I second the dark contrast point. My first reaction on the site was "omg, what can I do to put some color and some life here".

I even tried playing with the bookmarks on the top right corner to see if they would light up the site.

I kept expecting a bright background image to load, or a dynamic popup to appear. Even fully loaded, the page looks incomplete.

I just did a quick article on the design: Showoff.io feedback and design impressions - http://nerdr.com/startup-showoff-io-first-impressions-and-fe...

Why the "Average user asks:" critique when the target audience (as you acknowledge below) is clearly technical. Anybody with networking experience, ie. setting up a web-server (even for local dev) will know what localhost is (they type it in their address bar to access the "local" server)...etc

I've been using OS X too long, since I instinctually thought the website was grey out / not active.

i'll chime in as somebody who likes it.

It looks like something designed for 3D and film production. Such an interface has very little contrast and color so it doesn't interfere with the perceived color and intensity of the image.

This is very similar to my http://pagekite.net/, which offers both free trials and CNAME records already.

They're out-marketing me, I guess. It looks nicely done!

Thanks for sharing.

Here is some honest critique for you: It's about more than marketing. Where they are blowing you guys away is usability -- partly in the product itself, but more on the website.

In less than 100 words I know: a) exactly what showoff does, and b) exactly how to get it up and running.

Compare that to your Quick Start guide: https://pagekite.net/support/quickstart/

I mean, my eyes just glaze over when I see that. Get me running and get out of my way. As someone else in the thread said, don't waste my time selling me "benefits" -- that's what enterprise salespeople do to enterprise buyers.

Also, I like that you have a free trial, but when are you going to tell me how much it costs? And do I really need to complete an optional survey and check a terms of service box?

Sorry if I sound like I'm being hard on you guys, but even though I don't know you at all I'm confident you're capable of more. :) Don't fall back on the "we're not good at marketing" excuse. Spend a lot of time thinking about how you can simplify, simplify, simplify, simplify every single aspect of the interaction on your website and your product itself.

I'll keep my eye on your product though. Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback! We are working on all of these things - we've been iterating from 'geeks only' to 'polished product' and just aren't all the way there yet.

It's hard work hey ;)

Usability and quickstarts/documentation ARE marketing.

Indeed they are!

Our problem is we have a highly technical, generic tool and we've found it really hard to write docs that are easy to understand and a product description that resonates with people.

It's quite eye-opening to see how someone with a relatively small subset of our features can completely wow everyone by very clearly presenting just one use-case. Simplicity really seems to be key, at least to getting this kind of attention.

It's not obvious by looking at the pagekite homepage what the product does. Lots of focus on the benefits, but as a developer, I'd rather just know what it does and how to use it

I would even suggest taking inspiration from the clearly annotated three-panel diagram on the showoff.io homepage - very clear and simple. I am guessing that pagekite might offer more functionality than this, but again, I am having trouble figuring that out.

Best of luck!

Yes, we have been struggling with a focus problem. We're techies (and our tech is good), not marketing gurus. :-)

Thanks!

I absolutely understand. I'm not a marketing person either, but I have some experience in usability research, and I think you will get as much value from testing the homepage with a few fresh faces as you would from a marketing project. There is an interesting crossover between usability and product marketing when it comes to homepages and messaging. If you haven't already, I highly recommend Steve Krug's new book "Rocket surgery made easy", which is focused on guerilla usability testing. Usability testing is classically about identifying problems/improvements to a UI, but you can quite easily use the same techniques to test your homepage and figure out whether people understand the product and whether the homepage encourages them to try it out, etc. Have fun!

As a bit of meta-commentary, I have to say: it's exchanges like the one's between you and jsdalton and you and pakeha that make me love HN. It's pretty rare to see such honest conversation and useful, constructive criticism both given and then accepted in the spirit it was given. Thanks to all of you.

You need a picture. Two screenshots with a lightning-bolt-style network connection between them, maybe.

Take a look at "How We Increased Conversions By 25% (Again) With Our Latest Redesign (carwoo.com)" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2420447

You have a whole wall of words about features, but I can't judge in 5 seconds what it does and if i'm interested. Switch to user stories.

Agreed, I really want more pictures myself. It'll happen!

We're going to add CNAME support soon. Thanks for the feedback about the color scheme.

If you sign up for an unlimited account and you're _really_ unhappy, send an email to [email protected] and we can talk about a refund :)

Cool good to know. :) Less a matter of the money, more a matter of wanting to easily play around with the "full strength" version to see if it really works for me.

I happen to be working on an account/authentication service right now, so being able to rig it with a working domain name (via CNAME) so cookies work with my app is definitely big on my list.

Team payment options would be good too - $25/M 7 user option or something.

Contrast could be better but I like the layout and fonts. Simple.