Show HN: Planlike.pro – New Estimating Tool (planlike.pro)
Hey folks, want to share the project I've been working on for past few years. It's a project estimation tool which can be applied to pretty much any project, not only software development, but any where you'd want to know cost or time it takes.
Core features:
* Project resources such as engineer, or anybody/anything that you need to include into project
* PDF Export
* Easy features management including drag & drop
* Sorting/filtering/search
* Projects sharing(share with your client via link)
88 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 148 ms ] threadWhether it's a video or some kind of screenshot-based walk-through.. Just something that will tell me if this is a fit for me.
The abstract imagery on the site don't really convey the experience of using your app, and that doesn't tell me enough.
Good luck!
Maybe just do the video like what they asked for, so we can all make the assessment, instead of turning it into a greasy sales pitch. Not going to lie, this response put me off completely.
Direct contact introduces social pressure into what was previously a hands off window-shopping/product evaluation experience. If a person is expressly looking for a sales contact for 1-to-1 demos (e.g. after filling out a contact form), then that may be ok, but outside of that it certainly comes across pretty greasy.
The original comment was product & marketing feedback in general (suggestion to improve onboarding for all visitors), not a direct request for info solely for themselves. Replying with an offer of solving for them individually isn't in line with the intent of the original comment: it comes across as ignoring product feedback.
Fair enough the second reply stated the 1-to-1 demo would be quicker than creating a video, but the first reply gave no indication they'd take on board the video suggestion at all.
> They've clearly built the product to be a low touch experience
What makes you say that? If it was as clearly low touch as you say this thread would not exist.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
Congrats on launching though. Step 1 complete.
Rich ones just don't care about how to plan, they care about earning more.
Useless stuff then ?
That's before you even add in customers like startups that need to budget with other peoples money (burn rate).
Keep at it, it does get better over time.
It helps to not take the feedback personally. Everyone has an opinion, and they're usually shit. But flowers grow great in shit. Let it inspire you, not cover you.
* https://pixabay.com/images/search/womanpower/
* https://pixabay.com/photos/old-man-people-pensioner-wrinkles...
* https://unsplash.com/photos/W7pk4FfrSY0
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[0]: https://dropover.cloud/d018d9#ca9916e1-b91c-4818-a6c3-92a644...
FWIW, the quotes may be real but the photos not. Either way dishonesty is not a good way to start a business relationship…
- I skimmed the whole page and screenshots and I still don’t have a clue how it actually works. You need a video/gif of the thing being used.
- I hate the title font, it’s too wide and doesn’t fit the aesthetic
- The info text below one of the carousel things kept changing with the carousel, making it impossible to read.
- The quotes and photos are clearly fake, which makes the whole thing feel kinda scammy
As for quotes I think that's really bad idea, probably remove them until I get a real ones
I know it is a silly thing, but I felt the need to give this feedback for some reason.
[0] https://imgur.com/a/132V96x
- You need to make it possible to clone an existing template that shows of the features, see Notion as an example of where you almost always start from a template. (I see this is a paid feature maybe, but if so then you need a trial because it's not complete without it)
- When creating a project I'm not likely to know why I would want a label text and color.
- There is a lot of functionality and that makes it hard to make a path through the app (UX flow)
- For some cases, like Software Development estimating the cost/time is hard. Part of the reason that we do Fibonacci story points as a measure of complexity. This isn't going to apply to every type of project, but if I'm modelling out a tech startup using your tool then it's going to be an issue.
- Features, Pricing, Contact Us, How to's should not be in the top menu after I'm in the app.
Overall I think you have a solid problem that you're trying to tackle but it needs to be a lot easier to approach than it is currently. That means making it much easier to add common types of things (if it's a wedding the interface could look quite different, to planning a trip), it's the same mechanics under the hood but I'm not left drowning in options.
As I said in another comment. Congrats on launching.
