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Comment by maxklein | Hacker News Reader

The product(s) it's designed for are selling today.

If you have an entire process setup already for planning your software development path, and you already have a well working analytics system, then your products are already being managed, and you don't need this.

This product is designed to bring an efficient structure into the life of the ISV. Processes are there for a reason - they make it so you don't have to guess what comes next or what you have to do next. This product is designed on that principle - it takes the random life of the developer and makes it efficient.

There are two ways one can approach the software business - you can either just do things randomly as they coming, and hope things work out, or you can plan ahead, observe trends, iterate and optimize to grow and make more money. This product is designed for people who want to take the second path.

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Well, businesses definitely need structure, but I don't see how this particular product would help me observe trends (aside from web site page views and total dollar sales), iterate and optimize.

Perhaps if there were a case study of some sort up on your page? Right now, it just looks like a to do list stitched into Facebook, and that's not what we're needing.

I don't know how many products you sell, but let's say you sell about 4 products. You sell roughly 6-7 copies a day, and you site views are about 1500 uniques a day. Now, you nee to keep a constant eye on these numbers, and you need to do things to make these numbers go up, and not down.

If you work without structure, it's difficult. My tool is designed such that you can take a look at the frontpage and you instantly see how everything is performing.

The todo list is a standard todo list (like basecamp has), but the fact that you can keep your product based todo separate from the rest of the usual todo is helpful. When a product is cruising along fine based on trends you observe, you can ignore the product from a business point of view. When things start getting bad, you have a todo list you can refer back to.

How will your product "do things to make these numbers go up, not down"? If all your tool is letting me do is count web site page-views and total dollar sales, that's not going to help.

That part I did not add to the screenshots :-) If you click on the last tab "Strategy", there are 3 icons beside the 'trends' icon. Those pages contain the steps that one takes to increase the page view, download count and so on. The info that is taught in business school is broken down into a form that makes sense for the internet, and that will surely make you more money if you do things steadily and step by step.

I decided against putting up the screenshots of that part because there are too many pages, and I've not completely fleshed out the concept yet.

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