I think this service could be very useful for me when transparent synchronization with mobile be ready. Evernote have not created correct two way mobile synchronization yet.
I think if I use it for a week I'll be hooked. Some sort of game mechanism to get people to use it for that initial crucial time frame might be helpful.
Did he say that some where else? I can honestly say I may have been more likely to open it up and check out the site because it's a YC company, but I am 'giving it a chance' because I don't have anything else that does this except scrap paper and issue queues and I liked how you can change what the root node is and the clever use of breadcrumbs.
That, and because it's extremely fast compared to other software. I usually tend to go with less apps, but this could be a nice addition for me. Time will tell.
I find it's the perfect combination. Watch the 45s video, and you know everything about the product. All that's left to do is enter an email address + password and you can start using the app.
It's a simple tool that only needs a simple explanation and simple signup box.
That said, a text explanation would make the process even faster. Also it would be interesting to see a usable mini-version of their hierarchical list right on the homepage that I could play around with before even putting in my email address.
We'll put this stuff online and put more descriptive text. Thanks for the feedback. Conversions are really good, btw, so something's working.
Regarding your specific questions:
1) "Is it online only?" You can currently edit offline and when you go back online it'll sync your changes. Don't close your browser window, though, cause it'll lose the changes. That'll be fixed soon thanks to html 5 caching.
2 & 3) "Is it free?" & "Forever?" It's going to be like Dropbox, freemium with a quota. In other words, free forever up to a certain number of lists allowed. We'll grandfather in early users.
Most people don't know what an outliner is, so that's why we decided not to use it. We're really approaching it as text editor designed for lists, even though that ends up being an outliner.
For tech people, you're definitely right. For most people, this really is a new category of thing.
Annoyance from the homepage: I don't want to have to watch a video to figure out what you do. Watching a video for me is one step of engagement after I've figured out if I have some basic interest. If I can't establish that immediately, I'll just close the window. Videos can be great for more in depth info, but why not use the space taken up by "A better way to think" (which says nothing) to give a one-line description of what it the product is?
I guess on a similar note, I also don't want to sign-up with my e-mail to use and then consequently decide whether I do or do not like another GTD tool.
It would help to have a demo visitors can play around with in realtime.
I would respectfully say just the opposite. In a 45 second video, they showed the product, I saw someone using it who already knew how to use it and I had no more commitment than clicking "play".
A video is great but many people aren't going to bother with it if they aren't otherwise interested.
"A Better Way to Think" means nothing to me and is the only other thing to grab my interest. I would have clicked away in about 2 seconds if I didn't come across this on HN.
EDIT:
Why not something like "Your Brain. Organized. Everywhere." for a headline? It doesn't seem to be "a better way to think" but a way to "organize things the way you naturally think" [from the video].
I can definitely see myself using this and almost passed it up.
Oh, I like these suggestions. Yeah, tagline should change. Perhaps we'll use "Organize things the way you naturally think". Need to put more thought into this.
I live in a country with one of the slowest Internet connections out there, I'd really rather read a 2-line paragraph description than watch a 45-sec video.
Besides, YouTube is blocked in most offices - like mine.
I would suggest, even better would be a really well thought out picture/diagram that tells the story. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and it is far more likely it will be "read".
If you live in such a country do you expect free internet services to target you? At my startup a country with horrible internet is a country I do not care about, sorry but there's just too many other people to target and other things to worry about. The sense of entitlement to free services also bugs me.
Dropbox.com is pretty much a blank page with a video in the middle and a massive signup button. At the bottom there are links to the blog and whatnot. Is that what you mean?
We technically don't have a blog or any additional info yet, so we can't exactly link to that stuff. A few sentences of additional text we can and will do though.
I rarely watch videos like this; if I'm in a shared office environment I don't want to distract others around me. If I'm at home I'm probably browsing while my family watch TV so again, the noise of the video will be distracting. Without anything on the page to make me think it's worth reaching for the headphones, I'll move on.
We'll set up Facebook Connect for those that don't want to register directly. Reason we don't have anonymous demo page yet is that it would take significant work to get the data to port to your actual account if you choose to sign up. It'd be a bad thing for someone to spend 10 minutes entering data into the demo and then lose it on signing up. We actually had that before and it was a problem.
We want to do this, but for purposes of launching more quickly we haven't done it yet.
One compromise would be to have the instructions/intro entered into a demo page that people could interact with but not save - it would encourage exploration of the interface without encouraging/requiring people to enter their own info. TaskPaper for Mac does something like this in an appealing way, and has almost the same interface as WorkFlowy.
Yeah, that's a good idea. We messed around with that, but didn't quite get it right. People got too engrossed in that and never really got around to creating their own stuff. The jury is out on it, though. We're definitely not happy with our onboarding process as it currently stands.
