We were our first users. As a PM, I was spending an unreasonable amount of time preparing user research interviews and kick-off meetings and sharing summaries to the team. A good 45-min meeting would effectively cost me about 2 hours of mental bandwidth. The private beta we launched 4 months ago helped us find good ways to attack the problem:
Meetings are broken partly because they are seen as isolated entities in calendar and note-taking tools. We want to make each meeting live next to other related meetings. Kind of like a thread of emails, but for your meetings (think of your weekly product meeting or one-on-one).
There is a missed opportunity to automate low-value repetitive tasks as well. Let's say you're interviewing customers for something, your calendar is filled with meetings called "User research with [John]". You should be able to jump into each of these meetings with a template automatically applied, and an easy way to mark highlights to feed a broader source of truth. If you're interested, we've written more extensively about this here: https://medium.com/hera-hq/your-meetings-deserve-an-inbox-no.... Long story short, our users can swiftly prepare, join, and take notes in meetings.
We were pleasantly surprised by the willingness of users to prepare for meetings, before it was officially supported in the product. We tried to make this step as easy as possible: one click to use a template and past related meetings are visible during your preparation. Today, about 50% of the meetings in Hera are prepared beforehand.
Unlike tools like Notion, the note-taking experience during meeting is intentionally constrained (only headers and bullet points). We've made it easy to mark a bullet point as a highlight or a next action. To avoid the "I took notes but never used them" curse, we've included easy-to-use exports to Google Docs/Slack/Todoist. To avoid the "What did we say last time?" curse, archived meetings are easily searchable, by title, topic, or attendee.
We have a strong focus on speed and keyboard shortcuts in the app, because taking notes in meetings can be hard :)
Premium version at $10/month, free version has unlimited features and 4 meetings notes/week. We have set up a discount code HERAHN (20% off for the first three months) for the HackerN ews community. Have a try and let us know what you think! Direct link to install the app: https://www.notion.so/Hera-Download-Link-d61273f127314353b1a.... You can also check a 2-min product tour here: https://www.loom.com/share/d227cb4216584d0880be8989b4cb5a59
We would love to get your feedback on the product and hear about the main pain points you have regarding meetings: Is it preparing them, taking notes, refocusing after/before, or just getting value out of them. We'll stick around all day to answer your questions and remarks!
But storing in your cloud, and needing access via G Suite is a non-starter. You won't get much for early adopters in top-end enterprise if you need _yet more apps installed in G Suite_ AND _sync to yet another cloud for infosec to have to vet_.
> Hey infosec, I have a new vendor that needs access to G Suite and it syncs unencrypted meeting notes to their cloud.
vs.
> Hey infosec, I have a local application that reads from Mac's calendar integration and stores notes locally.
Thanks for the remark
However, I have read your Privacy Policy, and I see that you collect PII like the following:
* Events on all your calendars (Understandable)
* Information about your Google Drive files (?!?)
* Title, description, default time zone, and other properties of Google calendars you have access to (So other people's data).
You say that you may use your collected data for marketing:
* to provide you with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless you have opted not to receive such information;
This, to me suggests that you may legally sell my Google Drive files to the highest bidder.
You also provide a broad justification for improving your services, which means you could legally look at my plaintext events and messages as part of "user research" for how people use my service:
* to gather analysis or valuable information so that we can improve our Service;
This is unacceptable in a corporate environment.
I suggest you may want to re-word your Privacy Policy, and make it clear explicitly what you do and don't do with each piece of information.
- On calendar's data: we only use the title, description, etc. of the calendars you have chosen to sync in Hera. - On google drive files, I will clarify this right now, but basically we have an export feature to google docs, which is entirely opt-in. If you want to use the feature, the first time of course you need to give us access to a small subset of your GDrive
- We do not and never intend to sell any of these data to anyone. I reword the privacy policy so that's crystal clear:)
There was an a comment by someone about $100 for a mac app. We pay for a many mac apps that solves a problem for us and at present meetings are an issue. I have been juggling among apps to solve this exact issue. The alternatives suggested like itsycal and meeter don't've the note taking and template support especially to look at the history of notes in previous meetings. This is a feature usually found in CRMs.
