Finally, I think you need to better explain how your product supports DEI, which is mentioned in the second half of the page. You should probably just remove that section; it muddies the message.
We will work on making the message clearer. Thank you!
I’m not a lawyer, but while making some assumptions I bet they would love some auto-formatted references. Maybe as part of some LexisNexis integration? Just log in with oauth and work like you normally do, the bibliography will stay up to date depending on what’s added and removed. Could even highlight content that appears to be unreferenced.
I’m sure some sort of review+approval process is pretty common in law offices, build it in! Pitch it as a way to cut out confusing email threads, but still keep a traceable record of reviews and decisions.
Someone already mentioned it in this thread, but “script” is a pretty unsearchably generic name. If you go for lawyers, now you can go hard on a Latin name. Nothing really stopping you from doing that with any other kind of user, but lawyers seem to love their Latin.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/heyrobk_positioning-product-m...
We also came up with a way to embed dynamic values seamlessly into text through simple in-line annotation and linked databases, which I don't believe is offered elsewhere.
Also, out of curiosity, does the legal world still hang on to some obscure version of WordPerfect, or have they made the switch to Word?
Everyone loved WordPerfect because of its ability to tune the final output. Formatting requirements for some court filings are very specific. Back in the day, it was like "12 point Courier, double spaced, no more than 50 pages in length" for appellate briefs (that's from memory, may not match the actual situation at the time) and it was important that an electronically transmitted document look alike on every machine, something that's virtually impossible to guarantee with Word.
This was in the day before print-to-PDF drivers were available, and no one was going to buy Adobe Acrobat licenses for every attorney, paralegal, secretary and word processor in the firm. Wordperfect was well-loved for a reason.
Gating makes your conversion rates look good, as it filters out prospects unlikely to convert, but it also reduces the volume of users who might convert.
I am (mostly) sure it was doing a legitimate OAuth - but how can I tell?
For this reason it was a hard no, I proceeded no further and deleted the app.
Happy to discuss any specific concerns or issues you had during your log in session.
The site has no scrollbar for some reason, so it's hard to navigate.
The HN title talks about interconnected documents, as if it's a wiki or something, but the site doesn't seem to mention that.
We've been working with truly digital documents for decades now, and it's not clear that this adds anything important. It also seems focused on proprietary lock-in, and doesn't have pricing available.
What do you mean by proprietary lock-in? We've put in a lot of effort into making sure the system isn't opinionated and remain fully compatible with the incumbents office suite (ie. .docx, pdf, etc.)
We are still trying to figure out pricing, which we expect to be in line with with other b2b tools of like nature and value.
I also like the cleanness of the design and the illustrations are fun - definitely a cut above the usual Corporate Memphis.
However, and this was the deal-breaker for me, there was no mention of the cost or licensing model.
A one point a subscription was mentioned, but there was no link to find out more. I’m not going to download or try an app without knowing the pricing up-front.
I want to know:
- Where they're based
- are they in the EU?
- are they from a stable country?
- what's the time zone difference?
- Whether they're owned by a larger, more established company
- What their other/past products are
- How long they've been in business
- etc...
Figure out how to do this without doing that. Obsidian did.
It is a possible way to "value-add" -- aka be the thing that people can't have unless they pay for it, that strategy is your choice and it's not a crazy or awful one per se. But I will not only always stay away from it, I'll always tell other people to as well.
So far as I have seen, it ALWAYS ends one of two ways: It ends up being open anyway or the company screws people over, eventually. I'm fine waiting for the former and not risking the latter.
More to the point, is there any reason you're hijacking the browser scrollbar (Windows 11, Brave) or is that a bug on my end? And to be completely honest here, the app looks completely uninspiring. It looks clinical (in a bad way) and lacks any sort of identity or playfulness. Also, word salad like "powering truly digital documents in a dedicated project workspace" gives me a ChatGPT vibe. "Truly digital" as opposed to.. "falsely digital?" Come on.
Happy to hear your thoughts on what would make a business tool built for formal industrial processes more 'inspiring' or 'playful'.
