Request for feedback on Others.io

Show Bootstrapped
#1

I made this app primarily for myself. Others.io

You see I am a married bootstrapper who has 3 kids. I’ve got a lot going on but one of things I absolutely did not want to drop the ball on, was taking time out of my day to show and tell the important people in my life that I cared about them.

I was not doing a good job at this…

Months would go by like the blink of an eye and I couldn’t think of a single (uncommon) thing I did special for those I loved. So I wrote a reminder service to help me.

My questions to you are. Do you have the same problem as I do? Does this app help with that?

Thanks!

2 Likes
#2

Hi,

  • It doesn’t seem to fix a ‘burning problem’ for people, which means they’re less likely to pay.
  • I don’t care for the fact that get started asks right away for your email, and that the actual home page does not explain what it is. You have to click the small link for that.
  • I think if you riffed on the idea some, maybe you could pull out something cool. Maybe an app that randomly suggests nice things to do with your family. You could make (or ‘curate’ as the buzzworthy would write) a list of things that would be appropriate for people of various ages/genders/relationships. Thoughts that might spur you to do something a bit different than the same old grind.
1 Like
#3
  1. The end user would never have to pay for this service.
  2. Yeah my thoughts on email is that without and email address the whole app is useless so I might as well get that setup out of the way asap. Could have a different onboarding where they try out the app first before they have to actually signup.
  3. Great idea, I would like to curate a great list of suggestions for users.

Thanks for your feedback @davidw, much appreciated.

#4

I checked out the site. Here’s my feedback:

Who is this targeted for? I’m 20/Male/College Student and Facebook (usually) reminds me of important things like people’s birthday. For me personally, there is a high buy-in and I’d rather go upon doing how things are currently.

I do think it is important to stay connected with friends/family/loved ones, however.

#5

I’m not sure how much traction you’ll gain with this, but the joy of building something primarily for yourself is you’ll have at least 1 satisfied user.

This is something I’ve thought would be useful. Facebook lets you know when someone’s birthday is, but it doesn’t remind you to call your mom once a week.

It’s sort of a CRM for your personal life.

I wouldn’t hide the “How does this work?” link though. There isn’t enough info right away to justify the Get Started button. When you do click the link it looks like the fields are interactive and not just screenshots. In fact, the best way to get people to join would be to let them start adding reminders right away. See how http://www.joesgoals.com/ does this with setting goals.

#6

I really love this idea. It’s definitely a problem that I have and this app could help with that. Reminders seem to be only half of the solution; I would also want something that assists me in taking action on those reminders. I think @davidw’s idea of including a list of suggestions is probably a good start.

As @matthias said, you probably shouldn’t hide the “How does this work?” section. No one is going to sign up for a service if they don’t know what it is…

#7

I am really bad at remebering Birthdays etc. and I don’t use Facebook but a lot of people do so I suggest you build a mobile app (could use much of others.io as the back end) that can import from Facebook etc. Wondering what the current mobile app competition for this is.

#8

I do have that problem. But I will never pay for an app or a service to help me solve it. Sorry to be blunt. But I wonder how much purchase power validation you have tried to do for this? Set up a landing page, describe the problem, as the visitor for their credit card. See if you can even get faux conversions, or pre-orders. If not - probably not going to be an income providing app. If you aren’t looking to make money with it, but just want it to solve your own problem, then sure :slight_smile:

#9

I like the idea (and might possibly pay for something like this… but I’m a little crazy and like to be the customer rather than the product.)

Some feedback:

  1. Sign up process isn’t smooth, having to go click a link in my email before I can get started.
  2. Should go straight to the ‘add someone new’ page rather than require clicking another link
  3. Do you really need all that info? When we met, anniversary, birthday (turns out: no, those fields aren’t required…) That’s not clear.
  4. What do the reminders look like? I’ve jumped through these hoops and got no value yet. Am I gonna? So I can’t really answer the question. I don’t know if this app will help.
  5. Are the reminders emails? I ignore plenty spam already. Including birthday reminders from Facebook and a google calendar.

It’d be nice to get a quick payoff right off the bat. Like:

  1. Grab an email address. Address validation can come later. Get me into the app.
  2. Ask for a name & relationship
  3. Make a (quickly actionable) suggestion of something nice to do. Like, “send them a text to say you’re thinking of them.”
  4. Congratulate me on being such a great guy.
  5. Perhaps there’s a dashboard that shows the relationship is super healthy?
  6. Suggest some next steps… Do I want to add an anniversary? Birthday? Another person?
1 Like
#10

I’d be more interested in a product like this that helps me manage my professional network. I generally don’t have this problem with people I’m close too as they are part of my day to day life.

Its rough seeing your relationship with a valued professional contact fade just because you haven’t remember to catch up with them after a few months.

1 Like
#11

I think it’s a pretty sweet idea. Unlike some others here, I do think this would be useful. However I would need it to do more than just remind me of dates.

Some things I would like:

  • Suggest favours/presents that I could do/buy. This could help with your monetization if you get paid for affiliate purchases.
  • A social aspect (which would really help with your marketing). Let me publicize that I did something for someone so other members can see it. Let me ask their opinions on what to do. Let the other users generate ideas for nice things to do. Maybe even an option to tweet that I’m doing something special for someone.
  • Incorporate business contacts, not just social contacts.
  • Collect points or badges based on how many nice things I’ve done for people.
  • Keep track of what people like. For example, I have a text file on my computer which lists things my boyfriend likes (from bubblegum ice cream to Game of Thrones) so that I can refer to that when I need to buy a present. This can also be used to suggest presents or favours.
  • A photo of someone doing something nice for someone on the landing page would go a long way.

Sorry for nitpicking, but “spouce” is incorrect. It’s spelled “spouse.”