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for _elite_ professionals
This is not a beginning of a beautiful friendship.
It's like saying "we are an X for really good people only", which leaves one to decide if they are brazen enough to consider themselves really good and try this wonder X or just accept the reality of being somewhat OK and move on.
Perhaps you are trying to be selective with whom you want to accept as clients and this is meant to be a filter, but it comes across as snobbish at best. There are other ways to phrase it without rubbing unwashed gray masses the wrong way.
You're either really good, or have aspiration to be that much better - right?
Those who don't meet one of those criteria probably won't pay for a planner. But I agree the phrasing is odd.
I closed the tab as soon as I read that line. Eurgh.
I wanted to say exactly the same thing!
I need to schedule stuff, but I am not elite or anything. Is there a market niche for my identity? ;)
We are definitely shooting for the "professionals who perform their job at an elite level" vibe more than a socioeconomic distinction. That being said, this is a valid criticism since "elite" has some obvious connotations.
Imo you already figured it out with this HN thread. "Busy People" got me to click, 'elite' added to your bounce rate.
I had the same reaction as others to "elite". I think you risk putting off the actual elite professionals and attract the aspirational with that phrasing. If that's not the intention, cutting "elite" will probably help a lot.
"executive" fits that notion for me.
"If it's in you, I'll find it. That's actually what I do. I just point out what you've already got. I'm like a spiritual guide.
The reason I put "If it's in you, I'll find it" is, if I waste good time and money looking for it, and see it's definitely not in you, I don't wanna be sued 'cos you haven't got it, so, you know, not gonna get me on that."
- David Brent
This seems like it's in the vein of Superhuman -- it's just 10x better, but you pay for the privilege.
I found this review of how it can slot into someone's workflow --
https://amontalenti.com/2019/11/04/work-is-a-queue-of-queues
.
Seems like you're making at least one person very happy!
We found a lot of inspiration from Superhuman but there are some key differences: there's no required concierge onboarding and we don't require an invite from another user.
Andrew Montalenti's post on work being a queue of queues is fascinating in its own right. One of the things we're betting on is that we'll live in a world with more work queues as SaaS tools proliferate and specialize. We're hoping to build a place where you can build your queue for the day.
Any pointers to further reading on this concept?
Do you mean work being a queue of queues or superhuman?
queues of queues
The potentially killer features for me are:
1. Pulling in tasks from multiple sources. Clubhouse and Things are the ones I use, sadly not supported.
2. Sharing tasks with teammates / seeing what they're up to regardless of the to-do tool they use. This is huge - always wondered why there was no team todo tracker that respected the idea that tasks are tracked in different tools but cross-departmental collaboration is necessary. For example dev work might happen in GitHub and marketing work in Basecamp. Marketing depends on dev but without a higher-level tool pulling in todos from both it's opaque to understand what other teams are working on.
There's a lot of other stuff going on and Sunsama is a pretty opinionated tool (Channels? Estimated/actual time tracking?)
On first blush comparisons to Superhuman are premature...
1. One of our challenges will be to quickly add robust integrations with lots of other tools. Clubhouse is already a highly requested tool.
2. Yes, we think this the direction the world is moving is one where task tools specialize by role, if that isn't already the case.
And yes, the daily planning workflow is definitely opinionated, I can't disagree!
I have to question the premise of such a service. The statements in the "Why Sunsama?" section are comically grandiose. I sincerely doubt that people who are "struggling to keep up" are hindered primarily by poor scheduling or, if they are, that they will listen to reminders coming from yet-another piece of software or that the software will magically know how best to prioritize tasks. Based on these claims, I would easily toss this product in the "snake oil" category of products and services which promise to make my life awesome but which, at best, might make a marginal improvement. If there is more to the software, awesome, but that should be front-and-center because as it stands I see no real value proposition.
Thanks for being so frank. Perhaps that section needs to be re-written since Sunsama doesn't do reminders or use any sort of any algorithm to prioritize your tasks. Instead, we provide a guided daily planning workflow that nudges the user to make good decisions about what to do. In fact, one thing we feel strongly about is that you will make a better decision about what to work on than an algorithm.
Did not appreciate being forced to answer survey questions and then find out at the end this only works with Google calendar. Borderline dark pattern move...
