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Show HN: Help me build a better alternative to basecamp

18 points by eibrahim ↗ HN
Use beta invite code "hacker news" to sign up - only 50 people... This is VERY early and is missing lots of features but you can help shape the future... Let me know what you think...

See http://www.ubercamp.net/

32 comments

[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 65.5 ms ] thread
eibrahim
OP here - I built this to get more familiar with anuglar as well as rails... It's a lot of fun and I am trying to scratch an itch that I have because I think basecamp is extremely limited... Even if no one uses this, I am still having a lot of fun building it :)

Again this is very early private alpha... thanks...

1123581321
Keep up the work. I have to say though that you're missing Basecamp's killer feature, which is that it's really fast so people actually use it.
eibrahim
It's probably because of all the HN traffic :)... But once I go to production, I will make sure the hosting is adequate and the code optimized
philgr
As soon as you develop it to a proper level, please let me know. It would be my pleasure to review it.
eibrahim
Cool. If you signup to the app, I will email you with updates.
kirk21
Looks great, we use Producteev atm but a lot of us don't like it. It became cluttered because we use it with a lot of ppl (user rights etc.).

What UI tools do you use? The page where users fill in their data is cool :)

orchdork10159
Is this project on GitHub? Are you looking for help?
eibrahim
It's not... I don't know if I want to open source it or not... What kind of help can you provide? Email me eibrahim at gmail
ChrisNorstrom
Please don't make this open source. It'll end up in the vast graveyard with all the other open source projects that went no where. How are you going to sustain development, make it better, hire designers, make a living if you just give it away for free. You are not Mozilla, Oracle, Google, Automattic. They make money in various ways which is how they can support development of their open source software. You don't.

Don't be afraid of asking for money and becoming successful.

zachlatta
I don't see how open source and profitable are mutually exclusive. Cloud9 and others have open sourced their software while staying profitable.

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather pay someone x dollars per month than going through the hassle of setting up a server just for hosting an app.

eibrahim
I tend to feel the same way. My plan is to make it reasonably affordable - maybe $10 per month. I want to make enough money to make it worthwhile for me to maintain it and improve it.
schmappel
Apparently I have a "big sreen". ;)
declandewet
Hey, I registered and I'm liking the idea. The design is pretty cool but there's a few usability flaws. First off, it's quite slow to load pages. I'm not sure why that is, perhaps because it is just in alpha and isn't on a perfectly suitable hosting environment, but speed should definitely be a priority.

Second, on the page that lists projects, the plus sign icon indicated to create a project was a little hard to spot. It's further away from the majority of the content and there really isn't anything to make it catch the user's eye (even though it's likely the first action a user will make).

You could use contrast to make it stand out more. For example, the first thing that caught my eye was the "Feedback" button on the right. It is a darker black and contrasts from the rest of the page, and so it sticks out.

Incorporate some of these tips into your design: http://goodui.org/

declandewet
Also, when adding a task to a project, there is no immediate feedback that the task was added. I had to refresh the page to make sure it was added.
eibrahim
weird!!! that must be a bug... the task should show right away... I will take a look...

also... agreed on the "new" project butto... it's not obvious. I want to review the UI/UX once I flush out higher priority items.

thanks.

smartwater
Abusing those ellipses again buddy.
bigfoot13442
It would be nice to see the full task edit options when adding a task too.
sergiotapia
You should let us know what features you offer in contrast with services like Basecamp.

Why should I register on your website?

eibrahim
WOW!!! All 50 beta invites were claimed in 10 minutes :) Gotta love Hacker news :)... If you really want to try it, email me at eibrahim at gmail
eibrahim
I added 50 more invites because we "sold out" very quickly... use "hacker news" as invite code
matt_
won't let me scroll down on android so I can't sign up.
eibrahim
which screen are you referring to? Could you send me a screenshot to eibrahim at gmail
ChrisNorstrom
Very Very good start. Clean, Simple, minimal yet colorful where it needs to be. I'm going to keep an eye on this project. I've got a few proposals but I want to see if this project is going to stick around for the long term and weather others will join you. How much do you think you'll charge once it's up and going?
xauronx
I don't know. I tried what seems like 100 different tools for this but Asana is amazing and I never looked again. Basecamp != end all of these tools.

That being said, your work looks great and I wish you the best of luck.

ataleb52
Pretty simple and easy to use. However as someone who uses teambox.com I find it lacking quite a bit. I use Team Box for features like the gant chart, other app integration, and team sharing.

I can definitely appreciate the work but I would need a better reason to switch.

bigfoot13442
This is awesome. Yes, there are some usability problems, a few bugs, and tonnes of missing features, but I already like it better than Basecamp. I started dev on a product like this a long time ago, when Basecamp was relatively new, but I didn't complete it. I was going for a Redmine-esque feel and that's what I get out of Ubercamp.

Keep it up. I hope you will stick it out as you have some big competitors.