A feature request or a blocker in using this for us? The notes are stored on your server, we can't have that. Exporting to google docs isn't really helpful, if you could somehow store them locally (encrypted of course) and sync them to our google docs where we don't need to export them and are automatically available as google docs where we can search through them, it would be great.
We will communicate publicly as soon as we take a strong stance.
Besides all of that, though, the "store files locally" option gives me the option to put those files anywhere, including in various cloud storage accounts of my own to share with other people, thus giving me a lot more flexibility and control over with whom and how I share meeting content. That might really be the better way to go.
The market for people and large companies who have already gone full Google Apps is huge. Focus there.
This looks pretty useful. I like:
1. Templatized meetings. I do this already - I pull up templates/new-client.txt, duplicate it (most of the time), and then take notes. It's annoying to do. Hera's workflow is really nice.
2. Rules to pick a template based on meeting title is really useful
3. It's not clear what "Streams" are. I grokked the mental model while watching the Loom screencast UNTIL you the Rules section and you brought up the concept of a Stream. No idea what that is but it made me think that my mental model for the software was incomplete.
4. I love that you export to todo apps. Many note taking tools assume you're not using another todo app - Hera acknowledges the reality that you almost certainly are. A vote to integrate w/ Things.
5. It seems like Hera is an ephemeral place to TAKE notes, but not necessarily KEEP notes. Like a scratch pad where notes are taken and then disseminated to a todo list or Slack/Gsuite/Notion. Is that the intention? Related: a vote to export to Evernote please.
Will definitely try it out. Good work!
Re: Streams - still not entirely clear to me what they are. One way to frame a new feature is to explain the scenario first, and then how the feature solves that pain, and then naming it. So it might be something like:
"If you struggle with grouping your notes from similar meetings together so you can find them easily (scenario) we solve that by using Streams in Hera (which are basically tags). So you can easily click on the 'onboarding' stream to see notes from all your onboarding meetings in one place. This is helpful when you're trying to xyz."
Also if streams == tags I'd think hard about whether to introduce a new name for an existing concept that all of your users already understand... unless it truly is a different concept.
I have a blocker on plugging it in, though: we're a Microsoft Exchange shop. Now, it's easy to sync Exchange to my Mac calendar, but it is not easy to sync Exchange to Google calendar. (Googling, seems like the most reliable way is to PUBLISH your calendar... something I don't think my security / IT folks would appreciate.) I could also use Zapier it looks like, but I'd quickly run over the 100 tasks/mo in the free tier.
I have nothing against electron—power to you for solving a real problem I have, and using javascript to do it quickly. But I do think popping open EventKit to hook into the system calendar would be a solid next feature. Then people like me who are locked into Exchange will be able to use your product without ugly/brittle/security-degrading hacks.
I've seen resources for that: https://www.howtogeek.com/435975/how-to-show-an-outlook-cale....
Let me know or shoot me an e-mail at bruno at hera dot so if you need any help!
The trouble with this method is that it creates a publicly-accessible, unauthenticated feed of my calendar and all the event data in it. I don't deal in a lot of particularly sensitive trade secrets, so I'm less concerned than others on this thread about the notes being unencrypted in your cloud. Encryption would be great, but I have a reasonable expectation that you're not just letting anybody who finds it scoop up your whole database. But that's what publishing a calendar feed does. I can't leave an open door to the internet (however obscure) to all the potentially confidential information that someone might send me as part of an event. I'll have to wait for "real" exchange support.
I love the template idea. I always insist on an agenda, minutes, wrap up (next steps).