No ChatGPT was used in our choice of words. Feel free to suggest any alternative wording would be happier with.
Typewriter? What do you mean by that?
Proprietary syntax highlighting? Why would I want that?
Integrates with… file types?
Why the cartoon people?
Well, they're "powered" so they must be truly digital. Or something like that.
Typewriter? What do you mean by that?
Seems pretty clear. Even if you're not 50 years old, you've seen a typewriter and know what one is. It's not 2123 yet.
Proprietary syntax highlighting? Why would I want that?
It looks like this is syntax highlighting for non-programmers. People in certain types of businesses might like syntax highlighting customized to their needs, rather than repurposing the syntax highlighting used by programmers.
Integrates with… file types?
Worse, only five file types from three companies.
Why the cartoon people?
Maybe to seem friendly? Looks like Schoolhouse Rock to me. Since it's collaborative, I guess he's trying to show people together. Better than rando Adobe Stock of generic people super excited about doing mundane things.
That said…
When I click "Expore," some kind of menu pops up, but it's mostly off the side of my very wide computer screen, so I have no idea what that's supposed to do.
The contrast ratio of the entire page is awful. It's like looking at a web site through a light drizzle.
For what's supposed to be a basic, informative landing page, there's an awful lot of outbound connections that my computer is happy to block.
Ah, later on when I click on "Explore" the pop-up wants to know what kind of computer I have. How about I have a "None of Your Business Yet." Do you support that?
...and it stopped scrolling and responding to anything.
This page should have been just bare HTML/images/CSS.
Syntax highlighted has proven to make complex syntax more readable in other industries, like programming.
We use it to make complex business language more understandable and accessible to those with reading & writing disabilities.
Who is the target customer? Some of the features seem interesting and useful, like domain-specific syntax highlighting, Definition tooltips.
The site talks about accessibiltity and inclusion, but doesn't expand on what that actually entails.
All of the "Explore" links just download the app instead of expanding on the feature.
I mean, this looks like it could be a nifty product, but as others have said, you must be clear about wetting your target audience in the first screen of the page, and then provide details about what are each of the features.
You can't rely on people installing it to understand if it's for them. You got to make them _think_ it's for them first, then they'll download it and take the time to try it.
There are lots of small psychological hurdles to overcome before someone decides to install a piece of software and commit time to trying it. Downloading it going to require me to clean-up the setup file at some point, maybe it's a messy install, and it's going to be a pain to uninstall, maybe it's not really safe or could be a security hazard or mess up with other parts of my system, or it will just crash, maybe it requires libraries or runtimes that I don't have on my machine (jre?), maybe it will require an account, and I'm not ready to create one, maybe it's complex to use and I'm just going to waste time, maybe it's really targetted at lawyers and won't fit my industry, maybe...
[edit]: so I downloaded and ran the setup and Windows Smartscreen barked at me, and now I have to bypass that safety net. I hate Windows Smartscreen and will force through for software I know to be safe (like grafana), but I know nothing of this software, and I'm not sure I should force its installation. A major hurdle. Maybe having a separate page show up when downloading for Windows, explaining Smartcreen could popup and how to bypass it would help non-techie users?
Also, I use Word 2010. Will it really integrate with that?
But... I wouldn't get as far as downloading this without having a much clearer idea of whether this is a standalone app - fully offline - or some sort of cloud/SaaS service ala Notion, with a desktop client.
The integrations and the "dedicated project workspace" terminology makes me think it might be the latter?
Either way, this should be made clearer I think.
But the concept looks very nice!
I agree the drafting process for legal documents has fundamentally not improved while IDEs for software code supportive tooling has gotten much better.
I've kicked the tires on the editor and like some of your ideas a whole lot, it would be wonderful though if there was some sort of programmatic interaction or some sort of interface for electronic composition and export of documents.
Not even markdown is on the list.
It seems like the legal industry always has a great deal of inertia around tools, such that it will be a huge effort to change software, but if something does overcome that inertia I think it's likely to be because of AI features.