Put yourself in their shoes, and try to do your best to write what would make them feel comfortable and good about your product for long enough for them to get out their credit card.
Regardless of the size of your company though, it's good to keep in mind that some people are going to be very sensitive to stability when making purchasing decisions, especially if they've been burned in the past by a service that suddenly stopped working. The people who don't care about this, won't care anyway, so for them it doesn't matter what you write.
So I'd be erring on the side of talking about stability, even if you are a one man shop. Especially if your product is still in the early stages and lacking the polish of more mature products.
So perhaps instead of: "After working for 4 years as a server administrator for some medium to large websites and after having a lot of trouble with existing monitoring solutions I decided to build my own."
Maybe something like: "TagBeep was developed in response to a gap in the market for a professional yet simple tool to track website uptime.
Our years of experience in server administration for medium to large sized websites provided us with unique insight into designing a powerful application that takes 5 minutes to set up, and helps you keep your sites up and running 24 hours a day."
Also, while you're clearing in active development and doing a lot to improve your product, I'd hesitate before broadcasting this process that to a small business owner who might not be familiar with the development process, and who is in the decision making phase while looking at your About page. I'd be moving the "Whats Next?" stuff to a dev blog hosted on tagbeep.com/blog.
My about page should be personal like: After working for 4 years as a server administrator for some medium to large websites and after having a lot of trouble with existing monitoring solutions I decided to build my own.
---OR---
Like a company: With our 4 year experience in the server management industry, we build this tool to help our clients… etc
please let me know what do you prefer.
Thanks!
Jason Cohen writes exactly about this question in http://blog.asmartbear.com/youre-a-little-company-now-act-li...
It's OK to present a company profile as "we", but don't overdo it by constantly implying a large group when there is none. And really, even one-man-shows generally have help from other people (be it friends or family or freelancer) so that's OK.
That being said, I think it's often a good idea to present a separate About section specifically detailing the founder of the company. It can even be on the same page as the company profile. This is the place where you put professionally relevant personal info, such as "4 year experience in the server management industry". You can even make it more personal by giving out info about what motivated you to do this in the first place, which can be a powerful tool to establish a deeper connection with your potential clients.
Some grate advice in your comment, thanks for your time.
Since I most work alone, I've hit upon the same dilemma several times. Unfortunately, I didn't track my effectiveness when I used one or the other approach so I don't have any hard data to contribute :-(
That way, the about page projects a professional corporate image while keeping the personal touch. A bit like how GoDaddy is more than just Bob Parsons but he's the face of the company in some ways.
If you present it as a company, people will be much harsher with their criticism and expectations. If you present it as a person (yourself) people will be more lenient, but at a cost: they could question the longevity of the service; trust, support capacity etc. More important for enterprise customers though, imo.
On the other hand, there is a sense of wanting to help the 'little guy' when I read your about page. Like, if I was on the fence I could be compelled by the fact that it was done by a solo entrepreneur, and want to try it out of support. But, that's probably because I am in the same boat :)
Finally, you could take the middle road and personalise the about page from the perspective of ceo / founder of the company.
Thanks for your suggestions!
It is the canonical question asked to avoid actually making or selling stuff on the Business of Software forums.
The feedback from this thread is amazing, thanks to all!
Use "we" even if everyone can see that it's a single-author paper. It communicates that it is a company and not just your personal services, which is especially important if it's just your services for now. You can still come back and talk about the exciting thing you're personally working on as a founder.
In either case, pick the singular or the plural and stick with it. Mixing "I" and "our" like you currently are is a matter of grammar rather than style.
I was crucified on /. when I wrote that :)
"tagBeep has some unique and very useful features but there is a lot of room for improvements and I’m working on them." Would become (something like, I'm not a native speaker): "tagBeep has some unique and very useful features but there is a lot of room for improvements which are being actively developed"
" The app has some unique monitoring features, but it's far from where I want it to be." Would become something similar to: "The app has some unique monitoring features, but it's far from finished"
A lot of people suggested a middle path... that is what I'm thinking to do now but I will give it more time.
The rest of site should not be about you. It should be about the product. Otherwise it comes across like a hobby project (and I'm guessing you don't want that).
However, in my experience the About page is seen by about 5% of your users. So to say things clearly: it doesn't matter.
PS: I don't particularly like your company version. I'd still make it personal, but sounding like a company: "XYZ was started by John Foo...". So it's pro, and personal.
2. When the product is finished I plan to add a payment plan for some additional features. People won’t read the about page even when they want to pay for the service?
3. Yes, your pro and personal is a very good suggestion … thanks!
It's important you don't just say you're a person, because you'll piss off some random person who doesn't understand you need to outsource some part of a project you don't know how to do (who is angered you personally didn't do it).