[ushakov]

sorry to undermine your efforts

but someone has to say this: as a Mac user, i won't be paying $100/year for electron app

will stick to itsycal, a freeware, "real" macOS app, i've paid $10 for

not affiliated, but feel free to check out: https://www.mowglii.com/itsycal/

[meetered]

I'm sure the founders of Hera know this, but just so there's clear representation here on HN: as a Mac user, I would happily pay $100/year for anything that makes my meetings better. I'd pay more than $100/year. I'd pay $100/year for every person on my team. I don't care if it's an electron app, or 10 lines of Javascript: if it makes meetings better, I'm in.

[newman8r]

You imply that you might, but are you actually planning on buying this? I'm curious because I see lots of people saying they would use something, but it doesn't always mean they will.

[meetered]

I'm sold on the concept and vision, I've installed it: if it does deliver value -- which I suspect it will -- I'll absolutely pay for it (I'd have to! I have more 4 meetings per week) and will advocate for it within my team. Meeting inefficiency costs my company thousands every month.

[1123581321]

This doesn’t make any sense in context of the actual paid app market. If you cared about paying for time-saving meeting quickjoin and automation software you’d already be paying for Fantastical, Agenda, etc. and you’d be mentioning it here.

I think you’re confusing price for actual utility here. I do wish this team luck but they aren’t doing enough for the money, given what $50-100/year per team member already gets you.

[ushakov]

you would, but you don't have to, especially when there are free alternatives around ;)

[cuchoi]

There are free alternatives for email, to-do list apps, time tracking software, etc., and people still pay for tools that make them more productive. The fact that you won't pay for it doesn't mean that others won't.

[brunovegreville]

Just to make sure the value prop of Hera is clear (given the alternative itsycal): Joining your meeting in one-click is a small fraction of our value proposition. The core of what users do in Hera is around efficiently preparing and taking actionable notes in meetings.

Feel free to check the Loom demo done by Louise and don't hesitate if you have any questions!

[ushakov]

checked out, now i understand that you're a WYSIWYG editor for editing calendar events and a menubar app to join meetings

correct?

[kareemm]

The main value prop is note taking and the workflow around it:

1. Creating and choosing a template for a meeting. e.g. my 1 on 1 vs new customer onboarding vs. customer research meetings all have different formats. I have a template in a text file today that a duplicate before every meeting. It's annoying.

2. Being able to mark and export todos from your notes to the place where I keep todos.

3. Being able to share your notes.

4. Being able to export notes to Slack/Notion/Google Docs for my teammates who don't use or need to use Hera

Seeing my next meeting in the menubar and joining is the least interesting part of Hera.

No horse in the race here. But if you're going to comment you may want to do the work to comment fairly. The sum total of the work I did was watch the 2 minute Loom video - so it's not even a lot of work to do.

[brunovegreville]

No, it's not: You can see Hera as a note-taking app entirely dedicated to meetings. It's easy to take notes in meetings, capture highlights or next actions that you can then either export to other tools or easily access in your future meetings.

[ushakov]

thanks for explanation! and sorry for me being hostile

should say, the automation feature is pretty neat though :)

[barry27]

name some free alternatives.

[Hamuko]

I can't really understand the reasoning behind making a macOS-exclusive Electron app. You don't get any of the benefits of making an application specifically made for one operating system, and you don't get any of the benefits of a cross-platform framework.

[jamil7]

I was wondering the same thing, it would have likely been faster to build this with native frameworks.

[ushakov]

additionally, Hera only seems to work with Google

itsycal connects macOS calendar locally - no need to sign up

any calendar will work, as long as you can add it in the "Internet Accounts" settings

i use Teams with Outlook Calendar for work and with recent update you can join meetings too in single click

[louisebayssat]

Hera indeed only works with Google calendar but we support any videoconferencing tool - we just open the link that we find in the invitation!

[guico]

I honestly wouldn't be able to tell whether it's electron or anything else... maybe people who can tell them apart aren't the target group for this?

[danboy4]

There’s also Meeter: https://trymeeter.com/

[pantulis]

I am a Itsycal user, but I fail to see how it -or Calendar.app for that matter- solves the same problem as Hera. Can you ellaborate?

[brunovegreville]

Did not know about itsycal, thanks for the pointer. On pricing, please note that there's a good free version :)