Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=444877

by ryanwaggoner • 18 years ago

33 50 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

After months of hard work and wistfully watching many other HN members debut their startups to this community, I'm proud to announce that MightyBrand.com is up and live. Please take a look and let us know how you like the idea, and more importantly, how you like the execution.

Elevator pitch: MightyBrand monitors social channels for mentions of your brand, analyzes those conversations, and gives you tools to easily engage in those conversations.

http://mightybrand.com

If needed, my contact info is in my HN profile...I'd love to hear from you!

Edit: for those of you who are wondering, MightyBrand is a rebranded and much-improved relaunch of BlueSwarm.com, which we applied to YC with for the last round.

redorb2• 18 years ago

I think your prices should be $5/month "blogger" then I would just rename the others and perhaps shift the price downward too, "startups" will probably do this themselves with google alerts or other services.

I think your market is small; I feel those who know enough to care about brand mentions - care enough to already have ideas of how to do it, and those who don't won't probably 'get it'.

Good luck in your endeavor

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

Thanks for the feedback. We're definitely still working through our pricing model, so I appreciate the suggestion.

As we state in our FAQ, there's a number of ways you can cobble together a free solution on your own that will accomplish some of the same things, but it'll take longer and will lack a lot of features. At $20 / month, our solution doesn't have to save much time to be worth it, or at least that's the thinking. Guess we'll see :)

jdamer• 18 years ago

Pricing really seems to be the most troubling point. I really think there should be some free scaled back option. The question is where to draw the line of what you can give away for free and what people absolutely must pay for. I guess you could draw the line at "things you can't do with a Google Alert" so things like responding directly, monitoring multiple brands, filtering, etc. But at least let me see buzz about 1 brand for free. Then I'll sign up and I'll consider paying for premium services.

rockbilly• 18 years ago

* I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right.

* Why do you start at 3 brands? I'm guessing that there are enough users that would like to monitor a single brand maybe for $12-$14/mo?

* The plan pricing isn't good. The Big Shot plan costs $100 for 10 brands/users while the Blogger plan costs $19 for 3 brands/users. Why shouldn't I just get 4 Blogger plans? Clearly the convenience of not having to deal with multiple accounts and who can access what where, but it just doesn't look like you're getting the value you should be getting. As 37s said about their pricing "Each tier is roughly double the previous tier, but we deliver more than double the benefits." (http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1287-ask-37signals-how-di...).

Overall, it looks like a great way for companies to track their brands online and see how things are going. I'd say you could easily create a sustainable business model out of that.

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

Your points are excellent ones, and we'll definitely consider adjusting our pricing model and perhaps adding a solo plan that allows a single user to track a single brand.

Thanks again for your feedback. It's always nice to hear that someone "gets" what you're trying to do :)

sgk2842• 18 years ago

"I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right."

I'm torn between this. On the one hand, it's less friction for the user to sign up... but then you wind up bugging the user later on. I feel like it's better to just get all of the "administrative non-sense" out of the way at the start. Also, if they're willing to give you their credit card (even if you aren't charging it right away), I suspect the data would show that they're more willing to pay for it later. I've got no data to back that statement though. Does anyone have any experience with this to share?

mdasen• 18 years ago

I personally hate being asked for a credit card for a trial because I know the company is hoping that I won't cancel in time and that they get to charge me. If your product is good, I'll be on board. If it isn't, I don't want to go through administrative hassle (especially since many sites make it difficult to cancel - sometimes even requiring phone calls).

maryrosecook• 18 years ago

The motivation behind requiring a credit card for free trials is that many people forget, or can't be bothered, to cancel before they start getting charged.

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

I understand what you're saying, but I think most people feel (correctly) like companies who ask for the credit card info up-front are banking on people just being too lazy or forgetful to cancel. While that might result in some decent short-term cashflow, we don't feel that it's a smart move long-term, as that's not really the kind of relationship we want to have with our customers.

timf• 18 years ago

One reason I think it should be required is to do vetting up front. That is, say you are offering something ISP/colo-like through your SaaS, something along the lines of a web proxy service. Not good to have people on free trials doing illegal things and having no way to identify them.

