Show HN: land that gig by making a great first impression. Feedback appreciated.

[bullrico]

http://impressar.io

Another 'scratch your own itch' MVP, bear with me.

I'm a long-time telecommuter, and my gig-hunting success depends on two critical elements: an email cover letter that is visually appealing, and a corresponding portfolio landing page with content tailored to that specific email. Last year I decided to automate this process, and after months of lost weekends and late nights fine-tuning it for public consumption, I'm launching my MVP, Impressario. Briefly, it solves these pain points:

* Collect and keep track of job listings in one place

* Maintain a set of email templates for specific job titles/requirements

* Be able to create and send out HTML emails (with images)

* Host and manage different versions of a portfolio (with custom domains)

* Track sent emails to gauge response

Thoughts / comments / feedback appreciated.

[binarysoul]

This looks pretty cool. Tracking all of that stuff is a little messy, I definitely could've used this back when I was on the market.

However, I see this as a cool open source application rather than a for pay service. The problem is that if your service works really well... You're going to eliminate your customers as they get gainfully employed thanks to your site.

[polyfractal]

I (partially) agree about having a high churn rate on customers. I imagine most freelancers will use the service less once they build up a nice portfolio of clients, although I can still see a use for the occasional new client even with a full roster.

I disagree about open source. Sure, it'd be a cool open source project - but don't give it away for free yet. I'd change the pricing plan.

During your beta, find out what the average life time value of a customer is. Do they use it actively for two months? Six months? After figuring out the lifetime value, adjust your pricing accordingly.

If you find people using it hardcore for a month and then stopping, it makes more sense to sell this as a "one-off" price instead of a low monthly. If people use it chronically, you can keep the low monthly.

All that said, very cool service and I think I'll be one of your customers =)

[bullrico]

Thanks for the feedback. The churn rate is a concern, I'm hoping to discover useful features to add that can make the app more enticing to keep around.

[tylerwl]

You did a great job of making the How It Works section clear and appealing.

The one addition I would suggest for the Features page is what email address will your customers be able to use? Will it be their own or an @impressar.io address?

[bullrico]

They can use their own email address, although a temporary @impressar.io address is built-in - just to add a layer of protection (against spam). If you reply to the @impressar.io address, it gets shown in the Messages section.

[tylerwl]

Excellent. I would just add a line to the Features page like:

Custom email address - Promote your personal brand by using an @yourdomain.com email address.

[jessepollak]

Look awesome, I was just looking for something like this a couple weeks ago. I'll definitely check it out. If email me at jpollak92 [at] gmail, I'd happily send some thoughts your way (your email is not in your profile).

[bullrico]

Send them over to bobby [at] impressar.io. Response has been good so far, I'm hoping people can make good use of it when the monthly "Who's hiring" thread comes out next week.