Convore (YCW11) is reborn as Grove.io, a chat service for businesses | Hacker News Reader

Convore (YCW11) is reborn as Grove.io, a chat service for businesses

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116 pointsleahculver56 comments

I think the trick here is going to be who you decide to market to.

Right now, it looks like the target audience is really small, tech-savvy start ups (most likely those start ups out in San Francisco that the grove.io team can directly market to, etc). That's probably fine but it seems like a rather small audience. So alright then, the audience is tech-savvy start ups located anywhere. This might be tricky because now you have to convince the tech-savvy people to quit hosting their own IRC server, or to add a new IRC server to their list of servers that they already frequent. I already run my own UnrealIRC daemon, on Linode, for $20/mo with however many users it can handle. I have a logger bot that logs chat to a nice looking web page, and obviously IRC supports channel access control out of the box. Plus, now I have a Linode server to play on. So, I don't think I would do grove.io for my own start up. So, then maybe an easier audience to market this to would be tech-savvy start ups that are too busy to mess with hosting their own (probably a good portion of them) or do not like the other free servers. They'd probably buy this, but you have to wonder why they're not using IRC already (do they really want it or need it?). You could try targeting non tech savvy start ups, but then you have to figure out how to speak their language and explain why they need a chat service when they already have email, or something. This is probably why Campfire stayed away from making the IRC connection.

I have to admit that I feel like this is a bit like trying to sell ice to an Eskimo, or whatever. Do start ups have this problem? I'm not knocking the service. I'd love to be offering a service like that. Heck, I do offer an IRC service but I just do not get paid for it. Perhaps I'm just jealous that I did not attempt this type of service myself. :) I love the idea and best of luck!

"I already run my own UnrealIRC daemon, on Linode, for $20/mo with however many users it can handle."

Then I would argue you're not the target market. I'm a tech company CEO. I have WAY better things to do than set up an IRC server, even though my background is Linux system administration. My employees (we have 8 people currently; hiring #9) also have better things to do (like, you know, features our customers want :)

So we use Hipchat. And Hipchat rocks. Everyone on our team loves it. (We actually tried grove first, but it just wasn't mature enough for our needs--Hipchat has Mac OS, Windows, web, Android, AND iPhone apps, and we're all on different platforms, so that works out well.)

When you're paying developers $$$, you don't want them to be setting up IRC servers. Better to use a Hipchat or a Grove.io and be up and running in 5 minutes with clients on every device. For us, it's well worth the few $ a month to have one less thing to set up and maintain.

I call balogna; it probably takes longer to go through the purchase / registration process for a service like this than it does to fire up your own IRC server on one of your available boxes.

If you know the available packages. And get really lucky.

For most people who haven't done it much before, will have to do some research first, and probably end up shaving yaks for a bit.

Grove (I'm honored, by the way) seems like a nice middleground. Make the busy founders happy (easy, no maintenance), make the devs happy (irc).

Actually, we're a tech (consulting) company and we don't even have our own box any more. We do have access to some fully managed boxes, but alas, grove.io is cheaper than having an admin set up and maintain an irc server for us. We joined the moment the offering came up.

"When you're paying developers $$$, you don't want them to be setting up IRC servers."

Fair enough but still if it takes 1 hour to set it up vs paying 50$*12. (But I get your point, that's why I said I found it a bit risky in another post.. that's the developers mentality vs the CEO's one.)

You are forgetting to factor in maintenance costs, so yes, absolutely the developers perspective.

I don't think you can realistically setup an IRC server in an hour, at least not your first time, not with SSL, NickServ, ChanServ, etc. It will probably take more than an hour just to pick an IRC server and find the documentation. Almost all IRC servers were designed to run public IRC networks, each public IRC network has forked and re-forked the original IRCd from 1988. They tend to lack features that are expected of online services these days, e.g., user accounts and access controls. You can usually set a server-wide password, and channel keywords, but that's different than having individual usernames and passwords, with individual access control to channels. So then you need a NickServ and ChanServ, which are separate from the IRC daemon. Then the logging bot, and the web archive of the logging, and access control to the web archive. And a web client so you can easily invite first-timers into a discussion. It's way more than an hours work. Then you are paying $20/month to Linode, and someone has to maintain it with security updates, and backups, and documentation on how to redo all the configuration. That's a lot of time when you could just pay $50/month to Grove. $50/month is one regular coffee a day, it's not much money.

I'm not saying that Grove is not a good idea (It is actually!), I'm just a little afraid how the product targets a niche that are used to hack/configure things themselves. And, don't forget that developers enjoy hacking or setting up these kinds of server.

But yeah, I do agree with you that from a CEO point of view, it's not worth to waste time on this as there are already existing solutions.

