Siasto (YC S11) Draws Nearer To The Holy Grail Of Project Management Software | Hacker News Reader

Siasto (YC S11) Draws Nearer To The Holy Grail Of Project Management Software

techcrunch.com

33 pointsramanujam15 comments

Man I really wish I could find out more about what this service does without signing up.

Please add some sort of walkthrough to your website. This seems to have the features (Dropbox/Google Apps Integration) that I think Basecamp sorely misses. Even when I sign up I get stuck having to configure my site team etc. Once I do setup I'm not seeing anything that really distinguishes this app from anything else.

This may be the holy grail but I spent 5 minutes on this site and decided its not for me. Very underwhelming introduction.

There are few products which do different kinds of Basecamp/Dropbox/Google Docs integration. One of them is cloudHQ - we sync all Dropbox and Google Docs files with Basecamp: bi-directional and continuously.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the feedback. We do indeed have Dropbox and Google Apps integration. If you check out the "Documents" tab in your project, you the option to connect to both Google Docs and Dropbox. You can also connect to Google Calendar via the "Calendar" tab, or grab our Gmail widget from the Google Apps Marketplace (https://blog.siasto.com/clear-your-email-inbox).

Hope this helps!

Hey Courtland

So I'm not as concerned about connecting to those, they're great features to have. I'm more pointing out some flaws from a conversion perspective. Just having those features doesn't do much unless I understand how they work in the context of your entire tool and maybe I'm lazy but I don't want to have to actually use your site as a project tool to figure out if its worth the considerable friction of switching project management tools.

The site is really lacking some form of a walkthrough or demo site or something that demonstrates that your product will do what my current tool does, and how its better. This isn't a blue ocean strategy, its a very crowded market with some very entrenched incumbents, just saying "It integrates with Google Docs and Dropbox" isn't really cutting it.

Yep, makes perfect sense. There are lots of people who want to know more before signing up, and our site is definitely a work in progress.

I was interested in this, but was turned off by the fact that they are using characters from The Office as examples makes me think the founders are lacking in judgement and a bit green. There's no way they have permission to use those images, right?

To each his own, but I don't see how using a lighthearted pop culture reference that some, not most, people will identify with could lead to any substantial conclusions about either the founders or their product.

This will be a successful exit :-) Google really needs this capability, both for users and for their enterprise service. I expect a solid team, gets it built outside the 'plex, gets acquired and takes it in house.

What is difference between Siasto and Basecamp? Why would customer chose Siasto instead Basecamp? What is Siasto's advantage over Basecamp?

They seem very similar, minus the discussions metaphor Basecamp has (looks like documents/tasks are expected to be enough, with the documents being uploaded or created via wysiwyg editor).

One nice difference is Basecamp no longer offers a free plan, which although it's not obvious from their page, Siasto does. I'm a bit early on in my current project to start forking over $20/mo for a PM tool, but I do love the new Basecamp UI...

15 days free trial doesn't seem to be comparable with a free plan... either that or there's actually a free plan but not mentioned anywhere other than "Try Free".

Yes, we should definitely make this more clear: Once your free trial expires, you can continue using Siasto for free with however many teammates you want, but without the features listed in the paid plans and a more restricted space limit.

I also like the integrations that they're offering (Dropbox, Google Docs, Gmail). The new Basecamp feels like a bit of a step backwards as well in that there's no API for 3rd parties any more (or data export, for that matter), and no optimized iPhone version any more. They'll likely add them back, but those are things I know some of us relied on in the original Basecamp.

Mobile usage is increasingly important too, and that's something 37signals doesn't seem to get. Will be interesting to see if Siasto can one-up them on that front, although it looks like they're not there yet (they did just launch, so we'll have to give them some time :).

While it does look nice and all, I still can't figure out what differentiates this from other similar offerings (I see the same problem with many new project management software).

Using Google Docs and Dropbox seamlessly for document management seems to be one feature that differentiate them with other competitors... for now.

Not sure how many people do care of that but if somehow a few people do have that issue, then Siasto may find a niche there.

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