[mrep]

Wow, that developer site linked by in the comment I responded to is advertising a WAY different (more specific) product than your normal website (from what I understand at least).

The regular website is advertising something that makes more sense to me but there are still dozens of pages advertising dozens of different features and different prices. I guess that might work for larger corporations that have already solved internally some of these problems and can pay for bureaucratic solutions but I just want a solution to a known problem.

I'm not saying catering to enterprise customers is a bad thing (they have lots of money so you probably should), But there is a reason VC's ask for a vision. What problem does okta solve because I have spent over 10 minutes trying to read through all of your web pages and I still don't know why I should use you guys.

I'm not a marketing person, but as a customer, i generally want to know what problem a company solves in 5-10 seconds and know how they solve it within a minute. If you cannot convey that simple information, then I think your product is crap and you are just marketing your product with vague/complex/buzzword terms.

[Spooky23]

If you expect to understand identity in 10 seconds, you don’t even know what you don’t know.

You know how we hear about dopey password disclosure breaches every month? Using a service like Okta, Azure AD, etc lets you avoid that type of embarrassment/liability and lets you control the dozens of SaaS and other accounts that your employees use.

[mrep]

> If you expect to understand identity in 10 seconds, you don’t even know what you don’t know.

I'm not asking to "understand identity in 10 seconds" whatever that means. I literally just want to know what problem they are solving in a simple abstract use case so i can tell if their product relates to the problems that I have. If so, I will gladly spend more time researching your product. Telling me that I have to spend hours just to figure out if my problems even relates to the solutions marketed by your products is your failure in marketing your product.

> You know how we hear about dopey password disclosure breaches every month? Using a service like Okta, Azure AD, etc lets you avoid that type of embarrassment/liability and lets you control the dozens of SaaS and other accounts that your employees use.

Go read Y combinator's "how to apply blog" [0] with the relevant text starting with "The first question I look at is, ". I recommend reading all of it because it is pretty good but that section explains how conveying a product quickly in a concise matter is crucial.

Here is some relevant text:

"We are going to transform the relationship between individuals and information."

That sounds impressive, but it conveys nothing. It could be a description of any technology company. Are you going to build a search engine? Database software? A router? I have no idea. One test of whether you’re explaining your idea effectively is to ask how close the reader is to reproducing it. After reading that sentence I’m no closer than I was before, so its content is effectively zero. Another mistake is to begin with a sweeping introductory paragraph about how important the problem is:

Information is the lifeblood of the modern organization. The ability to channel information quickly and efficiently to those who need it is critical to a company’s success. A company that achieves an edge in the efficient use of information will, all other things being equal, have a significant edge over competitors.

Again, zero content; after reading this, the reader is no closer to reproducing your project than before. A good answer would be something like:

A database with a wiki-like interface, combined with a graphical UI for controlling who can see and edit what.

[0]: http://www.ycombinator.com/howtoapply/

[Spooky23]

I’d caution you against ever visiting the websites of Microsoft or Google.