Ask HN: How can I differentiate this product/get it created?

2 points by djsamson 13 years ago | 2 comments

I realize ideas are worth nothing without execution so I'd like to share my thoughts with the HN community in hopes of learning some insight. I'm at college and work a minimum wage job and the small business owner I work for literally writes all of our hours in a small notepad. He often forgets to text us when we're working and when we want time off we have to leave post it notes on his desk which he inevitably loses. I'm guessing other small businesses might not be this bad but if they're using the same paper method they probably have some of the same problems.

My MVP idea is simple: build a web site that sells monthly subscriptions for employee scheduling software. The employer would have his own log in and would be able to input employees and when they're working on an online spread sheet. Employees could view this spread sheet online to see when they're working. They could also log in to trade shifts with someone or ask for time off in advance.

I have two problems. First, there are a decent amount of software companies doing this: http://employee-scheduling-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

What intrigues me however is that virtually none of the businesses I've worked for or the ones my friends work for use any of these software. Some of these companies offer extensive features which is intimidating to me. But I feel like there is hope because a) this market is far from mature (not many small businesses have embraced this technology yet from my experience and b) I could offer less features initially and also charge a smaller fee than the competition.

My second issue is I'm not technical. If my customer dev interviews go well, I'm going to pay out of pocket to get this made. Is it realistic to think I could pay the same developer to do front end/back end development? Would this be an expensive project?

Thank you for your input

startupslayer 13 years ago |

Howdy!

Well to answer the last question - yes a decent dev will be able to MAKE the frontend and backend. Designing the front end is a different story...

The advice I give in these situations is to sell the product before you have anything. See if your boss would buy it - tell him you've found a great solution which does x, and y, and costs $Z per month. Don't underprice your offering - if it's good, and it solves a real problem, then people will be willing to pay a decent amount for it. I don't know what prices you were thinking of, but you could tell him it costs $50 a month.

If that's too high for him, ask if you could get it down to $30 if he'd be willing to pay for it.

Before you pay a developer, do a front end design - make it look nice (I'd steal someone elses design), and have it explain what your service does. Then set up adwords or advertise your site, and see if anyone clicks to buy the thing.

If people are clicking to try what you've got then you might have a product -otherwise you've just saved yourself a shit load of money by not building the whole friggin thing.

Lou

http://TheStartupSlayer.com

Mz 13 years ago |

Be careful about how you target small businesses. This seems to be a space that attracts a lot of idealistic BS about doing it "affordably" as if small business are automatically "poor" and helping them do it better is some kind of welfare style social obligation to make the world a better place. If you want to give the world a hug and buy it a coke, have at it. Just don't assume that is some kind of sane or profitable business model.

Best of luck.