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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7631389

by osmosissupport • 12 years ago

8 7 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hey, we just released an update for https://www.getosmosis.com. Osmosis gets you creating proposals and project questionnaires fast. What do you think?

hagbardgroup2• 12 years ago

Weird. I was looking for something just like this earlier today, and got frustrated because the only thing halfway decent I could find were some documents from RocketLawyer.

My only comment would be that my honest thought is that I would sign up for a month, pirate your questionnaires, and turn them into my own documents, but if the service is good enough I would probably not bother.

osmosissupport2• 12 years ago

Yeah, fair enough. A bunch of the questionnaires are available publically (see the footer of the site) because it shows off the product and has some SEO value - they all have download links to get Office files with the data.

The value of the product is as a CRM tool for people setting up small to medium size projects (vs $X0 million projects where would have you fill out an RFI for the customer, which is essentially the opposite of this)

hagbardgroup2• 12 years ago

Yes, I noticed that after my original comment and liked it a lot.

In my head (before I've used it) I'm thinking that I could edit these to match the client and what I think their knowledge level is.

Another pain point for me is getting stuck in extremely long conversations in person, over phone, or email before a proposal goes through when I'm trying to do an analysis of the customer's needs. Something that would keep me on track could help me close sales faster, so I like the idea a lot. More interesting than most of the SaaS things I've seen in this space.

psikorsky• 12 years ago

I think this would work well with repeat clients who know exactly what they want. However, many clients' attitude is I'll know it when I see it, but I couldn't tell you what 'it' is. Your product will accelerate the 'back and forth' but won't eliminate it all together, even with the detailed proposal generator.

sycren• 12 years ago

I'm commenting on the marketing aspect as a marketing analyst:

I would:

1) Change the navigation of the site making About 2nd.

In About, I honestly find it daunting that there is seemingly only one person behind it. The number of people behind a product doesn't matter so much, but it does matter how this is displayed. So for instance there is no info about Gary on who he is or to his twitter or linkedin. This kind of information is like a validation mechanism like testimonials and doesn't hurt to add. If anything, it makes the team member seem more real and accountable even if most of the users will never contact them through it.

The founder - Dominic St-Pierre is mentioned but there is no info about him at all.

2) Change your about page by: a) Adding all team member profiles to the page b) Providing more info about each team member c) Adding twitter & linkedin links to the team member profile

Example: https://hootsuite.com/about/leadership Even larger companies like twitter and twilio do something like this - http://www.twilio.com/company/management https://about.twitter.com/company/leadership

d) Put the team members at the bottom and the text from the founder at the top. If possible, add a story about why this company was made to solve what pain points for which audience.

3) Add a call to action button to 'Try Osmosis' in the navigation bar next to Login. Your call to action on the homepage is very prominent which is great, but on other pages you need to scroll down and so you probably lose potential customers. I would be surprised if this didn't increase your conversion rate.

4) To allow more information to be presented above the fold, move your Osmosis logo to the left allowing you to push up the rest of the content.

5) Consider the structure of your homepage, we have in order: i) Heading - Telling user what the product is in one line ii) Video - Explaining what product is in easy format iii) Call to Action button - To get users to sign up iv) Pain points - how this will help the user v) Integrations - how this will work with other user applications vi) Testimonials - How other users find it

You should consider adding info about the features in the space where the pain points reside like - http://www.twilio.com/ That also helps the user to understand how your software will work with the integrations. Consider a long form page. Look here for a comparison - http://conversionxl.com/long-form-or-short-form-why-not-both... If you can, try to standardise the font-size across all the pages. The 13px text looks odd in contrast to everything else especially on the integrations page.

Consider moving testimonials up the page. KashFlow (http://www.kashflow.com/) has video testimonials above the fold from different customers and twitter testimonials just below the fold. If you did move them up, then the testimonials link on the navigation page could move to a different page with more content - http://www.kashflow.com/about/our-customers/

Hope that helps

I need to get off to work now. nb. I used to work as a marketing analyst for KashFlow and now freelance for different startups, companies & charities - uk.linkedin.com/in/jameslethem/

osmosissupport2• 12 years ago

Thanks, that's really helpful!

cryptex_vinci• 12 years ago

Everything seems okay. Try sponsoring blog post or bloggers.

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