Show HN: land that gig by making a great first impression. Feedback appreciated.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3518376

by bullrico • 14 years ago

8 8 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Another 'scratch your own itch' MVP, bear with me.

I'm a long-time telecommuter, and my gig-hunting success depends on two critical elements: an email cover letter that is visually appealing, and a corresponding portfolio landing page with content tailored to that specific email. Last year I decided to automate this process, and after months of lost weekends and late nights fine-tuning it for public consumption, I'm launching my MVP, Impressario. Briefly, it solves these pain points:

* Collect and keep track of job listings in one place

* Maintain a set of email templates for specific job titles/requirements

* Be able to create and send out HTML emails (with images)

* Host and manage different versions of a portfolio (with custom domains)

* Track sent emails to gauge response

Thoughts / comments / feedback appreciated.

binarysoul• 14 years ago

This looks pretty cool. Tracking all of that stuff is a little messy, I definitely could've used this back when I was on the market.

However, I see this as a cool open source application rather than a for pay service. The problem is that if your service works really well... You're going to eliminate your customers as they get gainfully employed thanks to your site.

polyfractal• 14 years ago

I (partially) agree about having a high churn rate on customers. I imagine most freelancers will use the service less once they build up a nice portfolio of clients, although I can still see a use for the occasional new client even with a full roster.

I disagree about open source. Sure, it'd be a cool open source project - but don't give it away for free yet. I'd change the pricing plan.

During your beta, find out what the average life time value of a customer is. Do they use it actively for two months? Six months? After figuring out the lifetime value, adjust your pricing accordingly.

If you find people using it hardcore for a month and then stopping, it makes more sense to sell this as a "one-off" price instead of a low monthly. If people use it chronically, you can keep the low monthly.

All that said, very cool service and I think I'll be one of your customers =)

bullrico3• 14 years ago

Thanks for the feedback. The churn rate is a concern, I'm hoping to discover useful features to add that can make the app more enticing to keep around.

jessepollak• 14 years ago

Look awesome, I was just looking for something like this a couple weeks ago. I'll definitely check it out. If email me at jpollak92 [at] gmail, I'd happily send some thoughts your way (your email is not in your profile).

bullrico3• 14 years ago

Send them over to bobby [at] impressar.io. Response has been good so far, I'm hoping people can make good use of it when the monthly "Who's hiring" thread comes out next week.

tylerwl2• 14 years ago

You did a great job of making the How It Works section clear and appealing.

The one addition I would suggest for the Features page is what email address will your customers be able to use? Will it be their own or an @impressar.io address?

bullrico3• 14 years ago

They can use their own email address, although a temporary @impressar.io address is built-in - just to add a layer of protection (against spam). If you reply to the @impressar.io address, it gets shown in the Messages section.

tylerwl2• 14 years ago

Excellent. I would just add a line to the Features page like:

Custom email address - Promote your personal brand by using an @yourdomain.com email address.

Show HN: land that gig by making a great first impression. Feedback appreciated.

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