Show HN: New OpenLoopz Landing Page Based on HN Feedback

[pdrummond]

Hi everyone,

This is the new landing page for OpenLoopz:

https://openloopz.com/welcome

It’s based on the excellent feedback I received from the original post. I know it’s far from perfect and there is still a lot of material I haven’t had time to add yet, but it’s a start. I plan to iterate and improve on this over time as I learn more about marketing and promotion.

I hope it gets the message across about what OpenLoopz is and why you might want to use it! I will be adding more pages soon, such as testimonials, pricing info, FAQ, use cases, etc, and more detail in general.

Please let me know what you think and thanks again to everyone who took the time to provide feedback for the original post. It really made a difference.

[greggh]

This is one of the best examples of someone taking the Hacker News beating of a lifetime and turning it into something great.

I have to say that original site was nothing but confusing. After reading the entire thing I had no idea what was going on or what I was looking at, I could barely tell it was a product I could use.

This new page is easy to understand, I get everything I need at a glance without even scrolling. Really well done.

The product itself still strikes me as having a naming problem. The name feels dated, and most people don't want to learn the new terminology. But it does seem like a great tool.

[sjs382]

Agreed. Great update—I finally understand the product.

I also agree with the last line from greggh, too. Calling the things "Loops" is a bit weird and jargony. Something like "cards" (and stacks, being groups of cards?) might seem more natural?

[mydpy]

Wow. What a transformation. I understand the product very well now. The video is a fantastic addition (some kinks need to be worked out, but others have addressed those).

My suggestions: 1. Use consistent bolding and hightlight features (and terms) or actions of your product.

  For example, USE <b>#HASHTAGS</b> TO ORGANIZE YOUR
               <b>CHATS/LISTS</b>
  OR 
               USE #HASHTAGS TO <b>ORGANIZE</b> YOUR 
               CHATS/LISTS

2. Use direct rhetoric

  For example, USE #HASHTAGS TO ORGANIZE YOUR
               CHATS/LISTS
  vs. 
               ORGANIZE YOUR CHATS/LISTS WITH #HASHTAGS

3. Reference quotes from your users. I.e., "quote" - John, Scrum Master for MyApp.com.

4. Shorten the hover-over text for BOOST PRODUCTIVITY, CONSOLIDATE APP DATA, etc. Make it short and sweet.

Biggest feedback: My original comment was I couldn't see the vision of your product. Now, it is very clear. Kudos.

[pdrummond]

Thanks for the great feedback everyone!

I needed to get something up quickly so there wasn't time to go through a name change. I definitely agree I have a naming problem however, and I am looking into possible alternatives. It's between "Loop" and "OpenLoop" at the moment. I am also considering the implications of changing the basic unit of content to "card" and possibly using "stack" as well (thanks for the suggestion @sjs382).

Just to explain a bit more about the original motivation for the term "open loop". It all comes from GTD, which I was reading when I started OpenLoopz forever ago. Originally it was just an Android GTD app, but I was advised not to focus on GTD too much as it is too niche (say I support GTD, but not only GTD), but I am thinking it would be good to at least explain the concept of an "open loop". Any thoughts on this?

[ljoshua]

Looking much better! Small suggestion on the video: the zooming out is probably causing a large increase in size and consequently load time (took about 35 seconds to load to completion and start playing well on my regular connection). Maybe rerecord without the zoom and keep it more straightforward?

[cnp]

This looks totally awesome, but man, the name... it just doesn't communicate your purpose right away, but rather confuses it! I might be of the electronic music generation, but "loop" + "z" == "beatmaking". This ambiguous cross-concern will, I believe, be problematic when you're getting off the ground, and will continue to be problematic unless you get to that Starbucks level of operation where you can redefine words at will. "Beat" and "Loop" + "z" are here to stay, and unfortunately they live in a musical domain.

(Lastly, the "z" also seems a little less than professional and more youth oriented.)

[marshallford]

Wow great improvement. I actually understand what your product is now. I really like that you made it clear it was for both teams and single users as this answered my first question of "Who is this made for?" after understanding your product's purpose.

As for the web design side of things I would look at maybe changing out the images with all those arrows at low screen sizes as the normal body text in those images gets too small to read. Lastly, from 770px to 795px wide I get a horizontal scroll bar in Chrome 40 on Windows.

Good Luck!

[mjhea0]

clickable > https://openloopz.com/welcome

[Drei01Matt]

Looks so much better than the first version!

[aepearson]

Wow - MAJOR improvement. This is awesome.