Yup, it wasn't easy!
Wanted to try something different with regard to getting over product features and the pain points it relates to!
377 karma · joined July 7, 2011
firstname-at-lastname-dotcom
Wanted to try something different with regard to getting over product features and the pain points it relates to!
Documize is targeting enterprises who have mountains of Word documents full of intel and know-how that people struggle to find and maintain. Running a couple of pilots at the moment.
Dual licensing approach supporting open source and commercial. Public beta coming soon. Expect freemium/paid plans (SaaS) and commercial support plans (on premise).
Tech stack: Go, Angular, MySQL (Windows, Linux, OSX)
People seem to remember us more which is no great surprise given we tend to stand out a mile.
Back in my consulting days I used to work a lot at Microsoft offices around the world. For some strange reason no matter which country I was in, the local staff used to assume I was there for a speaking gig!
But I'll never forget the time I went to Argentina -- the whole airport stopped as I got off the plane. I didn't go back there in a hurry...
We (http://countersoft.com) are pushing the approach of a single tool for both project tracking (geeks) and ticketing (customers). It's not easy to say the least because customers love to just do everything in email!
Over half our sales are still On-Premise: download and install. Shock. Horror.
From a tech standpoint that's tough because the same web app has to run under Windows IIS and then scale to handle SaaS customers in our own cloud setup.
Barrier? You should see the crap you have to handle in order to just install .NET web app onto say a financial company's hardware. SaaS guys have it easy!
In terms of Enterprise Sales we have lead generation activities with inside sales folks who provide product demos. Took a while to get it right. Trade shows, banners, magazines - none of this stuff works for us in enterprise sales, where customers hand over tens of thousands of dollars for a software license.
But I hear you - there's not many enterprise grade issue trackers (that don't suck).
We don't blame or otherwise hit on Braintree -- it's the bankers that are the real problem.
I personally think the problem isn't with HN but us Developers.
We tend to be analytical by nature and hence whenever you show one of us something, our brains are always go into "Yes, but..." mode.
It's that "but" that says we are always looking for flaws. Looking to show others we can find a problem with their plan.
Example: The biz guy tell the devs"we need to get this done for the client"? The devs immediately look for flaws in the plan such as "what about this...", "not sure if it will work because...", "yes, but what about...".
Some of us have seen this too many times.
The minute a Dev starts on the "Yes, but..." path they remain defensive and on the look-out to be smarter than everyone else. Looking for problems. Looking to show we know best.
We do this all the time. In my company I have barred my Devs from "Yes, but..." conversations.
Instead get you mindset into "Let's explore".
It just changes the whole tone of the conversation when we Devs start with a "explore..." mindset and not a "but...".
Try it. Go back and read the top 10 HN posts and keep thinking "let's explore" when you read a post. What kind of post comment can you then come up with then? Much more helpful I would say.
Got rave reviews @ Microsoft Tech Ed -- would love to show the people on HN about different UI/UX concepts in biz apps.
Happy to put up a link when shipped so you can see JsPlumb in action.
http://community.geminiplatform.com/blogs/17/introducing-gem...
As farseer, says most tools out there are not great. Gemini 5 is raising the game by bringing together capabilities you find in the likes of Asana, Jira, Zendesk, etc.
.NET is the only way I would personally want to go when targeting large enterprises with products.