I understand credit cards are not great vetting but it's better than nothing in these situations. I wish there were a way around this (which is mostly why I'm posting this comment, perhaps someone can relieve me of any ignorance).

"Fax me a copy of your license" is out of the question ... the only thing I've come up with is to have a pretty crippled free demo that at least gets you a chance to see half of it in action.

pedalpete2• 18 years ago

Don't be torn. You never would have had me even try your service if you asked for a credit card. I suspect its the same for most people.

Getting a credit card later is proof that you have made an invaluable tool that people just didn't forget to cancel, and should make it easier for you to adjust your service until you hit the sweetspot and become a must have.

jfarmer• 18 years ago

Why feel anything? Test both approaches and see which converts better.

Let the data determine the best course of action.

unalone• 18 years ago

I hate that Feedback tab. I don't know what service provides it, but it ruins my process of browsing the site, it's ALWAYS slow to load, and I think a contact form is much more useful.

The design is clean. Two things: make a hover effect on the "Free Trial" button, it feels oddly static right now, and "60 sec signup, no credit card" bleeds off the button in Safari 4.

Now, question, from a genuine newbie: how is your service better than my just subscribing to a set of 6 RSS feeds?

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

Thanks for the feedback...we're still working through design and layout issues, so all feedback and advice in this area is welcome.

You can definitely put together a free service to monitor mentions of your brand, but there's a few things that you miss:

1. No analysis or deeper meta info about the conversations and the people who are talking

2. No dashboard to quickly see an overview of what topics and brands you're tracking have new mentions

3. Takes more time to put together the feeds and keep up on what new social channels are relevant and should be added.

4. No integrated ways to engage in the conversations you find, which just saves a bit of time.

5. No collaborative features, such as being able to see which items someone else on your team already responded to.

Obviously, for some users, a free solution using RSS feeds or something similar is the way to go, but if your time is worth $50 / hour, our solution only needs to save 24 minutes per month to be cost effective.

jbenz• 18 years ago

The design is really great. Very clean, lots of white space, clear call to action. Just wanted to say: Good work!

flexterra• 18 years ago

I like the idea

eisokant• 18 years ago

It looks like a great site especially since you allow filtering to some extent. I was just deleting my account with Techrigy.com earlier since they just didn't get it right, MightyBrand has a lot of potential.

When I tried blocking an author though I got the following error from Google Chrome:

The webpage at http://mightybrand.com/brands/block has resulted in too many redirects. Clearing your cookies for this site may fix the problem. If not, it is possibly a server configuration issue and not a problem with your computer.

All the best,

Eiso

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

We'll definitely look into that error. Thanks for the feedback!

(Note to self: check site in Google Chrome next time!)

ivankirigin• 18 years ago

Definitely a cleaner design than BlueSwarm. Nice work.

symptic2• 18 years ago

With a name like MightyBrand, while I think you've got a solid design already, it just doesn't come across to me as something bold enough to sport the name 'MightyBrand'. I'd look to add bold, heavy, red coloring rather than orange. The white feels clean, but it also feels a bit too open.

Also, in terms of conversions, placing the icons with links to the social sites themselves will drive some traffic away. Instead, create case studies for each one with very bold and obvious calls to action on the pages inviting the user to get involved.

The screenshot is good, but the border is bigger around the screenshot than the 'Free 30-day Trial' button. I'd sugegst either making the button 'louder' or simply increase the border's size, or decrease that of the screenshot.

Internally, one thing I notice is very wide columns for your content. This makes the text a burden to read. Make them more narrow. it looks like the line-height is good, but it may need to be bigger. A lot of the text is bold when it shouldn't be. You want a larger contrast between the content and the headers.

The Pricing page is a good start, but it's too bland right now. Spice it up by adding short descriptions of each benefit under the price chart. Add background colors to the chart items themselves. make the most important item larger and in the center. The little blurb underneath could do with some shortening I think. "Special Request? Contact us." As it is, it's too much text for something so simple. You can have more text on the contact page if need be.

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

Yeah...we're not designers, and it shows :) Really appreciate you taking the time to put together so much feedback in that area. We've had some guidance from the designer who did our logo and helped us with the layout, but we're still working on cleaning things up. I'll add your items to the list :)

symptic2• 18 years ago

Glad I could help! You can find me easily if you need any more input.

rogercosseboom• 18 years ago

Second.

