ASK HK: Review my startup: NextCoast, a total web CMS.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2126399

by adambourg • 16 years ago

4 8 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Please review my startup, NextCoast. Essentially it's a full CMS platform that does Social Networking--as in your own private social network, an easy CMS, blogging, Mobile Web (in development) and online collaboration

Right now our target market is small-medium businesses, giving them tools to do everything from a small scale website through our CMS to collaboration with the social piece of our application.In the future we will be expanding to professional companies, offering a fully integrated CMS with social, collaboration, and CRM.

What are your thoughts on our site, our approach and our software?

Thanks in advance for all your help!

Link: http://nextcoast.com/

theodore• 16 years ago

Site: Typography is inconsistent and hard on the eyes. Spacing is off. I'd recommend looking into a WooTheme.

You don't show us what you've actually built.

I clicked on "Mobile" and instead of an actual mobile app, I saw a traditional website crammed into an iPhone screen.

Approach: I can't speak to your engineering capability, but from a product & marketing standpoint (1) you're probably trying to do too much, and (2) you should look at investing more in design/usability.

trevelyan• 16 years ago

The description above is clearer than the website. The picture of the iPhone makes me think you are a mobile software development company. Why does the iPhone screen read "Lewis Direct"?

The text links at the top ("Home", "Social", "Website", "Mobile") aren't spaced far enough apart for me to parse them as different links. Coupled with the "Web Social Mobile Monetize" text in the header graphic they create an overwhelming impression of jargon which dissuades me from wanting to read the actual text. You could probably link to most of those pages from a single "about us" page and keep the main page cleaner and your signup funnel more focused.

Nobody reads these days, so I think having such a mass of text is a bad idea front and center. The stronger bits of the page are further down. Unfortunately, everything below the green bar rolls offscreen on my 13 inch Macbook, so the immediate impression is simply of a lot of text in a fairly unreadable color scheme. The strongest explanation you have is ("Web + Blog + Social") imho, although you might want to double-check that the wording resonates with your target market -- people might be very clear that they want a website rather than a blog and calling your system a blog might put them off.

Most powerful inducement to checking out the CMS would probably be seeing it in action. Drupal lets people play around with a live version that gets reset every now and then. Could you do something similar, so that people can see and play around with what they'll be buying?

All suggestions intended constructively. Good luck with the business!

adambourg• 16 years ago

You can go to sign up, and get your own site to play with for free.

jefflinwood• 16 years ago

I don't think small-to-medium businesses will know what CMS, or a next-generation web application are.

Is your web site powered by your software? If so, I'd suggest that your software support SEO-friendly link-paths like Drupal or Wordpress (bringing that up because they're on your front page)

From what I can tell from your web site, you're offering turn-key hosting for people who don't want to set up and run their own Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal sites - instead they'll use your software? I think the problem is that your web page is using jargon you understand, not that they would understand. I'm guessing that your customers will 1) not want to think about web, they want to run a coffee shop or whatever 2) want guaranteed pricing (which you offer, which is great) 3) a good design - do you do graphic/web design as well, or are you working with someone? 4) Want someone local. Where are you? Your tagline could be

My opinion of your software is that you've recreated Drupal, which is fine, but there are so many modules available for Drupal that you'll always be playing catchup.

Hope this helps, you can criticize one of my web sites if you want :)

guynamedloren2• 16 years ago

Clickable: http://nextcoast.com/

guynamedloren2• 16 years ago

Far too much text on every single page of your site. I clicked through them all but didn't want to spend 10 minutes reading just to figure out what you do. Fix this with a big, catchy headline along with a short 2-3 sentence description of what you do and a video or screenshots of your software.

revorad• 16 years ago

Adam, firstly thank you for building this. There is a real need for this. As many others here will point out to you, your website is not delivering your product message or value proposition. However, that's a separate concern from evaluating the product itself.

Overlooking the problems with the site copy and design, I went on to sign up to try it out. It took me a couple of attempts to register. I'm not your target customer, but even so do you really need to know your customer's date of birth? Finally, when I click on the link in the registration email, I land on a page which says before I use anything, I must contact an account representative. My login is failing even though I'm pretty sure I'm using the correct username and password.

If as a techie, I found your site hard to navigate, it's going to be nearly impossible to get non-techies to use or buy it.

I understand you are building a difficult product, but there's a lot of research to be done to catch up with the latest developments in this space.

For starters, please see http://www.weebly.com for a well-executed version of your idea.

notahacker• 16 years ago

As far as I can see get your social network website running in the time it takes to make coffee (adapted from one of the sub-pages) is your core value proposition, and it should be in big letters on the home page instead of generic phrases like "leap-frog your competition and be a leader, not a follower" and sentences listing technologies.

Much of your text reads like it was written for search engines rather than humans to read, and your screenshots and examples could be a lot more attractive.

Looking at the price points you're looking to charge, paying a professional designer and copywriter would be worth the money here, assuming the end product is fit for purpose.

ASK HK: Review my startup: NextCoast, a total web CMS.

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