Rate my Startup: SnapBill - Automated recurring billing

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2139615

by qixxiq • 16 years ago

26 18 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hey guys,

We're a small team from South Africa that have finally decided our startup is ready for release (been in private beta here for a while).

* Our main focus is on creating Services, and selling them. Once you add a new service to your account, we'll automatically generate signup forms (based on custom fields you specify) and deal with all the monthly invoicing.

* We do provide standard invoicing (ala Freshbooks/co) but its not our focus at all and is purely intended for the once-off invoices recurring billing companies need every so often.

* We only support PayPal for automated payments at the moment, but more support is coming soon - promise!

I'd love to hear any thoughts or comments anyone has.

http://www.snapbill.com

qixxiq4• 16 years ago

Clickable: http://www.snapbill.com

JonoW• 16 years ago

Good luck guys, eager to see a SA startup make it big (well post Thawte at least)

_urga• 16 years ago

Amandla

qixxiq4• 16 years ago

Awethu!

3pt14159• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amandla_(power)

(for the interested)

SeanNieuwoudt2• 16 years ago

Great stuff guys! well done, looking forward to seeing more about SnapBill in the media

qixxiq4• 16 years ago

We've got a lot in the pipeline :D

petervandijck3• 16 years ago

I am reading the homepage but don't understand why I would use this.

Sentences like this don't help: "SnapBill is an online invoicing and billing system with service provisioning capabilities." Compare with the writing here: http://aws.amazon.com/fps/

Your explanation here ("Our main focus is on creating Services, and selling them.") isn't really clear either. Find a good way to explain that main focus in 2 sentences, and put that on top of the page.

pjy04• 16 years ago

I would also look into doing an automatic video about your product and do a quick demo reel. (no sound)

Silhouette2• 16 years ago

I write this in the hope it will be taken constructively: I think you desperately need a good information architect and copywriter to redo your home page, tour, etc.

I have spent much of the past two days looking at various options for recurring billing and related automation for a start-up. It sounds like your service ought to be of interest to me, right now.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea after scanning your home page and tour page what your target market is. Are you aimed at invoicing for freelancers/agencies with a few repeat clients? Monthly billing for end users of subscription web services?

You have written a lot (probably far too much) on your home page and tour page, but without enough detail about what your service actually does to decide whether it's worth investigating further. For example, you mention tax, but not whether you automatically handle VAT based on location (without which you aren't going to get very far here in Europe). You mention payment collection and credit cards, but without a clear statement of your level of PCI DSS compliance and whether clients need to handle any card data on their own systems to use your service (without which you probably aren't going to get very far at all).

You aren't short of buzzwords and transparent marketing drivel, though, and there are a few silly spelling errors and the like as well. That all paints a very unprofessional picture given that you're asking clients to trust you with vital financial matters.

For what it's worth, I did spend about 15 minutes looking over your site before writing this post, partly to try to be honest but constructive in the criticism, and partly out of genuine interest. In roughly the same amount of time looking at the web site of another business this morning, I had confirmed that they offered broadly the service the start-up was looking for, identified most of the details about how the start-up's pricing plans could be implemented using their system, identified a few specific details to ask about and an e-mail address where the questions could be sent if and when the start-up was ready to explore more deeply, worked out approximately what the monthly costs would be for adopting the service, and begun exploring the customisations and APIs to see whether they could address any of those questions I mentioned before.

On a more constructive note, your site does look attractive, and I expect most of the bad impression it made on me really could be overcome quite quickly with a bit of professional help to structure the content, so that the important details come across and the general feel is more professional service and less budget store TV ad.

qixxiq4• 16 years ago

Point taken, we are going to get a copy writer to go over the site as soon as possible.

petervandijck3• 16 years ago

You should be able to do this yourselves. (Good copywriters that understand your business are very very, very hard to find.)

Here's a random example paragraph:

"The SnapBill billing system is a fully-featured online billing automation engine. The system is secure and easy to use.Sending invoices, quotations and statements for recurring or subscription based services has never been so simple. Add your own services to SnapBill and allow your clients to order them via a branded and secure online order centre. Accept payment from your clients through any of our supported payment collection channels."

So what did you just tell me there? "We let you easily bill people, send invoices and accept payments". That's a much better sentence, but even that you can remove because by the time we've arrived at this paragraph we know that you do online invoicing and payments. In other words: remove this entire paragraph. And most of the homepage is like that.

Another example: your first paragraph:

"SnapBill is an online invoicing and billing system with service provisioning capabilities. SnapBill is perfect for all businesses, especially those providing services requiring an automated recurring or subscription billing system and payment collection facilities."

Are you trying to say that this is aimed at Saas companies? Then just say it. No real person will understand that paragraph, at least not anyone you'd want to date. Just say something like (if I am right): "Invoicing and billing for online subscription services."

Remove redundancies and marketing speak.

As an example, "SnapBill is perfect for all businesses, especially those". Read that twice. You're basically contradicting the first part of the sentence (perfect for everyone) in the second part (perfect for some especially).

So guidelines to do your own copy-editing:

1. Remove, remove, remove. Remove words. Remove filler. 2. Think what you're trying to say. With every sentence and paragraph, what are you trying to say. Then say it as clearly as you possibly can. 3. Show it to target audience and ask what questions they're trying to answer. Then answer those.

Good luck!

jaggs• 16 years ago

Too much on the home page. Pick the top four features which you feel will appeal to your target market and feature those solely on the front page, with a 'more detail' type link so those who are interested can find out more.

You need more than a copywriter, you also need a more modern design. It's rather dated in a funny sort of way. Take a look at some of your rivals to get an idea of what modern looks like. (freshbooks.com)?

Modern web application sites focus intensively on helping the user make up their mind within seconds as to whether to continue investigating your service, which is why the Take a Tour button, and Try it Now options are so prominent on most web app sites.

It's not that you're doing it wrong, it's just that you're giving yourself an uphill battle to attract and sign potential customers.

Hope that helps for a starter. :)

SeanNieuwoudt2• 16 years ago

One more piece of UI advice, the "Tour, Packages & Pricing Sign up!" menu is not visible enough. I find myself constantly looking over it while on pages other than the home page.

JoelB• 16 years ago

Small thing: I think having the name be the first item in the title is much better as far as tab navigation:

"SnapBill - Online Invoicing and Billing System" as opposed to the current "Online Invoicing and Billing System - SnapBill"

instakill• 15 years ago

Rock on Jaco. Great to see some Safrican representation on here with great products.

Rate my Startup: SnapBill - Automated recurring billing

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