Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mengine 5001 days ago
Not really. What problem are you trying to solve and what are the benefits to me? This is a much better splash page but the copy is still pretty bad - https://www.workio.com/about/
1 comments

We want to streamline work processes. If you need something done you have to find someone who is able to do it and has time. work.io takes care of this. You define what you need, say how much you want to pay and get the results. You don't need to interact with the providers. Less overhead and better results are your benefits.
Ok, so you are providing a service like Odesk and those types of sites. Cool, nothing wrong with that. There certainly is a huge need for this right now. Just come out and say it. Let me help you with that (using your own words).

Work.io allows you to hire skilled workers without the need to interview them one by one. Just join, define a task, price it, and get the results. Work.io works with a pool of talented people to deliver what you need. No resources wasted. Better results. Our focus is to streamline your work process by taking care of finding the people you need to get things done, at your price.

You see that there is a bit of your problem.

No-one really understands what 'streamline work processes' actually means.

Does that mean you can help me serve my Big Macs better in my day job?

Jargon kills (and I mean KILLS) marketing effectiveness.

I wrote an article about this a month ago http://lucahammer.com/post/31269937454/startup-wording

I know that we have that problem and we try to solve it. I believe that discussions like this one help with it. We try to describe what we offer and others tell us what they don't understand.

We remove overhead from outsourcing. You define what results you need and the people on the platform deliver. No management needed. (Sounds like more bullshit? work.io takes care about who fulfills your tasks so you don't need to.)

OK, so by mentioning 'outsourcing' we start to understand a bit more. You're focused on enterprise (or reasonable sized operations then?). Then you should say so.

You have to remove all the jargon from your pages (and preferably simplify the text by removing a lot of it) and then explain your proposition like it was to a 5 year old (as someone else said here).

Sorry to go on about this, but it's crucial if you're going to market your product successfully.

Try this: You are in an elevator, you've got 3 minutes between floors to make your grandmother understand what you do and why people should use your service. What would you say? :)

We don't use outsourcing because people assume it's for bigger companies. Also it evokes a negative feeling.

Recently a developer created a task. He has a popular plugin for an open source CMS and wants to offer a paid version of it. Therefore he needs TOS. Finding a lawyer who has the right expertise in that space takes time. Instead he went to work.io, defined what he wants as a result and paid. The task is now distributed to fitting lawyers and the developer will get back exactly the results he asked for.

On the other side is the lawyer who gets contacted by people who ask what random things cost. She has to make an estimate and doesn't always get the job. Often she has to explain things instead of just getting them done. She charges by the hour because every client is different. On work.io she has a a list of tasks, sees how much she will get for each of them and can fulfill them immediately. She doesn't have to run after the money because work.io can pay her as soon as the buyer accepted the results.

We already plan landing pages for specific industries as it is easier to explain it with examples. A marketplace for services that can be fulfilled without further interaction between buyer and provider.

Elevator pitch for my grandmother: Work has changed. You already experienced how less people were needed to work at farms while there was more food for everyone. Today factories get the same treatment. Intelligent machines, we call them roboters, can make many tasks and at some point in the future there will only be a handful of people needed to build for example a car. Most people work in the service industry. The teller at your bank for example. Or your taxi driver. Or the cashier when you buy groceries. These jobs will be automated too. I can use my computer to do the same things the teller does. It can talk with nearly all other computers on the world through some kind of phone line. While you need to go to the bank to send me money, I can do it myself. Taxis will be able to drive on their own and you surely remember the last time we were at Ikea were we used that laserthingy ourselves and paid with the plastic card instead of waiting in a line to have someone else to do exactly the same thing. Computers enable us to do things we paid others to do for us in the past in less time because we don't have to wait in lines. * ping * We are already there? On the way down I will explain you what work.io actually does.

Elevator pitch for my grandmother (second try): work.io enables people to work like they were employed by a company without the corporate bullshit. They get a list of tasks and can decide on what they want to work. They get paid by tasks and know upfront how much they will get for each of them. They even can do only a part of the task and someone else will do the rest. They will then be paid for the percentage they did.

Instead of enroll others, people who need something done can create a task on work.io and pay for it. We then make sure that they get the results they wanted.

This creates a much flexibler environment for everyone involved. Companies can be managed by a core team that gets things done by great people done as they need it. They can buy an evaluation of their idea, a list of competitors and all legal documents they need for incorporation and doing business. If they want to get into a new market they buy the needed insights. They can buy a marketing strategy and the needed copy. They can even have someone else to incorporate their company. Nearly everything is at their fingertips.

May I suggest to put the second pitch on your frontpage? (I'd remove the b-word though)
We remove overhead from outsourcing

I thought that outsourcing's main problem was lack of common incentives for both parties. Management overhead is a consequence of that. How's that related to what you do?

Great. Now take that and explain it like i'm 5. Then put that on your website.