We put this in place so that folks aren't going through the entire product onboarding which takes several minutes only to find out later there's no way to add an Outlook calendar.
>> only to find out later there's no way to add an Outlook calendar.
I haven't even looked at it but seeing this in the comments means I can't use it. Many (most?) of your target "elite professionals" are running Outlook in the enterprise.
That's true and one of the reasons we're keen to add an Outlook integration ASAP. We're a tiny team of five so building an integration with Google and Outlook from the get go wasn't feasible.
You might consider using something like Nylas to handle all the different calendar APIs at once. Not sure if their pricing is workable for you though.
They do say on the homepage that it syncs with your Google calendar... But yes, perhaps it could be more prominent?
So strange that your survey basically tells me I'm not a good fit if I'm not willing to consider paying for your product after a 14 day trial. How about let me try the product first and then I can make that assessment?
It is also weird that I cannot see the prices right away. Sunsama could be great, but if the asking price is too much, I won't even bother.
I go looking for the price first in just about every SaaS I use. If it can't be transparent about the price then it's probably not the service for me.
I enjoyed the survey and how well it ties into the onboarding flow. There's probably better word choice for "are you willing to pay" but this does filter out users that just want the next free thing. Better word choice might be "assuming you f*cking love it would you pay $20/mo for a Daily Planner"
I'd guess as a newly launched product they care most about getting some power users evangelizing it while they iterate on the packaging. It might not even be "delightful" yet but that doesn't mean users that need it won't pay for it to just work.
Thanks for that feedback. We put that in place so that folks weren't surprised after using it that Sunsama doesn't have a free tier since people assume that all productivity tools have a free version. If you just change your answer, you can proceed!
Yes, but the sale shouldn't end because I just said no. There should be room left for me to be delighted by the product, such that I convert into a paying user. Instead, I feel alienated and not at all interested in trying it in the future.
This is confusing, you said in your original comment that you were filtered out because you said you wouldn't consider paying for the product, now you say you might if the product delighted you.
So which is it? Why are you alienated by a product that says "we're not for you" if you have no interest in being a paying customer?
Not OP but I had a similar emotional reaction when getting to that point of the survey. It's not logical... on reflection I think it has to do with the sense of los of autonomy. The survey wants me to say that I'd be willing to spend money on it before I can try it, but I want to try it before I decide if I'm willing to spend money.
I think it could be solved for stubborn people like me if the survey got to that point and said "okay, if you're sure, you can still click here to request access but after 14 days you won't be able to continue to use it without signing up. We think you'll be persuaded!" -- or whatnot.
Seems fair enough that people should be able to try the free trial without having to agree that they're theoretically willing to pay 20/mo
I guess the other way to explicitly force people to sign up with a credit card. I would guess this mechanism, asking you if you are willing to pay is better that asking you to PROVE you are willing to pay by starting a free trial with a credit card.
Thanks for bringing this up. In fact, we also chose a "opt in" upgrade, where you pay after your trial is up. I'm of the opinion that "opt out" trials are a dark pattern. That being said, we realize the wording in the survey can be off putting but we think it's the right way to communicate expectations from the beginning and in the long run.
Not the OP either, but I'm not going to commit that I'm willing to pay before even trying the service, and I do pay for a bunch productivity tools (Notion, Forest, + others).
I agree that the "opt-out" is not great, but I would change it to just a warning "This is paid software, after the trial you will need to subscribe".
Why even have this survey? Just make it a 14 day free trial but say upfront that it's paid afterwards, and let people try the product themselves, which is how most paid with free trial apps are currently. Adding an additional filter in the form of a survey just removes potential customers.
Indeed, this should have been incredibly obvious and is the whole reason free trials exist.
You sound Indian. Do you have toilet at home and does everyone poo in loo?
I've not felt the need for an integration between my todo list and other tools like Github / Gmail / Calendar / Jira.
I manage fine with just making notes on a monthly, weekly and daily level. To populate my todo lists, I review the other systems manually.
Rolling over unfinished work to the next day is as simple as copy+paste though that can be run as a cron job daily
It took way too long to get going with this, I bailed. The idea of pulling tasks from all project managers is extremely enticing to me as a consultant and contractor as I heavily use multiple task platforms. The completely guided walkthrough and survey were too much, I won't be back.