Why would anyone using a demo page be under the illusion that they would be able to save their data? To wit: It's a demo page.
I agree with the above sentiment that not offering a means of trying the product out before registering is a blocker for many, many people( myself included ).
Yeah, good point. We've found that conversions are pretty good with a super stripped down site, but we're probably going to add some descriptive text too.
Just to offer another data point: I almost never watch videos but was interested enough to do so in this case. It was brief and offered enough to convince me that this might be my go-to application for managing my projects and tasks.
After playing with it for a few minutes, I am excited by its simplicity and ease of use. I've bounced around from Google docs to omni outliner to paper and pencil with just about everything in between, but I'm glad to have this tool at my disposal.
I worry that embedding media would just overcomplicate it. There's definitely a point where it's simple enough and adding more features will only detract from the overall effectiveness.
We had embeddable media implemented but took it out because the UI wasn't right yet. We need to figure that out, but I think it is definitely important enough to work on.
Small nit: In Chrome, hit the backspace a few too many times and it fired the "Back" action of the browser. Might want to override this default when in text editing mode.
Yes, this! Add some example lists to it, and reset it every hour or so. This way when they sign up, they don't just see an empty list, but already have ideas what to do with it.
Maybe even add some example lists for new registered user (you could use that to add a little user guide).
Is this a good space to compete in? There are zillions of sites like it, it's really easy to duplicate, and hard to make money off of? Nevertheless, best of luck to you.
I don't mean to be cynical but honestly to me this space is an analog to self-help books. Todo/notes/productivity apps probably can hook people for a few weeks but beyond that I imagine most people won't put forth the effort to keep up with it.
After using quite a few of these different systems myself and paying for many, I've found many people have the wrong philosophy. It's not about fitting your life to a system, but finding a system to complement your life.
Most importantly, when your life changes, change systems. I constantly switch between different combinations of apps to keep my life in order based on what's going on in my life at the time.
Point taken, but a big aim of ours (I'm one of the founders) is to help people do what they're already doing in a better way. I was creating tons of Google Docs full of lists before I started using WorkFlowy. They were pretty unmanageable, but they were the best thing I had at the time.
My guess is yes. I think it's worth trying, at least.
There may exist zillions of sites, but that in and of itself doesn't matter. If they can build a better product that can draw a large enough audience, that's important. I have personally looked around for tools like this, but haven't found anything that really kicks ass. Playing with their tool makes me optimistic -- they may be on to something.
I don't think they have to worry much about duplication. Building the product isn't the hard part, getting users is. Not sure if they'll be successful here, but if they fail it'll probably not be because of a clone.
Good point with the money, that almost certainly be tough. However if their product is useful enough and enough people use it they'll have an opportunity at making serious money.
My app Noodles (see: makeramen.com) was just another todo list on the Android market, and somehow -to my surprise- gained some very solid traction.
The amazing thing about the productivity software space is that everyone wants their app to do something different. It's also much more of a designer's space. I've seen countless apps that have all the "features," but the actual interface and interaction is so awkward you end up spending more time fighting the system than using it.
As many people have noted about 37signals, people realize the benefits of software like this almost immediately, and will easily spend money on it. Contrast that with other social sites where people are just not culturally incline to pay for services that connect you with friends. But you start talking about productivity, and helping people work faster, better, and more efficiently, and they see benefits immediately, which means they'll reach for their wallets immediately as well.
To-do, organization and project management are glaring unsolved problems that humans have been trying to solve for the last 2 million years. Yes, zillions of sites. But none, yet, are satisfactory solutions. Yet.
I really like the product. I currently use Things for my GTD, so it would be competing with that. I would have to have an iPhone app version to make the switch. The UI also lends itself to a useful project management tool, which I always thought was a space in need of some simplification.
Tasks need to have dates I think for this thing to be both a brain organizer and a productivity tool, which I think is ultimately what it is going to have to be to be successful (and it is names workflowy).
I have used mindmaps before, which is basically the same idea with a different interface.
I'd like each node to have a "due by" or "do on" date, and maybe a simple color coding.. just a way to arbitrary label things into one of a few sets for later polling.
This is young so no one has built up huge maps of their brains and their lives, or imagine an organization using this.. it could get huge and cumbersome. To solve this you'd need to be able to pull all the 'purple' items from deep in the tree into it's own list, or get a list of everything that I said needed to be done today, or by friday.
In any case, I think this is a great tool, and I have been looking for a seamless way of keeping track of things, and this just might fit the bill. I will be giving it a try.
Curious how this is going to be monetized as well, I hope I don't get addicted and end up with another cellphone bill.
