Please rate my startup: ZigzagCloud - A Mobile File Management System. | Hacker News Reader

Please rate my startup: ZigzagCloud - A Mobile File Management System.

zigzagcloud.com

14 pointsschappim36 comments

I'd like to get some early feedback about my new startup, Zigzag Cloud: A Mobile File Management System for Business. http://zigzagcloud.com/<p>The goal of Zigzag Cloud is to provide a dead simple, and secure way for managers to get company files out to their employees iOS devices (iPads initially). These files could be Sales Content, Training Material, Board Papers or anything else you want to view on your iPad or iPhone.<p>Our core features are around security, tagging and permissions.<p>Having large "health clients" as foundation clients, security is really important to us; we have end to end encryption and a users & groups permissions structure that ensures that client's files are safe.<p>The app has been designed so that users can sync files to their device for offline use, but must check in to the server once every 5 days to maintain access to their locally stored files.<p>Today we support all the MS Office Documents, iWork, Text Files, Images, Music, Video and of course PDFs.<p>We also can view HTML docs within the app which has lead to some interesting experimentation around HTML5 based apps within Zigzag Cloud.<p>For the techies: We're running on Rails 3 with nginx and Postgresql. On the client side we've got a talented iOS team which has written the app from scratch.<p>If you feel like telling us about what your dream Mobile File Management System would be like, let us know too, we really want to hear about what our (future) users want!<p>Thanks in advance! Marcus

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I think one of the main problems you might have here (and I'm only speaking from my point of view on seeing this) is that you're solving a problem people don't know they have yet.

I looked at the site, the descriptions, etc. and I still don't have a clear idea of what impact the product will have on my life.

If the terminology "Mobile File Management", "Content Management" and "Content Distribution" have specific meaning amongst your target audience then what I'm saying doesn't count but to me they're sort of meaningless.

Try telling me a story. The questions I'm asking are: Where were these files created? Who created them? Why do I want to share them? Who do I want to share them with? What other ways of sharing them exist and why are those problematic?

A video wouldn't go astray[1] and you should also check out this video (which I've linked to about a billion times since I first watched it) where Simon Sinek tells us that "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it"[2].

Oh ... and Reprazent the Sydney startup scene bwooooy! Ping me (email in profile) we should catch up for a coffee sometime :) Us Aussies have to stick together.

[1]http://www.decalcms.com/page/What_I%27ve_learned_about_makin...

[2]http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...

Hey Iain,

Thank you for your comments.

Re: The terminology.

You're right. We've been wondering about how you market such a product. We have a close relationship with a certain fruit company and they've been feeding us some good leads every time a crate worth of their product goes out.

The need becomes very apparent when you have 50 iPads and need to get content out to them.

I'm always up for a coffee, I'll flick you an email!

Cheers,

Marcus

I'm not the target audience but wanted to chime in with a few things about the design and copy:

* Why is the iPhone 3 times larger than an iPad? I got a little confused the first time the site loaded trying to figure out what the giant black device behind the iPad is.

* "Signup Now". English isn't my native language but I'm fairly certain "signup" is a noun, and you want the verb or "sign up" instead

* "Zigzag Cloud has powered built-in analytics". Powered by what? Or is it "powerful"?

* Love the logo and the colour scheme of the site!!

Hi Mitjak,

Great feedback, you're english is certainly better than any of my second languages!

You've picked up some typos and areas where we can fix our copy, we'll get onto that ASAP!

Thanks,

Marcus

this is a classic hacker's critique. Let's look at your comments from a user's point of view:

> Why is the iPhone 3 times larger than an iPad?

Irrelevant. Users won't care.

> "Signup Now". English isn't my native language ...

Irrelevant. Users won't care.

> "Zigzag Cloud has powered built-in analytics". Powered by what? Or is it "powerful"?

Irrelevant. Users won't care.

> Love the logo and the colour scheme of the site!!

Relevant. Users will care :)

This is Hacker News. schappim came to ask for critique of his website. I have provided critique and pointed out mistakes in the website. There's a chance I'm wrong but I think I've provided exactly what the author was looking for when he posted the link here.

This is "Hacker News", not "User News".

So user perspectives aren't welcome?

I'm just saying that criticizing someones feedback because it characterizes the audience of the site is illogical.

fair enough. mitjak did also warn he/she wasn't the target audience.

I like the idea and the design is very good.

I think the landing page could do with an overhaul. The main issue is it's not immediately obvious what the product does. What exactly is "mobile file management", "content management" and "content distribution"? HN users could tell you, and if they didn't know they could probably make an educated guess but what about the office manager who currently uses email to share files?

To be fair, further down the page you have this:

"Zigzag Cloud is an easy to use Mobile File Management (MFM) System for business. Sync your documents, meeting notes, training material, or sales presentations to your team's iOS devices over the air without"

I think it could be simplified and moved to the top of the page. Something like:

"Zigzag cloud lets you share presentations, spreadsheets and other files with your team using ipad and iphone (coming soon)".

It would also be interesting to A/B test the wording, design and placement of the download button. I think you'd see more downloads if you ditched the 'learn more' button (make it a prominent link on another part of the page instead) and if you removed the popup for the download button - you've already told the user it's an iOS app and that only the iPad version is currently available. There's no need to repeat that info. I'd be tempted to try something simpler like "Download from iTunes".

Hey Sixty,

This feedback has been invaluable! Thank you!

"Zigzag cloud lets you share presentations, spreadsheets and other files with your team using ipad and iphone (coming soon)". - Expect this change on the site shortly!

Re: Button text and pop-ups.

You're absolutely right, we'll make that change asap.

