SixCentral Update

RubenLeave a comment

So it’s been a few days since I posted the big news about my first acquisition. The last few days I’ve been lost in emails, tweets, and survey results.

At this point I have two proposal SaaS based apps that focus on designers. Obviously lots of overlap and I’m not going to be able to keep every part of both of these apps.

All of my research has led me to these conclusions about SixCentral:

  • Users are disappointed in the lack of proposal features.
  • Some people like invoicing built in, others would prefer integration to apps like Freshbooks.
  • Client portal is a great feature.
  • Users are disappointed in the lack of proposal features.

I repeated the lack of proposal features item twice because it’s the one most people are talking about. This is exactly where Bidsketch shines, so I’ve decided to move forward with Bidsketch as version 2 of SixCentral. I’m going to add some of the missing SixCentral features into Bidsketch to give users the best of both apps.

My decision was based on the fact that the proposal creation features that people want took a very long time to build into Bidsketch. It’s much easier (and faster) to add invoicing and a client portal to Bidsketch.

Which brand will I be using? Not sure right now. I still have some more thinking to do but I’ll post an update once I’ve decided.

In the meantime I’ll be focusing on getting ready for the official Bidsketch pre-launch! 🙂

Something Big Just Happened

Ruben1 Comment

I’ve just made my first acquisition!

Not only that but it’s a product in my niche. Not just in my niche, but it’s web based proposal software — just like Bidsketch. It’s called SixCentral and it’s pretty impressive stuff.

Here’s the official announcement I made on the Bidsketch blog:

http://www.bidsketch.com/blog/articles/big-news/

Here’s the announcement on the SixCentral blog:

http://sixcentral.tumblr.com/post/190334451/sixcentral-is-changing-ownership

There’s lots to do and think about right now. I’ll post later with more details on where this is heading!

Flash Intro for My Screencast

Ruben4 Comments

I’m sure I have better things to do, but I did some work on the Bidsketch screencast tonight. I didn’t get too far with the actual video or the script, but I feel pretty comfortable with the software now.

Reading the screencast lesson posted by Ian Ozsvald in the Academy, I came across this this excellent 9 part tutorial he came up with:

http://blog.procasts.co.uk/2009/03/why-screencast-if-a-picture-is-worth-a-1000-words/

Somewhere in there  (or in the Academy lesson, I can’t remember) he talks about inserting some sort of slide at the start of your screencast. I thought it sounded like a pretty neat idea so I opened up Flash (which I haven’t used since version 1) and decided to create something for exactly that purpose.

Here it is:

Bidsketch Flash Intro

Private Beta Launched!

RubenLeave a comment

I’ve been working like crazy this last week trying to get Bidsketch into private beta. I’m exhausted and I worked till 5 AM twice this week, but I’ve managed to launch the beta! Woohoo!

I’d be more excited if I wasn’t so exhausted 🙂 I’d like to take a break but being that I need to get my merchant account squared away, I can’t.

I applied and was approved for every part of my merchant and payment gateway accounts; all but one — my website. I received a checklist of things that I need to do on my marketing site: privacy statement, refund policy, SSL cert, etc. So it looks like I’ll be working on that stuff for the next few days.

Amazon Usability Failure

RubenLeave a comment

I love Amazon. I think it’s one of the best websites you’ll find when it comes to usability.

But there’s one thing that’s been bugging me for years now.

Amazon Login

It’s this screen right here.

I completely, absolutely, hate it. 

Today I was checking out a book from Amazon when I encountered this screen. This is what comes up during the checkout process if you’re not already logged in. My beef with this screen is usability related. 

You see, I always enter my email and password on this screen without clicking on the appropriate radio button. I’m not used to having a radio button on a login box; it’s just stupid.

So when I submit the form I receive this error message:

Amazon Message

This happens so much, they needed a special error message telling users they’re not doing the right thing. That seems like a major screwup from a company that’s usually awesome at usability. 

Of course, I wasn’t so mad that I didn’t make my purchase. I simply grumbled a bit and clicked on the right option before resubmiting the form 🙂