Have to agree. I finally made it to the service after a huge survey AND huge onboarding experience only to find out the product is simple and easy to use and the onboarding was more confusing than the actual product haha. Product's great. Onboarding, not so much.
I really like the idea and I did an in-depth analysis of your company's homepage here [1]. I always struggle with getting the tasks that matter ready for the next meeting so I totally empathise with your vision.
I have quite a few remarks about your page and the missing information, empathy with the ISSUE at hand is ultimately what made me not sign-up for an account.
Also what's the pricing? Should mention somewhere at least that you can try the product for FREE, for at least 14 days or something?
[1]
Nice little growth hack, I see you cover all the HN launches on your YT Channel!
No, only the ones I like ;)
We have been using Sunsama for quite some time. It's great to manage your to-do's or bite-sized tasks. I heartily recommend giving it a shot!
It's good to have something that forces you to plan your day every morning, so you only take on things that you can do. Being able to see what others are up to is also nice, but I don't use that functionality.
edit: /s/hardly/heartily
14 days too short a trial for a productivity tool. No one can change their work habits that quickly. I'd say 30 days would be wiser.
Congrats on the launch!
I did see the potential of the service when I got an early invite. I quit the trial because I didn't agree with usage of Hotjar to record my actions. I didn't notice Hotjar on the front page (just a quick check.) Did you remove Hotjar (or similar) for the internal pages as well?
It appears the tools have been changed. Now using Amplitude for user session analytics. I'm not familiar with it, but it appears that at least it's less invasive than Hotjar. I don't have the time right now to look into it further.
How long does the trial last? For me, these apps are all about working out kinks. The MOMENT I start feeling like it's "work" then it gets ejected out of my flow and at some point I'll circle back to cancel. Between evaluating the basics, such as privacy and testing with a small part of my flow, I probably need a couple weeks.
Can you comment on how you use the analytics?
EDIT: I see the trial is 14 days.
Congratulations for the launch!
One quick issue: iPad Mini 2019 (5st. gen), part of the text is covered by images in the front page.
Edit: this picture is just one example, but it happens along all the page, and images cannot be seen in full neither.
As a product/CompSci person - I like your onboarding workflow. (do agree it is a bit long), but understand from customer discovery perspective.
Was allowed to proceed - but I need a path that doesn't require access to my calendar. (no product trust to do so that early). A comparison is I'm dropped right into Todoist
Thanks, we've worked tirelessly on it and it's still not perfect!
Yup, the one thing about Sunsama that's different than Todoist and other task tools is that it's not useful unless you use it with your calendar.
for elite professionals.
Request an invite.
Ahh, good ol' artificial scarcity & elitism trick, good luck :)
I don't blame these folks for their analytics needs, but seeing an ad in Instagram just after visiting the site soured me a bit.
Needs access to google calendar. Also onboarding questionnaire is cumbersome.
I don't like it.. too many steps and effects in the interface for a list.
Yup, right now we've only been able to build an integration with Google Calendar. Turns out building a near replica of Google Calendar isn't easy! Once we add more services, we'll open it more broadly and make the questionnaire less cumbersome.
It's always good to see productivity tools, but I'm also not really sure what the integration would do. At least it limits signups.
As for the form, it almost felt like one of those RPGs, where you're basically forced to answer "yes I'll pay". I can only assume that this is done for basic research. What's good for you is that you actually capture the No->Yes flow, which means "No".
I used 2 accounts, as I don't like giving apps full permission to my calendar.
Good luck!
Congrats on the launch!
Is there a way I can use Sunsama without a Google account?
I really like this app, but 20$ pm is too much as a student :)
Congrats on the launch, I’m excited to try this out.
what's the pricing? I recall signing up for sunsama last year and it looked great, but the price was hard to justify for personal use
Sunsama is $20/user/month if paid monthly, $16 if paid yearly. Thanks for giving it a shot so early on!
This should be somewhere on the front page.
Shitty headline.
The daily planner for elite professionals.
Not gonna try your service.
So its an online digital dairy that is based in the clour that intergates with Jewish and "American" coprorations that censor and deplatform and hate FREEDOM and FREE SPEECH
What could go wrong handing over our personal data to these people/companies
It would never be used as a poltical weapon against the people
Onboarding was deff rough but just signed up, will test and see how it goes! Is there anyway we could add subtask to the regular task?
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