Yeah, lots of this is right on. Dates: need to do it. Taggin/Labeling and filtering is super key and one of the next big things we're going to work on.
Regarding monetization, we're thinking that we're going to have a premium option above a certain number of lists/items. We're, of course, going to grandfather in early users.
I hope that you don't sacrifice the simplicity here. Instead of actual fields or clickable options for setting tags and due dates, let me type them in and then display them as needed.
something like:
look into alternatives for GTD due 12/1/2010 [work, gtd]
Yeah, everything's going to be text editable. The twitter #hashtag model is what we'll probably follow. So if you type, say, "!" it might pull up a date picker and then when you choose the date it'll insert it in the text like !2010-10-24 (and record the metadata invisibly for sorting/filtering and whatnot).
I really like the app and I'm definitely going to be using it for many things from this point on, but I would use it even more if you had Collaboration. I need to be able to collaboratively edit a section of my list with my coding team. We should be able to move this section of the list where ever each of us wants it in our individual accounts.
Would that be too difficult to implement at this point?
The name grates on my nerves (although I am aware of the URL shortage problem). But the product looks cool. I'm going to use it for a few days and see how I like it. It looks near perfect.
Also, I have no idea how this is a business, but I've resigned myself to being thoroughly confused by Valley business sense. I imagine you will be no more or less economically successful than simplenote.
As a business, I think we'll follow the lead of dropbox and evernote. Some variety of:
1) You get a lot for free.
2) If you need even more (or just love us) you can pay us (My hunch is we'll also have an easy to find "I need a lot of space but am poor." option)
3) You can always earn more space by promoting us
Also, once we have collaboration this could be a pretty powerful enterprise tool, and businesses pay lots of money for software.
I would ask for a good mobile web version way before an App (android or iphone). If you have a good mobile web version, people can pretend it's an app, and if it works -- feel free to use PhoneGap to make a real honest-to-god app out of it.
I watched the workflowy video in the article, thought "meh". Then I came back to HN to read the comments, and clicked on your app. Tried the demo, got intimidated by the interface and left. Came back to HN to read more comments, decided to check out workflowy's site afterall. A simple sign up, validation from Matt Cutts, and the fact that its a YC company persuaded me to give it a try.
tl;dr - Validation does matter. Convince the people who your target market trusts, and the rest will follow.
Just played with it. I like it, except in the 30 seconds of playing around, wasn't obvious if I'm creating a new list when I do an entry, or if an entry is a list. It's nice and snappy though.
You might want to take screenshots of a few use cases, skitch them up and post that on a more....link for those who want to learn more.
192 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 199 ms ] threadIt stood out from the usual ones by being high energy and compelling. I also like how the clapping was kept in at the end.
I think this service could be very useful for me when transparent synchronization with mobile be ready. Evernote have not created correct two way mobile synchronization yet.
Is it online only? Is it free? Forever or for a trial? ...
And it worked because I signed up.
Most people wouldn't care or even know what YC is.
Great site.
http://www.paulgraham.com/really.html
That said, a text explanation would make the process even faster. Also it would be interesting to see a usable mini-version of their hierarchical list right on the homepage that I could play around with before even putting in my email address.
Regarding your specific questions:
1) "Is it online only?" You can currently edit offline and when you go back online it'll sync your changes. Don't close your browser window, though, cause it'll lose the changes. That'll be fixed soon thanks to html 5 caching.
2 & 3) "Is it free?" & "Forever?" It's going to be like Dropbox, freemium with a quota. In other words, free forever up to a certain number of lists allowed. We'll grandfather in early users.
Er, I love your product and use it, but how does that model even make sense? Couldn't I get around it by having everything in a single root list?
Also, Dave Winer would be all over it. :)
For tech people, you're definitely right. For most people, this really is a new category of thing.
It would help to have a demo visitors can play around with in realtime.
In my book, they got it exactly right.
"A Better Way to Think" means nothing to me and is the only other thing to grab my interest. I would have clicked away in about 2 seconds if I didn't come across this on HN.
EDIT: Why not something like "Your Brain. Organized. Everywhere." for a headline? It doesn't seem to be "a better way to think" but a way to "organize things the way you naturally think" [from the video].
I can definitely see myself using this and almost passed it up.
Besides, YouTube is blocked in most offices - like mine.
I wonder where you got "entitlement to free services" from.
We technically don't have a blog or any additional info yet, so we can't exactly link to that stuff. A few sentences of additional text we can and will do though.
1. Why not have an anonymous demo page to play around with before asking us to sign up?
2. Why not have a big "Log in with OpenID" button so people can just link in with Google/whatever?
EDIT: I know people 'Login with Google' and 'Connect with Twitter', but I don't know anyone who dives at 'Login with OpenID'.
http://openid.net/get-an-openid/
We want to do this, but for purposes of launching more quickly we haven't done it yet.
