Show HN: Stairway, daddy that will enforce some online meeting culture

[gyardley]

When I went to your domain and read the main page, I didn't understand what it did.

The big call to action 'learn more' button took me to a series of points that didn't really clue me into what it was about. I thought I got it, but I wasn't sure - certainly not sure enough by the time I got dumped off at the signup page.

Both the 'about' and the 'features' page told me more, but I had to click around to get to those, and I went to them only after I went through the 'learn more' flow.

Now that I think I get it, it sounds pretty cool - asynchronous text-based meetings. But I had to click around a fair bit more than most people will to understand it.

[polyfractal]

Wanted to emphasize this point - I did the exact same thing. I read through the "Learn More" bullets and thought "hmm, this sounds interesting and useful...but I still really have no idea what it does".

It wasn't until I read the About and Features that I actually understood the product.

The benefits listed in the "Learn More" are really good...you just need to add a little more concrete information about the product itself.

Anyhow, looks interesting and I'm going to recommend it to my company. We work in three different locations (and two timezones), so it could be useful for us.

[brittohalloran]

Yeah same here. No clue what your product IS. You need a big fat example on the homepage.

[tadruj]

We're testing different variations of the pitch. We find it really hard to pitch features and functionality to business/management people, so we have a few variations running that are pitching only benefits or pains, but no exact functionality. For the features tour we decided one must sign-up and try. And only then we take them trough features tour.

[icco]

I skimmed it and I definitely don't understand. I saw mention of asynchronous, but it looks like it's for video not for text?

[pjoter]

maybe a short movie explaining things would do the trick.

[jaredstenquist]

1) What is "Daddy"?

2) You definitely need some screenshots or a video. After browsing the entire site for a few minutes I only have a vague guess of what this application might do.

[starship]

haha, the whole time I was clicking around, a non-zero part of my brain was sitting there thinking, "ok, but where the hell did that daddy thing come from?"

[jaaron]

What sort of pricing plan is this? The per-user expense _increases_ as you buy more seats?

https://secure.stairwayapp.com/plans

[StavrosK]

I guess they figured their utility increases as the meeting grows. It's not like you can segregate people into two meetings and get out of that, either.

[tadruj]

Asana has something like that. More users, bigger network, more meetings, more traffic, more resources.

[bherms]

A lot of the text reads as though English isn't your first language. If this is true, hire a copywriter and revise your websites text.

[tadruj]

Thx. That's true. Will do. Do you think that this is important for the minimum viable product? We're just trying to get it out ASAP and we've been pretty sloppy with the text this time. Sorry for that.

[tantadruj]

I will never use this. You know why? Because my work at big big enterprise would be too transparent and everybody would know that I don't add value to meetings. On live meeting I just talk myself out of everything and that's it. We don't want decisions to be made on meetings.

[draggnar]

looks like they've found a disruptive niche then

[mihar]

From my standpoint as an introvert, I see meetings done this was like a godsend.

I can’t express my thoughts clearly when there are other louder individuals at an in-person meeting. This way, I can sit down, relax, gather my thoughts and provide a whole lot more valuable input. This way everybody wins - me and my company.

Of course I’d have to say this doesn’t work in all circumstances, like free-for-all brainstorming sessions, but still.

[pjoter]

maybe this should be you pitch.

[cdcarter]

This is a really minor gripe, but consider localizing date formats. It's confusing as US user to see 18/6/12 as the date.

[ScottBurson]

Better yet, stick to ISO date format: 2012-6-18

Everyone can tell what that means.

[jeremyt]

Just a quick couple of thoughts about your UX and landing page:

* There's not enough information on your homepage for me to figure out what you do

* The information I need is between one and three clicks away ("learn more", and then "more" until I've read enough to get it), clicking "more" just gets in the way

* I don't really get the "you will", "we will" dichotomy. Frankly, I don't care what "I will" do, all I want to know is how this product is going to make my life easier.

* Stop using buzzwords ("message-based collaboration", "asynchronously"), and just tell me what you do in plain English

* Some of the English phrases come out awkwardly ("We will guide you to prepare quality agenda before calling the meeting.")

Having said all that, it's a neat idea, and I hope it catches on. We all need fewer meetings.

[tadruj]

Thx, this is amazing feedback, exactly what we were looking for here on HN.

[swalsh]

I spent about 30 seconds clicking around, I have no idea what your app is.

I think a video, or an example of someone using it would be nice. The philosophy alone is not enough for me to understand the app, or even make me want to use it.

[the_stig]

Really cool&useful app, especially for long-distance teams that are experiencing timezone difficulties.

Meetings really can suck and take too much time. This app helps me to give feedback and move on with whatever I'm doing ...

[jjb123]

Very impressive and refreshing. For our team, this would replace google hangouts and non-technical people needing to wade through technical discussions on irc... And more than anything, would replace a lot of unnecessary emails.

[some1else]

Meetings may be more efficient when strict policies are enforced, but I think some forgiveness could be provided by allowing the user to edit/sort Agenda items after the meeting has been created.

The common use case right now is time-shifted decision making, but this would kick ass if it were real-time.

Good job with the design. Nice legible type, unambiguous form layout. I think the landing page could bring forward some content from the Learn More and Features subpages.

[rf45]

At the moment I am mostly using skype or gotomeetings and I usually have two problems with the meetings online:

1. hard to find the availability for all participants 2. archiving meeting minutes and finding them when I need them

this could be the ideal solution, especially because i can control my time and still participate on the meeting.

do you have the same problems? how you are solving them?

[tomazstolfa]

I've been a beta tester of Stairway.

Can't emphasize enough how fast the product evolved into a must have. No more "I didn't promise/say that.'

[cslacasse]

The learn more page needs to be a single page in the browser history. After I clicked through 125 of them, I wanted to get back to the home page with my back button but couldn't.

I would have liked to see 4-5 of those "people hates" and then a demo of the product in action.

[bantic]

This is very cool. There's so much that could be done to better organize and run meetings. It's great to see someone taking a stab at it. I wished there was more of a demo before signup. Even just some screenshots would have helped.

[mihar]

I think you missed the https://secure.stairwayapp.com/tour There are some screenshots. Does this help?

[marknutter]

Daddy?

[prawn]

I would find a way to replace the word "daddy" ASAP in your copy. There'd have to be better options out there.

[modarts]

I'm assuming that was the result of an auto-correct.

[netrus]

I like it a lot, but cannot figure out how to write the concluding remark to an agenda point. Does the meeting need to be over for this?

[mihar]

You are correct. You can only decide a meeting when it's due. This is because all the participants are counting on the meeting to be available until that date.

[prezjordan]

There's a LOT of JS running on that page.

[CodeMage]

Any plans for providing Android app too?

[tadruj]

We're currently waiting for the approval in the app store for iPhone. Haven't made anything for Android yet, waiting for a few pokes on the demand side :) like this one.