[caidan]

Unfiltered First impressions:

Your medium article is 50X better than your website. Your website is useless for promoting your product. I don't like the headline font for your site, the lack of screenshots, basically the lack of focus on a product that will live or die on its usability and interface. I'm not a fan of the Z in openloopz. Combined with the comic sansy looking headline font it doesn't feel polished.

The inventing of a new words ("loops") is to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. You are now not only trying to tell a (very) mildly interested reader about your product you need them to learn a new language in order to understand it. This is an unrealistic cognitive burden for a sales pitch for a todo app. I strongly suggest that you use the simplest possible terms in plain language to describe the focus of your product, how it fits into the users life, and what problems it solves for them.

Your post here is more focused on your personal suffering than on your product. We are all eating shit to try to launch our companies, but too much focus on that makes for a downer intro to your product. I'd try to separate your moments of sharing the struggle and the moments of sharing the product. Do you want people to be genuinely excited about it, or pity you? Which emotion do you want to be a stronger first response?

Scanning further over your medium article (It's longer than a casual browser will give it time, ie 5 seconds) I suggest you take whatever the salient feature of your product is, maybe the hashtagging to create inline tasks and put that front and center in a huge picture and font. I'm still not sure what problem you are solving or who you are competing with, is it todo lists, slack, what? Where does this tool fit in my life? I suggest you take a look at the way that slack conveys information https://slack.com/is/team-communication (notice even the url hammers home their function).

I think that honest feedback is very imporant and that your main problem here, which is something that affects us all, is that you are too close to the product. You already understand it, you speak its language (invented words and all), and you are now longer able to communicate it to the passing man in the street. I suggest workshoping your pitch and language with fresh ears constantly until you are able to get someone to understand the basics of what it is and how it helps them in 10 seconds or less. All that said, I'm rooting for you, best of luck!

[ssmoot]

Ditto all this. I haven't read the Medium post, but just looking at the website: I have no idea what it is or what it does for me, and I'm being asked to sign-up first thing. Further reading still doesn't answer any questions.

Honestly, it'd be a miracle for anyone to look at the website and decide they need to sign up. Not because the product isn't amazing. But because I have no idea what it is and I'm not in the habit of signing up for services if I don't know what they are. That's how you get Cat Facts.

EDIT:

Also, you need an Editor really badly. I don't mean to be a dick about it. But this is your family's welfare on the line. Find someone hyper-critical to tear your writing.

ie:

> What is OpenLoopz? > OpenLoopz makes it easy to manage and share your digital content online, as well as helping you get things done quicker and communicate better!

I've just tuned out. That sentence is as empty and as much bullshit as they come. A very direct question was asked and you disrespected my time. You could be describing Facebook for all I know.

If you want your site to be compelling: Be Brief. Every word needs to tell me something useful and important. Your broadcast is all noise and no signal right now.

Anyone saying the Medium post is good: Don't believe them. It's better. But that'd be difficult not to do. It's still completely useless for moving units. People are just being kind.

Get an editor. If there's one rule you need to follow, it's brevity. Brevity. BREVITY. It's not rocket science. This isn't beyond you. You aren't doomed to failure. Be brief. Be critical. You've failed at communicating your product's worth. Now try again. Not tomorrow. Today.

And don't let perfect be the enemy of good. It's not going to take you a week to fix this. Limit yourself to 400 words, and some screen shots. Fix it today. After that's done, keep iterating. Revise revise revise until you have the perfect 400 words and can't think of how to improve it further. Then find someone who can.

Good luck!

[pdrummond]

Wow, this is fantastic feedback, thank you for taking the time to write it.

Apologies if my post came across as personal suffering - I certainly don't want any pity! I didn't intend for it to be too negative - I was just being honest and got a bit carried away! This has been a very, very hard slog and I realise most people on here are going through the same thing. I would never write something like this on a more mainstream site - it was written for hackers in the same position as me so I felt I could afford to be more down to earth. Having said that, I take your point - it was probably too much for a "Show HN" where the main focus is to sell the app.

I agree with everything you say about the word "loop" and me being "too close to the product" and not knowing how to sell it. I will spend as much time as I can going following this and all the other advice on here to learn how to sell this thing. It's all new to me, but I am determined to learn it all.

Thanks again, excellent feedback.

[caidan]

You've got this, these are all problems we've all had before, and there are solutions to them ;) We will all be here to give feedback, commiserate, and help you succeed. You have a great attitude in this response. An ability to take honest (often unpleasant to hear) feedback and use it to improve your product and pitch is the single most important thing you can do for yourself. Keep on crushing problems and I look forward to your next showing!

[LTheobald]

Hate to be another person to do the +1 thing but this does sum up pretty much everything I feel. Especially the Z.

Also your HN post had a very big air of uncertainity, lack of confidence etc. If you want your product to succeed, you'll need a lot more confidence in it & yourself. Don't put yourself down like that. I agree there might be less choices up north than say London & SF. But at the same time, living costs are far lower. So it's swings & roundabouts - there's never an ideal situation. This stuff is hard - that's why everyone isn't doing it and making millions.

[iron_ball]

The Z thing is killer. It puts you in company with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsez, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratz, and numberless rappers, none of which make a professional impression.

[switz]

While the name is not perfect, I don't believe it is as dramatic as you are making it out to be

http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz

[frandroid]

Names don't matter if you have a good product, unless you create brand confusion (Windows Live Messenger, anyone?). I thought "Google" was the stupidest name, and I still don't find it attractive.

[austenallred]

Seriously, I would kill the content on your website and replace it with what is in the Medium post. It's 50x clearer. I read your website copy like 3x and still had no idea what openloop is.

[slamus]

Harsh, but pretty good feedback.

[smcl]

I hope whenever I submit something to HN that 1) someone cares enough to be this critical\constructive and 2) I am adult enough not to take it on the chin and not get sulky. I'm most worried about #2