FWIW, Hipchat's pricing is $2/month/user (so $16 for our 8 people), and Grove's is $25/month for up to 10 people. Not sure where you're getting $50. And yeah, for what we need, it'd take a lot more than an hour to set up. Not to mention explaining to our non-technical staff members how to set up an IRC client. That's why we picked Hipchat.

Skype works pretty well for small teams too. One advantage is you can bring customers into the chat seamlessly if they already have a skype account.

Not to mention any IRC network (EFnet, Freenode etc) with TLS/SSL support. At least if you're not discussing things like missile launch codes.

I'm really happy for @leah and that pivot. I've used convore a lot but was also wondering where they'd make money. Grove.io is a sweet spot for me as I'm a big fan of IRC and I believe lots of programmers are. Still, I find it somewhat risky.

Programmers are used to configure and hack their way up.. I'd be afraid to ask them to pay for a service that they could quickly "apt-get" on their vps. (I'm exaggerating a little, but you get the point). I mean, for a really small team, just go on freenode and get a channel. (It's obviously free). And for a bigger company, it's worth spending 1-2 hours for that.

I think a free version for small teams would be great. But then, if you can charge for it, why not? :)

Anyhow, I've already offered my help (I'm mostly a django/python dev) but if you need another spare-time contractor feel free to contact me.

(Just wanted to say that mIRC is where I first learned to code.. and this is where I've learned socket, dialogs, etc. I remember, I coded a web server in mIRC to which I'd connect using a client inside mIRC (in @windows).. and I coded the server bot. It was fun time, I miss it.)

We migrated from a self-hosted irc server to Grove and couldn't be happier. The archive and search are a godsend when you can't be bothered to set up loggers and such yourself. Whenever we're troubleshooting server issues, all the context is already there in the web client for other devs to hop right in and catch up. We post to the API from our fab deploy scripts, and when someone's feeling motivated, we'll be setting up Hubot, as outlined on their blog. https://grove.io/blog/hubot-grove

EDIT: I should also give mention to the great transparency from the team. Leah emailed me in response to feedback/issues multiple times, and they definitely keep up with Twitter chatter.

Surprising - given you already had a self-hosted IRC server, switching to Grove seems like an expensive option for more or less just the addition of logging features?

The cost is a non-issue for even the few benefits (and the removal of all responsibility).

Also relevant: we have non irc-savvy devs, so Grove helps with getting them involved too. It's difficult to explain why IRC is so great to anyone that doesn't use it- whereas sending an invite and having them in the channel right away is dead simple.

What do tools like Convore or Hipchat or Campfire offer that you can't do as easily with Skype? We've been using Skype at work for communication for years and never really even felt the need to explore alternatives. Is there something I'm missing about these?

We use Hipchat because of all the integrations and the ability to have a public room (which we use for support) with a web ui. Every time code is pushed, a pull request is issued, status changes in Pivotal, etc., we get a ping in our Engineering room.

I know Campfire offers a lot of these things as well; we just chose Hipchat because it's what we used and liked. :)

My team was using Skype starting in late 2010. Around spring/summer 2011, we started noticing drastic deterioration of call quality and, more importantly, chat messages getting dropped (spinning gray circle graphic would persist next to the message). We've switched to HipChat primarily with great results, and occasionally Skype for audio calls.

Logged transcripts. APIs and bots.

Skype does all those too.

So is this a competitor to HipChat and Campfire? Any additional things that it does differently?

It uses IRC instead of a proprietary client and protocol.

HipChat supports XMPP/Jabber: https://www.hipchat.com/help/category/xmpp

It is based on IRC, so you can seamlessly use Adium, etc. to use it, in addition to the web client.

That's not a distinguishing feature (HipChat works in Adium too)

It is, because there are a number of popular IRC clients that don't support XMPP.

In some ways that feels limiting. Hipchat can embed images, videos, and files. Are these things possible over IRC now?

Don't forget IRC Cloud (https://irccloud.com/), and Talker (http://talkerapp.com/).

Interesting the other cofounders moved to create Boilerplate, a company focused on building apps, now to creating clutch.io, a development framework for apps. So combined between the founders a lot of pivoting.