When I secretary for meetings, I create a shared doc, so others can help me live edit, proofread, etc. Having just watched the 2 min tour, maybe a future feature request.
Ditto versioning. When minutes get sent out, there's always some kind of followup, errata.
My prototypical shared doc (which I just copy for each new meeting) has date, topic, participants, etc. Since I'm mistake prone, I often forget to update some info. Fields for that stuff would be terrific.
I like the highlight (annotation) feature.
In my future perfect world, meeting minutes would be sync'd somehow to the actual recording. I rarely need full transcription, but embedded timestamps (to jump into recording) would be awesome. I've done this manually and it's a lot of work.
Thanks for sharing. Hera is really compelling. Happy Hunting!
apple provide best frameworks to design UIs easily (SwiftUI), please use that
Ignore the naysayers. Being an Electron app is not a dealbreaker for 99% of people and I see the feature list and just say "Yes, yes yes!" to all of it.
One question that is vital to me: where are the notes stored? Is it in the cloud? Are they encrypted? I ask because my company has rather strict controls on this, and does not want sensitive meeting notes being stored with third parties that have not been verified.
Looking forward to watching this tool grow and develop.
Just trying to figure out what makes this product better than the hundreds out there.
Is it possible that you could figure out a one time price that lets me buy the software? I like the idea of improving my meetings, but try to minimize recurring fees.
Also the price/value seems wonky as I pay $10/month for office365 with a TB of cloud storage
The more meeting notes you write into Hera, the more connected all your meetings will be and the more context Hera will be able to provide you in each meeting.
It's not like a one-time tool that you always use to do the same thing. I am not saying that we won't test one-time price at some point, but it's not in our short-term plans.
The notion of "well you will get value from it over time" isn't, imo, a great way to frame it. Even if your feature set doesn't grow, you have connections to external services, and they will have changes over time that you'll need to keep up with (auth protocol changes, etc). That takes attention and time and money. BUT... perhaps a "standalone" version that doesn't connect with asana/google/etc. might have a 'one time price'?
My meeting notes are just text files stored? It doesn’t seem to be doing anything extra over time and seems to just be client side processing so no long term external resources are required.
If this were iPad or iOS focused, I’d be far more likely to use it for me and my teams, as cutting down on laptop distractions has been one of the big meeting wins.
The one thing I noticed watching the demo was the odd way keyboard shortcuts were displayed. There is no "+" between the modifier key(s) and the letters/digits... it's just ⌘1 or ⌘D (not ⌘+1 or ⌘+D).
- The notes you take in Hera can feed into other tools, for instance Todoist for your next actions.
- Fewer friction points: you click on one button and it opens your Zoom/GMeet/... and your notes where you find back your preparation. Spinning a new page in Notion is not that hard, but you would be surprised by what small friction points do over time.
- Right now your meeting notes are not encrypted, but stored in a secure database on our server. We are currently considering two options to make sure your notes are safe: either end-to-end encryption on our servers or offline-based storage for your notes.
Your current model of unencrypted on your database is a big no for me.
To the people moaning about Electron apps... you're not the market. To the people moaning about $100 price... you're not the market. To the people moaning about Mac-only... you're not the market. To the people who missed the value-prop COMPLETELY and think some free taskbar widget is the whole idea... you're not the market.
IMO if you're managing 10+ people and have 10+ meetings a week (i.e. are an executive, founder, or otherwise in leadership), and this helps you get even 10% better at meetings, you'd do it in a heartbeat.
The fact is that in most startups and even larger tech companies, meetings remain one of THE most important decision/collaboration fulcrums that exist. One might say that "being better at meetings" is one of the most important things you can do as a leader.
Final comment to the naysayers - I'd like to introduce to a little startup/email client called Superhuman. I'm sure these naysayers were posting all these negative hot takes on that too. And the naysayers were wrong then. Because they aren't the market.
Congrats guys!
