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Ask HN: Review my startup, ReminderBook

19 points by boocow ↗ HN
Hi All,

I've finally launched my first product after being inspired by many here. ReminderBook is a webapp for creating automated appointment reminders. I know I'm entering a heavily competitive market (with patio11 included). I would love to get your thoughts and feedback.

http://appointmentreminder.co

Thanks!

23 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 62.9 ms ] thread
bmelton
It's a VERY attractive site, and exactly the kind of design that I love. Taglines are clear and concise, call to action buttons are distinct and easy to find. All in all I love it.

The one question I have (and it isn't a critique, mind you) is that each of your plans seems to coincide fairly identically to AppointmentReminder.org (Patrick's offering) but is more expensive. Is this a white label offering of his? If not, what additional value to do you feel you're offering for the extra coin, or do you just believe that he's leaving money on the table?

boocow
Thanks for the compliments. It's not a white label of appointmentreminder.org, although did take Patrick's pricing into consideration, among a dozen others. I feel comfortable with my pricing at this point.
147
Do you have any customers yet? If so, where did you find them?
aymeric
Yes, very sexy design. Clearly inspired from 37Signals, but I don't see a problem about it.
aymeric
I noticed the domain name doesn't match the name of the website. That could confuse people.
vishalzone2002
great point... try getting remind.er or anything close to name
boocow
Do you think it's confusing? The http://appointmentreminder.co domain is just for the landing pages. Users login and use the webapp under the https://reminderbookhq.com domain. I'm hoping this helps with SEO and clarity when someone lands on the http://appointmentreminder.co domain. I know there is some debate about whether a non-(.com, .net, or .org) is weighted for SERP ranking.
vishalzone2002
i suggest doing A/B testing. its a great design but your entering price point is a bit high. all the best
[dead] righteous
Nice design.

What customer problem are you solving? Its not clear to me who or why someone would use your site.

latchkey
I thought of this same idea awhile ago and then realized that http://apptoto.com (stupid domain name) beat me to it. It has great integration with Google Calendar and is less expensive than your service.

p.s. I own MissReminder.com if you want to buy it. imho potential for much better branding... ;-)

holoiii
Very professional looking. Did you design this yourself?
boocow
Yes, I did. Thank you. Nice to get positive feedback.
tomburke
You could add your logo so that it would show in the browser tab. Nice design overall.
boocow
Overlooked that, thanks!
boocow
Thanks everyone for your feedback! I'm planning on sharing an update in the near future, hopefully with some successes.
itsprofitbaron
You should change the domain name you are operating from.

Also I'd stop redirecting everyone to AppointmentReminder.co & having users login at ReminderBookHQ.com for one thing, its bad user experience and its not great for SEO.

Sure you can claim that you have an EMD (Exact-Match Domain) but it doesn't really help SEO, in fact Google recently released an update to tackle EMDs even further. Likewise, it doesn't help you have rivals with the same name on a different tld - patio11 - appointmentreminder.org

You should definitely stick to one domain name and preferably change it, unless you can acquire ReminderBook.com. The reason for this is that its extremely beneficial for you to own the .com as you're targeting users who aren't exactly web savvy. Likewise running everything from one domain would be more beneficial to you in terms of User Experience, Branding & SEO amongst other things as well.

swastik
I really like the design; kudos on that! Clean and delivers the message just right. The pages also load really fast which is a nice addition.

I also second itsprofitbaron's comment on changing the domain name. I couldn't find it so I'd like to ask: Is there any way I could integrate the reminders with some sort of a calendar, maybe Google Calendar?

boocow
Thanks for taking the time to respond and thanks for the compliments. Do you mean an weekly agenda style calendar? Right now my scheduler just shows a daily agenda view. I have plans to add a weekly and monthly view as well.

Also there is no integration with Google Calendar but something I will explore. Thanks!

seanmel
Having a small business or startup business with tons of decision to make is mind bubbling brain-wreck, but I tried reading the Book Slicing pie Mike Moyer and it all made sense, in his book he emphasized the startup equity by providing an example; also talked about splitting equity using the-grunt-fund-calculator grunt calculator and dig in to details on equity structure founders equity equity compensation, and differentiating your choice on salaries or equity. http://www.slicingpie.com