Your name stands out from other websites, but the design does not. I would strongly suggest less a "Web 2.0" look. By that I mean lose the orange/grey color scheme, silly white gradiated buttons, position:absolute feedback link.

A good reference would be design that utilize a more traditional poster-like typography, rather than other websites.

This might be helpful: http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/20-websites-with-beautifu...

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

Geez...those are some sweet designs. We're sans designer at the moment, but we'll see if we can dredge some inspiration from stuff like this. Thanks!

rokhayakebe• 18 years ago

Finally a startup with "Pricing".

kbrower2• 18 years ago

Definitely interested in this and would become a paying subscriber, if: 1. prices were lower 2. it was more comprehensive(went through tinyurls for your domain, scanned other social websites)

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

Great to hear. A couple quick questions:

1. What's the price point that you'd be willing to pay for? What would expect for that price, in terms of number of brands tracked and number of users on your account?

2. Can you explain the tinyurls thing a bit more? What other social networks would you like to see added? (we're working on a long list right now, btw)

Thanks!

avinashv• 18 years ago

re (2) I imagine he means that your application followed through shortened-URLs to see if they point through to the client's brand and monitor that--it comes up a lot in Twitter, for example.

kbrower2• 17 years ago

I would pay $1/month per brand with a single user

pedalpete2• 18 years ago

I think your messaging is a bit off in the "add brand" section

I created a brand, and then it asked for keywords or phrases, so I entered keywords, not the brandname itself as I thought this was a tag kinda think, maybe you were doing analysis on cross-section of Brands (that's capital B, 'cause you are calling your brand grouping a 'Brand').

Not a bad idea to have Brand keywords. Anyway, of course I was supposed to enter the brands I wanted to follow in that box, like the comma delimited list said, but of course, I didn't do that the first time.

Then I had to create another Brand (I'm beginning to think that Brand is a bad word for that, Brand Group or something might be better). I couldn't find how I edit a Brand I already created. Of course, the "edit brand' is in the menu on the left, but for some reason I expected it to be up near the to by the "add brand" button. Add/Edit do go really well together.

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

We were just talking about cleaning up the add brand page and making it more intuitive, as you're not the first person to do this :-) Thanks for the feedback!

brandnewlow• 18 years ago

three things.

1. The "keyword" concept can be better explained. I wasn't sure what to put there during registration. It was only after I saw it in action, and saw that it was actually asking for specific search terms, that I understood. Then I went back in and changed the keywords for my brand to specific terms I wanted to tack, rather than words that described my business.

2. When I see my latest results, I want some kind of a refresh button that will tell the system to go check for new results.

You know how some people refresh their inboxes all the time hoping for new mail? I would totally do that with this, hoping for new results. So give me a refresh button that checks for new terms.

3. The language on the brand-editor page near where I enter my Twitter info is confusing. Under the "change password" field there's a checkbox....with no text near it to explain what the heck it does. That needs to be fixed.

There's some big text to the left just kind of floating that says "Don't display tweets from this account." I guess that might apply to the check box. If so, shrink it and pull it closer to the check box.

Also, with the twitter setup, when I enter my twitter info, I want a little JS message confirming that Mighty Brand successfully linked up with my twitter account, so I know that's working and the pipes aren't goofed up or something. Put me at ease.

I may think of more stuff later.

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

New pricing model: we add a refresh button, connect it to TipJoy, and charge you 10 cents per click :-)

Just kidding...all your feedback is helpful and I've added it to the list (which is growing at an alarming rate). In particular, we're going to completely overhaul the "add brand" page to make it more clear and give you sample results as you're filling out the form so you can see what to expect.

3pt14159• 18 years ago

Awesome product, we (FreshBooks) may even end up using it. But it is going to be kinda cheap for us, all we need is the blogger package. This is sillly. We are a 30 employee company, we could afford to pay much more.

You should up your prices for guys like us, or (somehow) charge on some other metric.

Awesome site - it is totally slick.