Also interesting the quote about needing over a million users to really create any real profit through ads. Lots of free consumer apps seem to end up with user counts that seem really big but are probably still hard to profit with.

yep. Advertising requires 1million+ MOA (monthly active users) to become interesting (let's say $10-$30,000/m) in revenue. So as consumers seldom are willing to pay for a web site, the trick is to get to the 1 million MOA's. And that is very very hard, even with a all star team, a TC article and lots of funding

The product look great, and piggy-backing on IRC makes a lot sense. However, I wouldn't pay for this, on the basis that the pricing model makes me feel like they assume users are naive (to put it nicely). Multi-tiered pricing models that work typically offer users incremental value, most often in the form of extra features (that took time to develop), support (that takes time to provide) or hardware/bandwidth resources (that are fixed costs to the company). In this case however, the incremental value is "number of users". Unless we're talking about hosting video (or other bandwidth-intensive media), the difference in resources needed to host 50 users can't warrant a 10x price difference from that of hosting 5 users. This is where they lose me (and probably most devs) to the "apt-get" alternative. IMHO, they should apply a one-price model : 10$ per month, unlimited users. It would better bridge the gap between the DIY option, and the luxury of having someone else do a mostly one-time configuration (and occasional maintenance) for you.

As much as I chuckle at their pricing, I find your suggestion of $10/mo for unlimited users just as appalling. For one, I am always hesitant to promise anything "unlimited." Secondly, I'm not sure if they should even try to go after the dev market if there are bigger fish in the sea.

How is Grove.io different from 37signals' Campfire product? Is it the IRC?

    Grove.io: "Hosted IRC and so much more."
    
    Campfire: "Team collaboration with real time chat."

For me, it's definitively the IRC. I can use any IRC client of my liking, any bot that can talk to IRC, ... I've grown up with all of that and that somehow makes me like grove more than campfire. But I guess it boils down to personal preference.

There's a lot of comments here saying what a great pivot that was. I wouldn't hold my breath on that one until there is more market traction.

It's a very crowded space Grove are entering. Most non tech-savvy small businesses I know use Skype by default. I run a technology business and we use it as well. And the standard fallback is just plain old email. This sounds like a hard place to make money to me. However, I wish them luck.

At the bank I was at, they used something called iConnect, built by AOL (can't even find a reference to it online). It was horrible. They were switching to Office Communicator.

I think chat is great, but I wonder if people are looking for more of an all-in-one communication solution...specifically video and audio.

skype?

The decentralized nature of skype is probably a major security issue for banks. In fact, this hosted IRC might be as well.

Which brings up a good point, maybe at some point they should consider something like Github Enterprise for large enterprise customers.

This is a great pivot for Convore. I suspect the most frequently asked question for Grove will be: "Can I use Grove to connect to freenode"? That is what I'm currently using IRCCloud.com for. That, /and/ keeping me logged into those freenode channels when I close my browser window.

Grove is essentially a IRC server, not a client. While we provide a web based client you can use whatever you want. Even IRCCloud. As we keep web based archives you don't have to keep connection open all the time if you don't want to (once you connect to channel, there will be a message on latest activity).

Still, I agree with hugs. Providing the web frontend as a way to connect to freenode might be a good gateway drug to get people using grove, and then have a simple, 'want to have your own private chat? Click here!' or something along those lines.

Just signed up. I am a bit worried for them that there is such an easy and direct way to trnasition off this service. If I really like using Audium or whatver I have a whole month to set up my own ircD. If I really like this I will probably go that route, convince a junior teammate to set up ircD after hours as a learning experience.

Ohh, so this is what became of Convore. I remember hearing Leah Culver talk about it in some DjangoCon vidoes, and I've seen grove.io around as well, but didn't make the connection between the two.

Looks solid though -- the business model seems much more logical than Convore.

The right chat for companies is not a stand-alone product, be it desktop, mobile or web-based app. I want a browser plugin that beefs up my google mail chat (search, send files, view history in a browser tab, organize shared files etc...). In other words, I want the app to be where I already live: Gmail for businesses. Remember Xoopit?

I haven't used Grove, and I have never used IRC before. So I admit my comment is uneducated.

I think there already is one. Its called Smartr inbox.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gakklmehjhhdfjjgnm...

s/companies/companies that use google apps/

It's surprising how often chat services get compared to Yammer which has no IM functionality.

Both goals are to improve communication for a team.

Any ideas/opinions why XMPP's mult-user chat (MUC) is still not widely used?

Super simple and cleanly designed, I really like it.

Convore is very much the same in that aspect. I've always thought it was one of the most well designed websites I have ever seen, and constantly look to it for inspiration when approaching my own unique design issues. They do such a great job of keeping things as you said, super simple, and cleanly designed.

Congrats on the Pivot folks, hope things go well for you.

Great work Leah & Jori! Grove.io is awesome!

I just signed up. Works great on Chrome!

Sorry to turn this into reddit, but she's quite pretty. My genuine interest is to know what impact that has for her. Harder to be taken seriously? Easier to to sell to other hackers?

As a father of three daughters (2 teens), I wonder and worry about this as well. My girls are wicked smart (no bias or anything) and I have faith they are going to do great things, but I worry about privelege I've had as man working against them.

That aside, we absolutely need more women in computing. I'be been doing my best to encourage my daughters when I can.

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