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Comment by drupeek | Hacker News Reader

It does the social side of note-taking extremely well.

You keep saying this, but what does it mean? What is social note-taking, exactly?

Have you tried a shared task management app like Asana or Flow? Same premise... applied to note-taking.

I... I still don't get it. I haven't used any of those applications before but I'm assuming it works by different people putting different things in a to-do list and assigning them to members, etc. How does this work in a notebook? Do you assign different part of notes to different people? Do you just come in and work like a wiki without revision history (just removing what others have written and writing your own things in its place)? What does your company actually do?

I can share notebooks in Evernote with people and it Just Works. Where's the pain?

I hope there's more to your app than "I see them type on my screen, and they see me type on their screen".

I'm sure everyone takes notes differently, but with the way I do it I'm not sure a social note-taking system makes sense.

For a note to be useful to me, it has to be quick to make. For a note to be useful to another person, it has to contain enough context for them to be able to decipher it.

For example, the notebook on my desk reads "core 495 0.20%" which I know is the number and fraction of users in the core group - and I have enough context to know what those all mean. If I had to write down that context in a way other people could understand, it would no longer be quick to write, so it would no longer be a note.

Is your idea of what note-taking is different to mine?

Much of the time, your definition will prevail. But what we found in our first version, is that in a significant percentage of occasions, people do tend to put a little more effort into a note knowing that they intend to share it.

It's like when you type out a quick email to your team linking to a competitor and giving a little context. That's essentially what a shared note looks like. The reason we believe it should live outside the inbox, is because the inbox is designed around time-sensitive content - not content that needs time to gestate or be talked about.

I'm not sure if it's helpful, but based on the feedback it might be a useful exercise.

First, take all the main words you use to describe rocketr, and toss them out. Note, collaborate, share, etc.

Second, describe your product entirely through a use case. You talk about telling the story, so tell the story of a user using your app. The parts where Rocketr swoops in and saves the day, where no other tool exists to do so, is where your sweet spot is.

Lastly, distill that story down to a 10 second story. Again, avoid using the words you're trapped in now.

I've developed 3 different pitches for our product depending on who we're talking to. Investors, customers, and the general public (least sophisticated). The one that resonates best with all three is the one for the general public.

Best of luck, keep fighting.

You know people do those 2D and 3D plots with dots representing where ideas are on a spectrum? You know, like this: http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif

I think what you need is a diagram like that with Google Docs, Wikis, Evernote, Piratepad, E-mail and your product. You know, something that answers every "so how's it different from" at the same time.

I think you might be right.

It makes reservations to have drinks with my fellow note takers?

If that is the thing you'd like to collaborate around, then yes, you could use it for that purpose. ;)

We had someone plan a wedding with it during the pilot.

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