Ask HN: Review my startup: Storage Room - A CMS for Mobile Apps
I think this always is way too much effort. I either have to create a small web application myself to manage and serve the content in JSON/XML or configure a large open source CMS to do this (which is a pain). And I have to host and maintain those systems, which costs time and money.
My hosted solution is cheaper, flexible and allows developers to configure many different data sets. Editors can manage the content for these data sets and you can then easily load that content into your mobile apps with JSON. You could also load the JSON into your website with JSONP or into a desktop app, but this is currently not the focus.
Basically a CMS for non-HTML applications. What do you think of this idea? Would you use it? Is there a market for this? Thanks so much for your feedback.
http://storageroomapp.com
25 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 69.1 ms ] threadBecause it is great to have the data in your database, but how do you or better an editor change it (I think hackers don't like editing content all day long and editors don't like to enter content in something like phpmyadmin).
Futon/phpmyadmin are great for entering or checking data as a developer or system administrator, but I think they are too complicated and technical for the average non-techie to manage content. That's why I built my solution.
Or can you configure Futon to have a really simple interface and also force it to only allow entry for specific keys in a document?
Why should I trust you? You're just a tiny business, and will probably go bankrupt any minute. Can you calm me down? Or do you want to avoid waking sleeping dogs?
You say you offer a very nice data entry solution like a CMS, and a nice REST API. That sounds interesting, but if I haven't overcome my fears from above, can you maybe separate them and have them access a database that I let Amazon run for me?
(This is a summary of a discussion on the #startups IRC channel.)
A lot of mobile application developers are probably not experts in server management and backups. It is not their priority and core competence. They want to build great applications quickly.
My solution gives them an easy to use CMS with a REST API for a low monthly cost, and they don't have to care about backing up data themselves. If they don't fully trust me, they can export their data from the CMS regularly themselves, so in a worst case scenario they still have their content.
You may want to offer a self-hosted version as well (sell it), to allay fears that one day you'll go away.
Why are the screenshots blurry?
I blurred the screenshots as they didn't look nice. I just have an ugly prototype so far. I wanted to ask for more feedback and validate the market more before spending more time on making the system nicer.
Currently you cannot sign up. You can only enter your email in a list and get notified when the product launches.
It's the same with Gmail, salesforce, 37signals products and many other services. There are almost always free open-source alternatives, but not everybody wants to deal with installation, hosting and maintenance of those solutions.
One criticism I have is not so much about the concept but the signup page. On your signup page you have that mini f.a.q. I think around a couple of those questions sound like they're coming from a skeptic. Your signup page shouldn't focus at all on the negative and I would probably even move the faq to a different screen all together. That screen is about funneling people into the service, not answering their questions.
Questions I think you can get rid of:
"Why isn't StorageRoom free?" -I have to pay for it, so should you, Jerk. The world isn't free.
"How does the 30 Day trial work?" - It's a 30 trial. You don't have to pay till you've been using it for a month. Haven't you ever seen an infomercial? Are you even smart enough to write code?
"What browsers work with StorageRoom?" - StorageRoom is a modern web app and, if you're planning on giving me money, you should trust that I put the time in to test on more than one browser. This isn't 1996 anymore you can't get away with "Optimized for Netscape Navigator 2.5 and later on and 800x600 resolution"... c'mon, seriously?
"Do I get a 30 day free trial if I upgrade?" - No, you cheap bastard! You already know what the service is like. You don't need to figure out if you like it or not. If you decide you need to increase your capabilities, that's on you.
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Sorry for the snark (well, not really... well, maybe a little.) You shouldn't be trying to argue an imaginary skeptic. You should be trying to tell us why your awesome product is so awesome.
Good luck!
If you are asking questions on browser support I'd think the most important one would be to clarify that it's not iPhone/Android specific
You probably also need to think more about your target audience - is it more of a WordPress for mobile data (in which case the focus should be on ease of use) or a Rails/Django for mobile data (in which case RESTful JSON API probably is a key selling point)? As you're potentially appealing to both groups possibly separate tours for different use cases would work "StorageRoom for Publishers: content creation for non-programmers", "StorageRoom for Developers: develop in your preferred language and we'll handle the backend for you"
It probably was the wrong choice, I will post the original screenshots with the next deploy.
* developer builds an iPhone app
* end-user provides some content for that app
* developer doesn't want the hassle of updating the app
* end user has an online editor to edit the content
- app updates itself
* developer sits on beach sipping daquiris <-- THE BENEFITS
If that is the case then the front-page should show it in the picture:
* a user with their phone
* a developer with the app
* the end-user customer with their CMS editor
If this is a correct description of the app then YOUR CUSTOMER is the developer and the tour page should then heavily feature Daquiris, instead of regular expressions. Getting high from regular expressions is about as lame as smoking dried banana skins :)
I don't know if the developer will then be sipping daquiris at the beach if he doesn't have to take care about managing the content himself, but he will have more time for more important work :).
Of course it's Open Source: http://github.com/workhabitinc/drupal-ios-sdk
We're going to be adding some white label applications and "officially" releasing it later in November with a new site launch (as well as an Android followup), but it's definitely another approach to this. We wanted to do something to connect the HUGE open source system Drupal to the colossal iOS and Android markets, and after a few months work, here it is.
Hopefully it could be a useful alternative for those of you interested. We also have a testkit here which makes it easy to debug your sites: http://github.com/workhabitinc/drupal-ios-sdk-example
Love some feedback from HN about it.
To the original poster, I think it's a good idea. There are a lot of competitors out there, and there is a lot of momentum in the space to connect up mobile apps and web to things. I would definitely test-market and see if there is interest. Personally, I think your idea may have merit — there is a giant demand for data services on phones, and anything that makes it easier would be great. I would encourage you to look at models where you could drop the "whole kit and kaboodle" because I think data services are going to commoditize extremely quickly.