I understood what the problem your product was solving from the title of this Launch HN thread, but viewing the landing page, I think there's big room for improvement for how you explain that.
I think a few things would help:
- Revise your copy to speak more plainly. You're addressing folks working on many different parts of the product, but the language comes off as jargon. As a starting point, I think the title of this thread is way clearer
"Keep product text in sync from design to production" -- Makes sense
"manage and componentize the words across their product from design to production." -- I have no idea what that means
- Replace all of the screenshots and graphics. I see this done a lot, where screenshots are shown and the reader is supposed to understand what's happening, but is not often effective, because they don't understand the context for the screenshots, and it's not clear what part of the screenshot they should be focusing on. I would suggest you provide a very simple clear animation that demonstrates the "magic" behind your application. If it's syncing copy across many different tools and stages of the product, show that magic happening. In other words, if a reader saw nothing but this graphic/animation would they understand what your product is offering them? The demo video is not what I'm referring to, although it is helpful and should remain on the page, maybe even move it up a bit.
Super useful, thanks for the advice. It's definitely been a challenge to figure out the right language/vocabulary to describe what we're working on, especially since what we're solving for isn't talked about.
A clearer graphic that demonstrates the "magic" is also a great suggestion!
This especially drives me nuts because I use text selection to help with reading on ultra-wide pages when I scroll so I don't lose my place. I hate when I can't select text.
I'm a product designer & builder, looking for a multidisciplinary position. Maybe that's "product designer who codes" or joining a startup that needs someone who can wear a whole wardrobe full of hats.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Would consider.
Technologies: Pen+Paper, Swift, SwiftUI, HTML+CSS, Figma, Python; Java, Javascript, React (but it's been a while)
Hi Alex, I think you'd enjoy the fast-paced venture studio I'm recruiting for in Palo Alto. You'd be building out concepts in fields like healthcare, renewable energy, mining, and the food industry that directly impact society in Japan. Your tasks for the day will vary based on the developmental stage of your project. Some projects may only be live for 30/60/90 days unless your prototype is selected for further development.
My favorite hobby is researching equitable K-12 computer science curriculum access.
How do customers learn about the corporate culture? Do they have a complete enough picture to focus on their voice? Employees are often customers of their company and have a more wholistic view of the culture.
As a customer, I can tell a lot about a company's culture by:
- Their sales process. (Is it high pressure? Do they know what they're selling? How do they handle aspects of their product/service that is weak relative to competitors?)
- Who is actually targeted by the sales process. (Do they actively try to court technical individual contributors, or do they try to bypass them and pitch directly to leadership?)
- Their support process. (Do the support reps know the product? Are escalations handled quickly? Are conversations organic, or is it so scripted that you may as well be talking to a robot?)
- General product development. (Are product iterations delivered to market in a timely and consistent manner? Is it a quality product [i.e., does it work as advertised]? Does it seem like there's a consistent vision and design language for the product?)
- General employee sentiment? (Do you have a long-term company contact, or does it seem like your contact changes on a monthly basis? What's the general mood of the people you interact with [i.e., one person may just be having a bad day, but a consistent coldness suggests something more systemic]? Are high-level people generally leaving or joining the company?)
There’s no vote to determine whether or not a company’s culture is good. We have to look at outcomes and then work backwards. Customers play a key role in those outcomes, and therefore determining whether a culture is good or not, despite not knowing anything about it.
I personally don’t think such a system would be competitive over the long term. I look at the most totalitarian countries, that use widespread coercion to encourage productivity, and notice that they aren’t wildly successful from an economic output point of view.
Customers, shareholders, competitors. The goal of good culture, I think, is to create great products. If the employees are all ecstatic and the products suck for customers then I won’t buy them. Similarly if capital returns or poor then as a shareholder I won’t invest.
It seems to me like the goal of any particular culture -- by which I mean the effort of trying to create any particular culture -- will necessarily be in the eye of the beholder. Owners will be looking to maximize profit. Employees will be looking to enjoy their jobs. Customers will be looking for good service.
If the customers don’t buy anything eventually the company goes under and there’s no pie for owners, managers, and workers to divide up. Well, at least unless a government endlessly bails it out, but then the government is de facto the customer.
Indeed. And the model makes this very clear too. On Netflix there is a button 'watch', while on iTunes and many others, the button says 'buy', 'purcase' etc. One implies a transaction, the other implies using already accessible content.
I doubt it is EOL. There is demand for "owning", so there is a business-model there. It might be shrinking or changing, but at least for a niche, it will stay.
For example e-books. I try to buy as many from the authors (or their publishers) themselves. Surprising how often an author sells their book themselves. DRM-free, almost always cheaper. Owned-by-me. As opposed to e.g. my "kobo", which I cannot backup and download for that inevitable moment that Rakuten/Kobo decides to close my account, "pivot" or stop offering services.
I’m reminded of a parody report noting Netflix was trialing a “browse only” plan, so you and your partner can argue endlessly about what to watch, but never have to make a choice.
And crucially, from the consumer's perspective, this isn't unreasonable. Unless you watch only rarely, you probably aren't paying anything like the full market price of a permanent copy of each movie or TV show you watch on Netflix, just as in days gone by you paid much less when you rented a movie on tape from the video store instead of buying. You might rationally prefer to pay a smaller amount for library-style access to a large pool of content for a certain period rather than the full purchase price of every specific piece of content you watch, and in that case, the deal is in your interests as well as Netflix's. Now, if a supplier started charging around the same amount as a full purchase would have cost but still strongly restricted the associated use of the content, that would start to look abusive.
I understood what the problem your product was solving from the title of this Launch HN thread, but viewing the landing page, I think there's big room for improvement for how you explain that.
I think a few things would help:
- Revise your copy to speak more plainly. You're addressing folks working on many different parts of the product, but the language comes off as jargon. As a starting point, I think the title of this thread is way clearer
"Keep product text in sync from design to production" -- Makes sense
"manage and componentize the words across their product from design to production." -- I have no idea what that means
- Replace all of the screenshots and graphics. I see this done a lot, where screenshots are shown and the reader is supposed to understand what's happening, but is not often effective, because they don't understand the context for the screenshots, and it's not clear what part of the screenshot they should be focusing on. I would suggest you provide a very simple clear animation that demonstrates the "magic" behind your application. If it's syncing copy across many different tools and stages of the product, show that magic happening. In other words, if a reader saw nothing but this graphic/animation would they understand what your product is offering them? The demo video is not what I'm referring to, although it is helpful and should remain on the page, maybe even move it up a bit.