On The Scene

Tasksy, my (and Folk Art’s) time-tracking and invoicing product, has been a project of mine for the last while.  It grew out of a simple application I wrote when Toggl lost its charm.  I did enjoy the one-click timing and task creation, but I never did like toggl’s reporting; it always seemed like a pain to wring out what hours were spent when on which project for which client.

So how do I hope to make a success of it?

A Personal Touch

First and foremost, keeping my eyes on the 1000 True Fans principle is a key part.  It’s better to serve 1000 people well, very well, than to serve 100,000 people half-assedly, and far more likely, too. A support and discussion forum is a key bit of this, as is prompt email communication and using social networking tools, such as Twitter and Facebook. It also helps that I myself am a user, as well as a developer.

Manning the Phones

In the job I’m about to leave, I work at a reasonably successful former startup (they’ve been around since the dot-com days).  I’m mainly a developer here, but I also get called upon to answer phones, and something I hear an awful lot, considering the circumstances, is how appreciated it is for people to have access to consistent phone support even for entirely web-based endeavours (hint: very). I feel it’s important for people to be able to access support between the hours of 9 and 5 at the very least.

Keeping it Simple

The less an application tries to do, the less it can do wrong, and the better its focus is.  It’s also easier on the end-user, especially if your navigation makes it clear enough that no, there’s no way to do that.  Finally, it makes it much easier to maintain, which is a big plus in this situation.

All I need to do now is promote it.  With that in mind, why don’t you sign up for the beta?

Oh, and if you enjoyed all that, then you really must read  37 Signals’ book.