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

Based on a lot of feedback about our pricing model, we're going to rethink a few things. Really appreciate your positive feedback!

geuis• 18 years ago

In FF3, clicking on Feedback shows underneath the video on http://mightybrand.com/features

jwesley2• 18 years ago

You need to allow brand names to be more than 20 characters. A lot of brands are longer than that, for example school names. "University of Blank" will almost always be too large, and those educational brands spend a ton of money on marketing.

ewoodh2o• 18 years ago

Looks well thought out - I think the idea has great potential! Just a few points on the marketing pages:

* Why do the Twitter / Yahoo / Digg links on the home page actually link to those sites? Maybe it's because the arrow pointing up to the T for Twitter, but I clicked one of those links expecting more information about how your service integrates with that site. Instead was swept off your site. I'd gander that most of the people in your target audience are well aware of what these sites are.

* Is there really no audio on the screencast? A little explanation along with it would go a long way.

I'll look into it a bit more later on. Seems to have promise though! Good luck!

sam_in_nyc• 18 years ago

I also clicked on a logo, expecting it to change the picture beneath it. Completely agree, audience already knows about these sites, and besides, the UI suggests it's going to switch the picture.

jwesley2• 18 years ago

A few suggestions:

There needs to be a way to sort the results by source so people can see only mentions on twitter, digg, blogsearch, etc. Currently it can be tough to tell where any given conversation was found.

It would be helpful to have negative filters for removing false positives. Some brands have similar keywords, so it's annoying to see the same irrelevant topics coming up.

The positive/negative filters need some work. About half the results in the negative tab were actually positive in the test I did.

You're tracking the keywords by sucking in RSS feeds for search queries correct? You might have a challenge convincing savvy individuals to pay for a service they could basically recreate in an hour inside their own feed reader.

dkokelley• 18 years ago

In your FAQ you have the question:

Why would I need something like this?

People 'love' to feel like someone is listening. Millions of people are talking online about you, your competitors, and your market space. If you're not listening and effectively communicating with them, you're missing a great opportunity for customer support and acquisition.

From a sales perspective, I think this is a bad approach. It's a defensive position that assumes the visitor's default position is "I don't think I need this." When I read this line, my thinking changed from "This could be useful" to "Yeah, why DO I need this?"

The answer to the question is good, but the question itself is what I would change. You could ask "How will MightyBrand.com help me achieve x?" and then answer by selling the benefits of your service.

Also, the Feadback tab hovers over the text on some pages (like the FAQ).

Goodluck with this. I think it's a great idea! Goodluck on the execution!

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

Really appreciate the feedback. Sounds like we need to step back and go through the copy and marketing approach with a critical eye after spending so much time mired in the code. Thanks again!

joshuarr• 18 years ago

http://mightybrand.com

jpwagner• 18 years ago

Looks good. Great concept. Pricing section MUST be reworked. no on "big shot"

toddc• 18 years ago

Good idea, now just start refining it.

Users love a sparse UI, but you've gone overboard. You need to add descriptions to the different pricings; the labels aren't intuitive. I assume you mean 3 brands = monitor three brand destinations (e.g. youtube.com mentions, twitter mentions, and yahoo news mentions). That is confusing to marketing people. Try to make it more clear that you offer increasing depth penetration for a single brand. The multiple users feature isn't intuitive either. --Neither of these items were adequately answered by your FAQ.

I would revise your FAQ language, it comes across as too chatty and colloquial. Your trying to get into the wallets of marketers, act professional. Your design is clean and well done, now bring the writing up to the same level.

bretthoerner• 18 years ago

Nitpick: make a PNG logo from the original and replace your JPEG - it is your brand, after all. (the fuzz is annoying, and stands out against an otherwise very clean site)

http://mightybrand.com/img/mightybrand.jpg

asnyder• 18 years ago

You should have another option for a single brand. Currently I only want to monitor one brand, and wouldn't use the extra 2 the blogger option provides. Furthermore, this discourages me from signing up because I feel that after 30 days I would be paying for something that I'm not using.

ryanwaggoner13• 18 years ago

Yeah, we're hearing more and more that our pricing plan isn't ideal. We're considering adding a "solo" plan that allows one user to track one brand at a lower price point. Thanks for the feedback!

Ask HN: Review our startup - MightyBrand.com

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