Cheers,

Marcus

My suggestions on pricing:

- severely limit free plan, to maybe 2 users, 200MB

- make currently free plan quite cheap, maybe $20, so it would appeal more to small businesses.

Everything else, especially the design, is very professional, and inspires trust. Still trying out the app, but at a glance, it seems really nice.

Hi Flixic,

We really appreciate your feedback! Yup, limiting the free plan sound like a good idea. We're still exploring how to best appeal to small business. I think when you're at the 2-person stage Dropbox is still a great solution.

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

I think it's a great concept and the site looks professional. I'm not sure about the viability of the pricing plan though, but I don't have enough knowledge about the costs involved and the typical usage profiles to make a better suggestion. However, I did get the impression that your competitors (such as Dropbox) may offer more for less.

One question though: on the front page you say that people can try ZigzagCloud one month for free. But on the pricing page there seems to be an entirely free usage tier without any time limit. You should probably clear that up somehow.

Hi Udo,

You've got some great points. I love Dropbox (for better or worse my life lives inside it).

We excel in an environment where an organisation needs to push content out to their employees in a managed environment. For example pushing sales content out to staff.

Our security model allows you to push content out to staff, but manage how that content is used. For example you might have some sales content that an employee can view and open with a potential client, and you may allow that content to be shared with the client via email. You might have other content that is for internal use only, such as training content, this content can be watermarked 'confidential' and sharing is disabled.

We also force the iOS app to check in every 5 days to ensure that polices are maintained on the device.

In short, Dropbox is a fantastic personal consumer product. We're aiming at the corporate market, it's almost like a CMS for iPad.

BTW, you're right on the money with the "one month free" versus "free plan", we'll fix that right up!

Thanks for your feedback, I really appreciated it.

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

I see. I wish you all the best, keep us informed! :-)

It sort of looks like dropbox with a few extra features - I guess it is always good to have competition. But what is up with the pricing? I don't think too many people will pay $100 per month for 5gb

Hey Nhoss2,

Yeah dropbox is consumer, we're aiming at business. I love dropbox, but it isn't great when I need to push sensitive content out to a sales force or a board and know that I can yank access / enforce current versions etc when I need to.

Re: Pricing...

You're right, it's not cheap, but we hope it's good value for a select type of clients.

As an individual I wouldn't use Zigzag Cloud, but if I had a business I wouldn't use Dropbox.

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

You ought to say more about security. I would never touch a document solution that doesn't include technical details about its security measures and credentials.

Right, this does look very interesting (and any sort of Sharepoint integration is going to appeal to the "enterprise" market) but in light of recent events I'm not even considering any "cloud" service that doesn't employ encrypted storage and extensive logging.

If you did those two things you'd be safer than dropbox which is something else that lubricates sales to the business market.

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your comment. We encrypt on the server, in transport and on the device.

As you know, Dropbox doesn't have a users & groups permissions model, nor do they have encryption because they de-duplicate files on the backend.

We also have a beta of the web service which can reside on a VM behind the corporate firewall.

Cheers,

Marcus (@schappi)

Thanks for the info Marcus!

I've been looking hard for a service to replace Dropbox with and yours is the first I've found that provides encryption of the files on the server as well as an iOS interface.

Will you be providing an API for third-party applications? This is another area where Dropbox seems to dominate and is important especially for iOS users who can't use files stored this way unless they are accessible via an API of some sort.

Hi Jason,

Server side encryption is a tick box we've had to do for our health clients.

We've been actively building an iOS SDK that is very similar to Dropbox's own SDK (the idea being that we'll be able to provide a low barrier to entry for other devs that have already implemented Dropbox's SDK).

We have a RESTful private API that as each day goes by is getting more and more locked down. We're looking forward to making it public as soon as possible.

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

RE: Behind the firewall pricing. We've been doing this on a case by case basis, and input on this would be much appreciated!

Cheers,

Marcus

Also, what sort of pricing do you have in mind for the "private server" option?

Thanks!

Thanks for the tip Sunchild,

We've built up a PDF on security. We should really put this information in our FAQ at the very least.

Cheers,

Marcus (@schappi)

Honestly, I hate the name. I know you probably thought a bit about it and accepted that such a unique name would have people who dislike it. So I'm sure this isn't news to you, but yes, I hate the name.

It doesn't roll off my tongue. Without checking for .com availability, I would personally find ZagCloud (preferably) or ZigCloud a far better option.

Hi Encoderer,

I hate to admit it, but I think you're right!

Cheers,

Marcus

Interesting service. One thing I didn't like was having to enter a credit card in order to sign up for the free plan ... I'd get rid of that - don't ask for credit card information until they purchase a plan and you are going to charge them.

How do the users work? Is it like Dropbox where I can sign up for a free account and then have subscribers to the bigger accounts share with me or do I have a new account for every hosted plan I'm shared with?

Hi Jimmy,

Thanks for the question.

We have the concept of account owners/admins. The account owner can access Zigzag Cloud via a web interface and create further users and groups.

All users can access content via the iOS client, but only admins can access the web interface.

Within the web interface admins can:

* Upload new content * Tag Content * Create Users and Groups * Set access permissions to folders within the system * Do account admin-y stuff

Cheers,

Marcus (@schappi)

Looks fine, but as a potential customer, my main question is not answered:

Why should I stop using SugarSync in favor of you?

Hi Synnik,

Thanks for your comment. In a sentence: We provide encryption end to end, a granular permissions structure.

Cheers,

Marcus

There should be an option to buy additional storage space, if needed.

HI Swatthatfly,

Great point! We should really add that as an option. FYI we have found that for most clients the number of users has been the limiting factor, not the amount of storage.

I appreciate the feedback!

Cheers,

Marcus (@Schappi)

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