I'll admit that there are some similarities, but our focus is very different. What you see today is perhaps closer to Trello than what the experience of Someone.io will be a few months from now.
We have heard from many users who tell us that it is our design and attention to detail that they prefer over Trello. We know that won’t be the case for everyone, but there is plenty of demand for products that serve a similar purpose to Trello, but do things a little differently.
With that said, I think there are 3 main differences between us and Trello.
1. We are team focused. Someone.io is specifically focused on delivering value to teams in a work environment, where Trello has much broader aims. Our focus on teams allows us to better meet their needs.
2. We have simple but beautiful design. We want to be the easiest and most engaging task management tool on the market. Our research tells us that some users find Trello to be “dull" and “uninspiring" and we’ve found particular traction with creative teams who enjoy our approach.
3. We are in the process of becoming the first "Social Task Management” tool. Together with our research partners, we have developed some features designed to make users feel more interconnected with their team and more engaged with their work which we’ll start deploying soon.
1. Our focus is to serve teams so in the near future, all of our new features will be directed towards teams. (btw which features of trello do you feel lack "focus on teams" ?)
2. Our visual design is better than Trello.
3. We will eventually bring in more "social" collaborative tools (any idea what these will be like?)
If your aim is to provide a better team experience than Trello, then I don't think this qualifies as a MVP. It's not clear what those features are from this summary and trying out the product, EXCEPT the look & feel. It's definitely nicer than Trello IMHO. If that's the main differentiator you wanted to test at this stage, then I'd consider this MVP (and sounds like a great success, hitting #1 on HN). If not, I wish you would've waited a bit longer to include some of those key features.
If you want a self-hosted Trello clone, check out Wekan (http://wekan.io/).
I've recently installed Kanboard (http://kanboard.net) on the smallest DI instance and it works a treat. Kanban board, task list, calendar view, Gantt chart, it has a view for everyone. Simple enough for non-technical team members, yet enough features to effectively manage development projects.
It's not perfect, there are a few small bugs, but it seems to be actively developed and in general I can recommend the product thus far. Spend an hour tweaking the CSS to taste, and it's a very nice tool.
Just tried the demo Wekan, and I have to say that it does not give me any good feelings about it. The screenshot of Wekan on the landing page is totally different to the demo.
I'll admit that there are some similarities, but our focus is very different. What you see today is perhaps closer to Trello than what the experience of Someone.io will be a few months from now.
We have heard from many users who tell us that it is our design and attention to detail that they prefer over Trello. We know that won’t be the case for everyone, but there is plenty of demand for products that serve a similar purpose to Trello, but do things a little differently.
With that said, I think there are 3 main differences between us and Trello. 1. We are team focused. Someone.io is specifically focused on delivering value to teams in a work environment, where Trello has much broader aims. Our focus on teams allows us to better meet their needs. 2. We have simple but beautiful design. We want to be the easiest and most engaging task management tool on the market. Our research tells us that some users find Trello to be “dull" and “uninspiring" and we’ve found particular traction with creative teams who enjoy our approach. 3. We are in the process of becoming the first "Social Task Management” tool. Together with our research partners, we have developed some features designed to make users feel more interconnected with their team and more engaged with their work which we’ll start deploying soon.
Thanks for your question, have a great day!