Generally speaking I want to add more hits and tips to help new users get used to application.
bwt
* this https://securityheaders.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fplanlike.pro&fo... can be easy to fix (I'll give you the settings for haproxy or apache if you need)
* https://tools.pingdom.com/#619d161622000000 can be improved, too
I would also disable TLS 1.0 (https://www.immuniweb.com/ssl/planlike.pro/72wS3s8G/ ) and enable HTTP2 or have both HTTP2 and HTTP1
On the reset password you should not show us the world messages like "This email is not registered" (security)
then maybe
* have https://www.planlike.pro redirect to https://planlike.pro
* populate https://planlike.pro/robots.txt
It would really help to explain somewhere what sections, blocks, and cards are. The FAQ didn't really explain this and with no example to work from, I'm really not sure how I'm supposed to use this.
As a minor piece of feedback, when I drag and drop to reorder cards, the card I just dragged opens for editing. This is rather atypical behavior and I think I would find it very annoying if I was trying to rearrange a lot of cards.
Thanks for checking out. I'll fix that issue you have!
Two minor points:
1.Some of the language on the site feels very 'translated to English'. One example: "It’s better try it once than read it many times".
2. The landing page says it's for "Simple cost estimation and planning"; The Features page presents it as a project management tool with client-sharing features. That feels like two overlapping but different use cases/audiences.
PS: About being "too English" - yeah I'm from Ukraine, so English is not my native, but I'll do best!
Let’s say this item is going to cost me $90-120. I’d like to write down just that. Also I’d like to say that there is a 80% probability that I will be able to purchase the item for $90, 10% probability of spending $100, etc.
Then you can calculate all those estimations and probabilities and deliver a figure that is much more useful than just a =SUM() from an Excel table.
(I have used this method of estimation in software dev project management)
Meanwhile you can try our percentage type of cards - it allows you to add % amount of all cards in current block
I just feel like there is such a large disconnect between me and the people I know vs these new SaaS products popping up everywhere, each asking for 5-15 dollars each month. ~10 years ago I was totally on board when these same products where a one time AppStore purchase in the 1-5 dollar range. I wonder what changed.
Maybe it has something to do with me earning 1/5th of the average SV salary.
Even if it's not for you, people building stuff independently (and charging for it so they can sustain effort) should be celebrated, not scorned.
Plenty of subscription, web based projects used to be standalone apps you were only paying for once.
But this is the world we live in unfortunately.
For any given problem, I always think that the model (or "business logic") comes first, and then the GUI. I have no idea from you website what's the underlying model for your tool.
From browsing the home page it makes me think it this tool works kind of like "a frontend for a spreadsheet" ... but I'm just using my imagination, since you don't explain how it works or what it looks like.
Hope this doesn't sound too negative. Congrats on launching!
P.S.: the slideshow has to be the most cryptic I've seen in a long time... I can see tiny lil arrows left and right that are hard to click, next to "mysterious" integers that change every time I click the arrows. I'm guessing it may describe how many slides are to the left and right? Why not using the "de facto std" of showing one dot per slide, and highlight the current one?
Addendum 2: My preference would be a DSL to describe this kinds of problems, rather than a drag-and-drop, GUI interface. Advanced users could do away with the mouse completely, or even run the models from the command line or embedded in another app. Any given "fixed GUI" will always have limitations, but if you want to make it easier for non-power-users, you can also build a simple GUI on top of the DSL.
1: https://github.com/getguesstimate/guesstimate-app
1. On the pricing page, you seem to use commas (',') as decimal separators despite the price in USD. In the US, a period ('.') is customary as a decimal separator while commas are used to separate groups of three digits, ie: 100,000.001
2. Pricing itself: free should just show "$0" without decimals; on that note, for a professional tool, flat numbers would be preferable. Also, the text should either say "per user per month" or "/ user / month".
3. Plans: I think you should limit the professional tier a bit more and decrease the price slightly; in other words: leave minimal branding on it, only allow say 10 new projects / month, don't give SSO, etc. Businesses that drive any meaningful revenue will have no issue whatsoever paying real money for critical features like no/custom branding, unlimited projects, Single Sign On (SSO is required at many companies), 2FA, priority support, custom billing (20+ users), etc
4. Plan pricing: if you follow #3 above, I'd say rename the professional tier to "Pro" and charge $7/mo; rename the business tier to "Enterprise" and charge $20/mo.
5. Contact: perhaps provide an email address where people can more easily get in touch with you if they don't want to use the form.
6. Put a video showing the product on the front page, it'll be helpful for users to better understand the utility of your software.
Hope this is all helpful and congrats again on launching!!!