Pricing, based on the amount of users, is good. Also nice that you have a free plan for the solo user. But I'm not sure if the user/project ratio is good (the amount of projects per user could be higher).
Thanks, we are currently reviewing our plans, nothing is concrete at the moment and feedback is always appreciated. So potentially we could have a free plan that also includes more users.
I find this a very interesting product category - and I'm part of a very (I feel) undeserved category of consultant/freelancers. The essence of what you seem to be doing "uber simple" (the the home page states), is what had me interested.
But, after seeing your video, and the number of times a user has to click on different elements - it's clear this is not a simple logging tool. I also think the video could be (a) called out above the fold and (b) include some sort of voice over.
I feel there is a market ready and waiting for those that work on more abstract sorts of things. Situations where work might form more organically from a blog post on http://blogging.cwl.cc (it's happened) or a small idea (more frequent), and eventually turns into billing or a larger scale project. With tools like these that are project-based - It feels like logging friction is much to high.
The problem is not being solved (in my opinion) because generally no one wants to log what they do, but for those that have decided to do so, there should be little to no clicking and a process to capture everything written in very low overhead manner (mobile support is essential).
So far, no tool seems to be as good as a simple OTA sync'ed calendar. So far.
Thanks for the feedback. We've had a few comments about the video and it's currently under review. I think a series of screencasts with voiceover would help.
It's interesting that you were attracted by its simplicity headline, but that you feel it's not that simple to enter time. We definitely need to address this if it could be streamlined further.
Agreed that mobile support is essential and we are working on resolving this. Low overhead is key.
We are learning a hell of a lot as a result of the feedback on Hacker News and you raise some key fundamentals areas to review.
Thanks, I really appreciate you taking the time to let us know your thoughts.
You're very welcome. I'm reading what I've written and it seems overly critical of your work. I don't want you to feel that's the case; it does look like a wonderful tool and, in the case of a developer or a web freelancer, may be very useful indeed.
I look forward to seeing how this project unfolds and I appreciate you taking the time to read my suggestions.
No problem. It's great to get your opinion from a brand new user's perspective. We don't want to build a product we think people will want. Instead we want to help businesses be more profitable and improve their processes. To do this we really need to userstand our markets and messages. Our plan is to review all the feedback, implement and then post on Hacker News when the next iteration that addresses some of the comments is available.
This looks like a pretty cool project. I would love to try it out once your servers cool down, particularly your API. I'm playing around with APIs for Harvest and Freshbooks now. Full disclosure: I created a minimalist time tracking tool for freelancers/agency folks that lowers the barrier to logging your work:
Yes we have an API on our roadmap but no exact date of release yet I'm afraid. Still fixing some fundamentals :-) I'm keen to keep abreast of your tool too.
I'm a freelancer and I didn't get a good sense of why I would use your product. Why is analyzing how I spend my time and looking at graphs going to make me more effective? Isn't the goal to spend more time working on projects and less time managing my tools?
I think for many freelancers the question is going to be: why would I stop using Harvest to use your tool? For me, I didn't see the reason.
Not saying you don't have a good product here - just think the marketing message could be clearer.
Thanks for the feedback. We definitely need to work on a clearer marketing message that focuses on the benefits. We use the data from the time logged to assess how accurate our estimates were against actual time to deliver a project so that we improve future quotes for projects. We realised that in addition to quoting time spent developing the ability to review time spent on planning, in meetings and fixing bugs is invaluable information.
Huge thanks so far to everyone who has commented. It's really early days and its clear we need to work on the mobile support, pricing plans and most importantly the marketing aspects of the product and website. Really appreciate the feedback.
Pricing page portion for the Free/Solo package is a bit confusing. "30 Day Free Trial" for a package that is free? Perhaps you could replace it with "Always Free", or "100% Free"
What happens if the Sumo package get's too small for me?
-- EDIT -- Besides that good work, don't take my comment negatively :)