I agree with the above sentiment that not offering a means of trying the product out before registering is a blocker for many, many people( myself included ).
After playing with it for a few minutes, I am excited by its simplicity and ease of use. I've bounced around from Google docs to omni outliner to paper and pencil with just about everything in between, but I'm glad to have this tool at my disposal.
> Type like you would in a text editor.
What percent of the population is comfortable with the term "text editor"?
Also would like to be able to embed media somehow (videos, images, etc.)
I'd like to use something like this as a good outlining tool.
The expanding of bullets into new pages is great.
Small nit: In Chrome, hit the backspace a few too many times and it fired the "Back" action of the browser. Might want to override this default when in text editing mode.
clickable sign-up: http://www.workflowy.com
Maybe even add some example lists for new registered user (you could use that to add a little user guide).
I hear Omni has a good business going, as well.
Simplenote, Evernote, & friends seem to be doing alright.
There's always room for something better.
Most importantly, when your life changes, change systems. I constantly switch between different combinations of apps to keep my life in order based on what's going on in my life at the time.
There may exist zillions of sites, but that in and of itself doesn't matter. If they can build a better product that can draw a large enough audience, that's important. I have personally looked around for tools like this, but haven't found anything that really kicks ass. Playing with their tool makes me optimistic -- they may be on to something.
I don't think they have to worry much about duplication. Building the product isn't the hard part, getting users is. Not sure if they'll be successful here, but if they fail it'll probably not be because of a clone.
Good point with the money, that almost certainly be tough. However if their product is useful enough and enough people use it they'll have an opportunity at making serious money.
My app Noodles (see: makeramen.com) was just another todo list on the Android market, and somehow -to my surprise- gained some very solid traction.
The amazing thing about the productivity software space is that everyone wants their app to do something different. It's also much more of a designer's space. I've seen countless apps that have all the "features," but the actual interface and interaction is so awkward you end up spending more time fighting the system than using it.
As many people have noted about 37signals, people realize the benefits of software like this almost immediately, and will easily spend money on it. Contrast that with other social sites where people are just not culturally incline to pay for services that connect you with friends. But you start talking about productivity, and helping people work faster, better, and more efficiently, and they see benefits immediately, which means they'll reach for their wallets immediately as well.
Until it is... anybody know of a good outlining app on the iPhone? All I need is "infinitely" nestable items.
EDIT: OK, Outliner seems pretty good. As far as workflowy goes, for desktop use I think I'd prefer a standalone app.
Yeah, we think it'll be pretty powerful for project management once it has collaboration, tagging and search.
I have used mindmaps before, which is basically the same idea with a different interface.
I'd like each node to have a "due by" or "do on" date, and maybe a simple color coding.. just a way to arbitrary label things into one of a few sets for later polling.
This is young so no one has built up huge maps of their brains and their lives, or imagine an organization using this.. it could get huge and cumbersome. To solve this you'd need to be able to pull all the 'purple' items from deep in the tree into it's own list, or get a list of everything that I said needed to be done today, or by friday.
In any case, I think this is a great tool, and I have been looking for a seamless way of keeping track of things, and this just might fit the bill. I will be giving it a try.
Curious how this is going to be monetized as well, I hope I don't get addicted and end up with another cellphone bill.
Regarding monetization, we're thinking that we're going to have a premium option above a certain number of lists/items. We're, of course, going to grandfather in early users.
something like: look into alternatives for GTD due 12/1/2010 [work, gtd]
Would that be too difficult to implement at this point?
currently i'm playing with meinmeister for deep-not-taking.
compared to mindmeister one thing hold me back in workflowy: lack of links
what i like: - makes nice use of the space (gets stuff out of the way when zooming in) - clean - works like my text files :)
hmm.. that's more pros then cons :D
1) You get a lot for free. 2) If you need even more (or just love us) you can pay us (My hunch is we'll also have an easy to find "I need a lot of space but am poor." option) 3) You can always earn more space by promoting us
Also, once we have collaboration this could be a pretty powerful enterprise tool, and businesses pay lots of money for software.
I watched the workflowy video in the article, thought "meh". Then I came back to HN to read the comments, and clicked on your app. Tried the demo, got intimidated by the interface and left. Came back to HN to read more comments, decided to check out workflowy's site afterall. A simple sign up, validation from Matt Cutts, and the fact that its a YC company persuaded me to give it a try.
tl;dr - Validation does matter. Convince the people who your target market trusts, and the rest will follow.
You might want to take screenshots of a few use cases, skitch them up and post that on a more....link for those who want to learn more.