Show HN: My app in 4 weeks is done | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: My app in 4 weeks is done

chriseidhof.tumblr.com

79 pointschriseidhof34 comments

It's funny that just this past weekend I was looking for something like your product. I've imagined it more to be a webapp with mobile client though. Something like http://highrisehq.com/ but more personal. (A PRM instead of CRM, one could say.) It should keep in sync with my address book (or rather replace it at some point) and tell me not only what I know about the people in it, but also what interactions I had with them. Ideally it would augment that information with things it can find out on its own over Facebook and the web. (A bit like Gist, although I've found the information it can find to be useless most of the time.)

Does anyone know of a product, besides Met, which comes close to what I'm looking for?

Congratulations on your launch!

mgw, tried to contact you directly via your HN profile, that's nearly what I'm building, if you're interested please leave your email at https://ronomon.com and I will get in touch when it's ready for more beta testers.

We are building something exactly like that (native for mac first). You can sign-up for beta here: http://www.cobookapp.com

Thanks!

This sounds more like Rapportive. Other than that, there is Hashable, With.me and FellowUp might also be interesting.

Thanks for all of your suggestions! I will try all of the products and will be happy to help with feedback.

Related app request from Loic Le Meur: http://loiclemeur.com/english/2011/03/its-time-for-personal-...

You should contact him, you might get some endorsement :)

Thanks! I'm aware of the blog post, but forgot about it =). I will definitely get in touch with him!

Congrats on the launch.

I like the idea--I definitely see a/the "problem" you hope to solve. I'm terrible with names so if I run into someone ("James") and they introduce me to their friend, kid, wife, etc. I'll jot down their name in the "Notes" field in "James"'s contact ("James's wife is 'Jane'"). Next time I see "James" and can't remember his wife's name, I can check my notes. It's not perfect but it works-ish.

The $3.99 might be a bit high for what I consider a "it works slightly better than my free hack" app. MVP and all that so sure there is more to come...

This needs to be integrated in with Siri so you can walk up to James and whisper to Siri and she'll tell you his wifes name, what he does and how his kids are doing in school ... if only there was a Siri API.

I agree. A search function would also be great, both so you can find people if you have a lot and so you can sort of "reverse the stream" and find people based on recollections ("Who's that guy I met last week who ran in the Boston Marathon?").

Out of curiosity, how much would you expect to pay for something that works slightly better than something free?

I guess $0.

That's a problem with apps that only add incremental value to existing apps (Contacts). I don't expect the dev to create it for free but I don't like paying for what I think Apple should have done differently to begin with (create an "Add Note to Contact" function).

Now, I'd gladly put up with advertisements. And (oddly) I'd probably give the guy a $5 donation if I found myself really using the app.

I like the idea of a PRM app (see @mgw's comment). Maybe that's where the OP ends up going--justifying his/her $4 price...

Yes, it's deliberately priced high because I consider it a niche app. Not many people who want it, but the people who do want it are willing to pay. But you might be right, I should also definitely consider lower prices.

I don't really see this as a niche app. A niche app to me is an app that a particular segment of the population would be actively searching for. For example, runners would be searching for a "run timing" app. I think your app falls into the mainstream simply because people (I don't think) are going to be actively searching for it. And when they do find it on the new releases list or some other method, there is no instant recognition as to what it does, so your price will drastically affect your conversion rate. That said, 3.99 I think is way too high. I think 99c may even be too high. I would start off free with ads with in-app-purchase option to remove them.

You might be right. I am tempted to make it 99 cents... however, I don't want to disappoint the people who just bought it. Feels a bit unfair to me... maybe in a few weeks.

I just want to say that this is awesome. Congratulations on the launch. I do not have an iOS device, so I cannot use it. However, the whole blogging about building an app in X amount of time is a great idea and I am definitely considering doing this in the future. :)

Congratulations for launching!

I like the simplicity and the concept, and I can already imagine what kind of jokes we may see popping on the net if your app gets popular.

I admit I was put off by the price though, but I may not be the core of your target, which I assume is people who do a lot of networking. I'd install an ad-supported version any day.

Thank you, good to know. How much would you be willing to pay to remove the ads? $0.99? $1.99?

I would be willing to pay $2 if I use the app often and if I see it updated/maintained at a decent rhythm. I know it may not be "normal" to take the frequency of updates into consideration when paying, but it is my personal point of view.

Huh, neat. I made something similar recently (but a web app instead): http://www.recordr.net

Still need to add Gmail (et al) contacts importing / syncing - until then, I think it is just a bit too arduous to get the basic info in there.

This idea of documenting everything through the process from idea generation to publishing is very interesting. I keep thinking that these types of storyboard explainers might be useful in a lot of contexts - tech startups especially.

It would be cool if that giant phone on your front page was interactive.

Yes, I tried to click the buttons on the bottom of the screen :)

Yes, I had thought of that. Maybe I should do it. But where do you draw the line? Implementing everything would be a massive amount of work. Or maybe it should be just clickable, not really editable.

I think that's a waste of time. Discoverability of apps is primarily through the store, not the web site, from my experience. I don't think it would be worth the effort. Cool idea though.

I don't see why I would use this over just the normal contacts in iOS, or just notes. Why is there a PIN code? It's not like it's a banking app. Why no photos?

In most cases, you are right.

Because some of these notes are confidential. To give an example, suppose you know somebody has a rare disease. Or you know if they think bad about their boss. In case you leave your phone unlocked on the table, you don't want people to see this. The notes field is just a bit too accessible for those cases.

Re: photos, that's a good idea. I haven't felt the need myself to add photos, neither did any of the beta testers. It would be trivial to add, but any feature added is very hard to remove. I'll add it when it becomes painful not to have it ;)

First of all congrats Chris. As dclaysmith already said price is little high except that, it'll really help in remembering all those minute details :)

I like the app, but I've a couple of feature requests already... the biggest one is: my meetups often consists of more than one person.

congratulations for the launch . The app looks promising. If only there was an Android version :D .

Btw a simpler site for mobile devices would be nice . I am visiting the site using opera mini from an android device and I'm not able to see the text properly.

Thanks! I agree on the simpler site, I'm going to make a mobile version. Maybe even tonight ;).

silly question, what are the advantages of an io domain, name availability...?

Just the availability =). And it's a bit nerdy. It's quite expensive though, compared to regular domains :(

thanks, I was worried I wasn't getting the I/O references :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com