Then who's the market? Because it's obviously not us and I think the (accepts Electrons) ∩ (uses mac os) ∩ (pays for expensive apps) population is VERY restricted.
And why post it here if we are not the market?
> missed the value-prop COMPLETELY
The idea of "value proposition" is so absolutely inane. If people were always paying for a what a tool is "worth" in term of revenues then working would be useless as you would be spending as much on your tools as to what they bring.
Do you value Linux at >50K a year? Would you pay 5000$ a month to use an OS? No? Well that's weird because that seems in line with its "value proposition".
> I'd like to introduce to a little startup/email client called Superhuman. I'm sure these naysayers were posting all these negative hot takes on that too. And the naysayers were wrong then. Because they aren't the market.
Then stop advertising this type of apps here.
Outside of a small vocal group of people mostly concentrated on HN and prone to give crappy hot takes, practically everyone in the world "accepts Electrons".
The market is people that have a lot of meetings and invest a lot of time in preparing/documenting them.
By the way, you are talking as if the set of people who accept electron apps and pay for expensive apps is a fixed one. It's a tradeoff. It the app is good enough, people won't care that it's Electron or that it's expensive (and, for the record, few people care about Electron apps).
> The idea of "value proposition" is so absolutely inane.
The value proposition of something is not the price, but what it gives to the user.
> you would be spending as much on your tools as to what they bring.
The value you offer is the value offered by your tools plus the value you add by working with them.
I'm making a bit of a joke here, but the market is plenty huge for this app. Also, not all of Hackernews is developers who have opinions on electron. e.g. Me.
I think it's a bit too easy to use this to justify whatever decision you make. After all, you can always define your market to be whatever set of people like your product and are willing to put up with whatever set of restrictions is imposed.
That isn't to say that this is never a valid point to make, for example I think "if you don't see the point of this, you're not the market" is absolutely reasonable. I can also accept it when talking about the price.
However, I don't see how it applies to the Operating System restriction and to a lesser extent the complaints about Electron. My primary machines from work run Windows, but that doesn't say anything about the number of meetings I have, how much I prepare for them or what value this application has to me.
I see potential for this to be quite useful and would have no qualms paying the subscription fee if it turns out to save me time over my current workflow. I think that makes me part of the market for the tool. But I probably won't find out if it's useful or pay for it anytime soon because the application doesn't run on my machine. I can see many colleagues being in a similar boat.
If not fulfilling the system requirements automatically makes me "not the market" and you're happy doing your business constrained to "the market", then you're obviously allowed to do that. The authors, and hardly anyone else for that matter, owes me a Windows app or any other product. But I don't think saying "I'd use this, but I don't use macOS" is naysaying or implies "you can never build a successful business" if done respectfully. It enables the creators to gauge interest and decide whether to invest resources into opening up another segment of potential users.
but someone has to say this: as a Mac user, i won't be paying $100/year for electron app
will stick to itsycal, a freeware, "real" macOS app, i've paid $10 for
not affiliated, but feel free to check out: https://www.mowglii.com/itsycal/
I think you’re confusing price for actual utility here. I do wish this team luck but they aren’t doing enough for the money, given what $50-100/year per team member already gets you.
itsycal connects macOS calendar locally - no need to sign up
any calendar will work, as long as you can add it in the "Internet Accounts" settings
i use Teams with Outlook Calendar for work and with recent update you can join meetings too in single click
If so, I’m in. I want this kind of tool, but don’t want any more Electron junk on my desktop.
proof: https://imgur.com/a/wia3N7n
I am sure you can get some market in Windows instead of Mac using electron, the windows users does not care which tech you used but that it just works and gets the job done.
Of course Windows users also they do not want trash but if have good performance and it works, It is fine.
That being said, it's on us to show users that a well-crafted Electron app can behave as nicely as a native one. Down the road, we might switch to a native app if we believe it would significantly deliver more value to our users.
Mind you, I am not against Electron apps on my mac (Evernote user here heh)
