. This plan comes in at the cost of $12.50 user per month with an annual commitment or $15 per user per month with a monthly commitment. With this plan, you not only get Microsoft Teams, but also SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, as well as the option to install Office on all of your PCs, Macs, and phones.

For larger organizations with more than 300 employees, Office 365 Enterprise would be the best way to get Microsoft Teams for free and to all employees. It is included with the E1, E3, E5, and F1 plans:

    - O365 F1: $ 4.00/user/month
    - O365 E1: $ 8.00/user/month
    - O365 E3: $20.00/user/month
    - O365 E5: $35.00/user/month

Look at the enterprise IT management, security, and compliance value they’re offering at each pricing level. Really think about it:

Enterprise F1 is the cheapest since it is more about “frontline” workers and access to online services and apps. On the other hand, Office Enterprise E1 is also reasonably affordable, as it includes all the Office 365 collaboration services, as well as additional controls for IT professionals. In the middle is Office 365 Enterprise E3, which includes the full Microsoft Office suite of applications, and access to additional Office 365 collaboration services. Finally, with Office 365 Enterprise E5, you get the best of the best, which is everything included in all the other plans, and additional advanced security and analytics features.

— https://www.onmsft.com/news/these-office-365-plans-include-m...

The user experience “above the glass” is full featured by the second tier. The higher tiers’ added “enterprise” functionality is below the glass.

If the checkboxes in your tiers don’t look more like this, you might find a real challenge scaling into enterprise sales and sourcing.

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