Most people who have the need this product is meeting will have already encountered Calendly as it is ubiquitous in the space. It's basically a generic term like "Zoom" at this point. "I'll send you my Calendly link" is something people will understand to mean send you a meeting scheduling link.
So "An open source Calendly alternative" is quite clear for most people who want to make use of this.
Their messaging is focused on reaching people who might use it, not the people who won't. As you note, after going through the site, the product is not something relevant to you.
I think they could improve the below-the-fold description quite a bit, but the two words "Calendly alternative" convey the important bit about it being a customer-facing time-slot picker that connects to all your calendars, CRMs and webconferencing tools more precisely than "appointment scheduler" which might miss these features and lock you into various others, and probably gets more relevant search traffic too.
The counter argument that clear communication isn't all that necessary, because the people looking to receive this knowledge already should know this?
that's good communication.
filters out non-prospects early.
What I'm saying, and others are saying, is that even for someone looking for exactly this, it would be easier for that person to know they found exactly this, with a more clear message about what this is.
And what you seem to be saying, unless I misunderstood, is that this is a good thing? Surely the non-prospects as you put it, would also more easily find themselves being non-prospects if they knew what this was?
Just in case this is perceived as stemming from annoyance, I can assure you that I'm not at all invested. However, I do find your take, puzzling. I hope this isn't a trend in IT-solution marketing I'm not aware of.
What I think some are reacting to is that it's also unfair to expect that. The person looking for an "open-source Calendly alternative" knows they've found that because that's going to be what, by brand name, what they're looking for and will know they've found something that addresses that need, with those three words.
You don't need a marketing team to write a single line giving a high-overview description of a solution. Pointing out that such a thing would be helpful is also absolutely ridiculous to reject to the extent as I've seen here.
If an open source project want to identify themselves exclusively through a competitor, then, I'm sure that's fine. However, to avoid sounding like a parrot, I'll leave it at that. Have a nice day
they are at level-1 and you are clearly a prospect once they are level-3+
and this is a good thing. for an early stage prospects like you are noise. filtering you out early improves their value chain (for now).
their message should (must) change as they grow to eventually attract the L2 and L3 type prospects
I see this often on similar small product homepages. Many of them describe the product for someone already familiar with it, and could do with taking a step back and trying to describe it for someone who, figuratively speaking, accidentally stumbled onto it and has no idea what's going on.
The VC crowd would have you believe that every product must disrupt the whole world – for the casual visitor, their gradma and their dog.
But niche products have to ward off tyre-kickers and what-if time-wasters, as much as entice their target audience. Using industry-specific jargon kills both flies at once.
If you "don't get it", you may not be the target audience.
Not only does it signal to insiders that we know what we are talking about and that our software was built with them in mind, but it also scares away people that it is not built for. Which helps us avoid answering countless inquiries as to whether this software can work for this or that.
But hey, if it brings more money, it's justified, right? :/
Not to make it personly, but eg, you spent zero space in your comment defining the meaning of the word "scummy". Adding a definition of the word scummy would, from an abstract angle, raise the information content of your comment. It doesn't seem scummy (at least to me) that you assumed all readers would know what that word means, even considering that readers here may not have English as their first language, and thus might NOT know what the word means. At some level, we just accept that people know things, sometimes unevenly, and it's not at all 'scummy' to withhold 'known' information.
The other thing here is that there's a difference between information amount, and information value - and there's an unappreciated value in NOT having something. The principle of "less is more" holds here. Calendly or this clone doesn't explain everything. It doesn't talk about what a Computer is, or what the Internet is or the history of APIs.
https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1556761175-5973dc0f32e7
It's some picture of employees of "proof" (juding by the "proof.quip.com" URL in the guy's browser) watching a presentation by a guy in shorts holding a small statue of a whale with legs? What does that have to do with a calendar?
That’s basically the approach I took when writing that up.
I think the unfamiliarity is the most important part. It’s incredibly easy to be blind to what you know and others don’t. It also simulates a non interactive cold sell for the product, as opposed to trying to convince your competitor’s customers to jump ship.
If you are not a customer and the page makes you not want to engage further, then it is a good page, isn't it?
My first impressions without scrolling:
* Calendso has something to do with calendars, based on the name.
* It has a popular paid competitor called Calendly.
* It's open source, and there is a hosted version as well.
I do not yet know what problem it is solving for me or its existing customers.
Scrolling down slightly further, I see the testimonials, and see people find it when looking for a "scheduling & booking platform". I assume that's what it is, but I don't know why I need a "scheduling & booking platform".
When I scroll further or click "Features", I am jumped down the page, and I find out it is easily customizable, and has a bunch of integrations. I don't entirely understand what I can do with it or how I can interact with it as a user.
I have never heard of Calendly, and thus head over to their website. The first thing I see is "Calendly helps you schedule meetings without the back-and-forth emails". Clicking their "Features" link, I find claims they are "The best automated scheduling software" and without scrolling I learn it "automatically check[s] availability and help[s] you connect with your best contacts, prospects and clients".
Based on my glance at Calendly, I'm not a potential customer or user, but I only learned that from your competitor, and I only learned about your competitor from you.