Working on a new messaging app

Cianos

Hi folks,
Myself along with a couple of other Boardsies are working on a new app at the moment and I wanted to post here to see if anyone would be interested in being a beta user. We should be finished version 1 in 5-6 weeks.

To give a bit of background, we've noticed that a lot of small businesses and service providers are more likely to text/WhatsApp/Viber than email their customers & clients. This makes a lot of sense as messaging is a much snappier way to communicate and emails can often be missed.

At the same time, messaging is not very business-like.

In response we're building a messaging app for work stuff. It'll have a small number of simple features to assist with the job/project. You'll also be able to use it to take online payments from your contacts.

Our ethos behind it is simplicity - we want to make it as easy as possible to pick up and use. It'll be 100% free (besides Stripe charges if you want to use it to take payments).

If you're interested in using it just reply here or send me a PM and I'll give you a shout when it's ready!

jimmii

I'll volunteer. Whatsapp is my main messaging app right now would be interested to see what you have come up with!! Would be dam handy if a system like you are suggesting became the norm I bloody hate email!

another36

I would like to test it.

goz83

I'll go for that too. Would be interested in knowing a little more about the ability to take payments too. Can sales staff use the same app under one account and all be signed in as sub-accounts?

sozbox

sign me up!

skimpydoo

What OS's does it run on?

Cianos

Thanks very much for the interest everyone, really looking forward to getting your feedback on it!

goz83 wrote: »

I'll go for that too. Would be interested in knowing a little more about the ability to take payments too. Can sales staff use the same app under one account and all be signed in as sub-accounts?

No it's not designed for a team to use. We may or may not roll out this type of functionality in the future but the first version will be more for one to one communication. It will be a very easy way for an individual to take online payments though.

skimpydoo wrote: »

What OS's does it run on?

We're building for Android and iOS!

jimmii

Put me down for android so. Is there any investment opportunities open?

Refresh

Android here

Interesting in testing it and investing

The Corinthian

Cianos wrote: »

To give a bit of background, we've noticed that a lot of small businesses and service providers are more likely to text/WhatsApp/Viber than email their customers & clients.

That would be because a SMS, WhatsApp and (to a lesser extent) Viber have high market penetration and their customers and clients are already able to receive such notifications.

Why would they have your app installed? I presume that to receive communications at least, they would need to do that. If your strategy is that your primary users would encourage their customers and clients to do so, then you might be looking at an uphill struggle, unless you can offer a very attractive reason for them to go through that hassle.

The business collaboration app market is pretty crowded - what makes you stand out? The ability to take payments isn't it, BTW.

Sorry to hijack your thread, but given this is the Entrepreneurial & Business Management forum, it's probably relevant.

Bathroomly

Would love to test this out... Whats the process of signing up as a user? Do you have a lead generator site?

Cianos

The Corinthian wrote: »

That would be because a SMS, WhatsApp and (to a lesser extent) Viber have high market penetration and their customers and clients are already able to receive such notifications.

Why would they have your app installed? I presume that to receive communications at least, they would need to do that. If your strategy is that your primary users would encourage their customers and clients to do so, then you might be looking at an uphill struggle, unless you can offer a very attractive reason for them to go through that hassle.

The business collaboration app market is pretty crowded - what makes you stand out? The ability to take payments isn't it, BTW.

Sorry to hijack your thread, but given this is the Entrepreneurial & Business Management forum, it's probably relevant.

No problem, I can't expect to post about it and for it not to be challenged!

I've used many project management tools myself due to my line of work, and some of them I swear by.

However we're not trying to build something to compete with the likes of Basecamp, Slack, Trello, Asana or any of these other very sophisticated platforms that are packed full of features. These solutions are brilliant, but because of how feature rich they are, they're just not very accessible.

Ours is a lot more simple, where we're building everything around instant messaging because we recognise that that's how people like to communicate. People are used to instant messaging now and understand it - there's no learning or figuring it out. It's scope of features will be way more limited than the likes of Basecamp and that's fine - we just want to provide a simple experience that will make it better to do business related messaging through our app rather than Whatsapp etc. Then with online payments it adds that bit more value and usefulness again.

Cianos

jimmii wrote: »

Put me down for android so. Is there any investment opportunities open?

Refresh wrote: »

Android here

Interesting in testing it and investing

Will send you a PM

Bathroomly wrote: »

Would love to test this out... Whats the process of signing up as a user? Do you have a lead generator site?

Thank you, I'll let you know when it's ready. No website up for it yet, I might have posted this thread a bit early!

The Corinthian

I understand, but why would they install such an app? After all, they've already got SMS functionality and probably WhatsApp, Viber and who knows how many other such apps.

Expecting the suppliers who decide to try out your app to convince their clients to do so is a bit of a stretch, you'll have to admit.

Cianos

The Corinthian wrote: »

I understand, but why would they install such an app? After all, they've already got SMS functionality and probably WhatsApp, Viber and who knows how many other such apps.

Expecting the suppliers who decide to try out your app to convince their clients to do so is a bit of a stretch, you'll have to admit.

The hope is that if the app is more facilitative of good communication via simple project management, to the point where it's just better for them to be messaging using this app than WhatsApp etc, then they'll get behind it.

All in theory for now of course until we get real people using it!

The Corinthian

Cianos wrote: »

The hope is that if the app is more facilitative of good communication via simple project management, to the point where it's just better for them to be messaging using this app than WhatsApp etc, then they'll get behind it.

I see. Best of luck.

ironclaw

I'd be interested in beta testing this.

However, I still don't 'get it' Can you give a use case? Is it purely for people in a project / job? Or would it be like a massive one to many chat to say customers who elect to be contacted by you?

jimmii

I think getting it running on PCs/Mac is worth doing as well one of the reasons email is so prevalent is due to it being easy to use on any device that way businesses can use it for B2B customer services as well instead of the live chat windows you have now.

hytrogen

Have you considered any specific security frame work, Like what "Telegram" does over Tor network?
Only asking after hearing all the horror stories with whatsapp leaks & snapchat blabs I would imagine a lot of the messaging market would be sketchy or hold reserves over something new that hasn't considered it.

Cianos

ironclaw wrote: »

I'd be interested in beta testing this.

However, I still don't 'get it' Can you give a use case? Is it purely for people in a project / job? Or would it be like a massive one to many chat to say customers who elect to be contacted by you?

Sure. A use case would be a personal trainer who typically uses WhatsApp to communicate with clients because it's easier and faster than email.

With our app he would have the free chat/instant messaging and push notifications of WhatsApp, but can share a To Do list with the client to give them a list of exercises for the week that they can quickly reference to and tick off (for which they can both receive a push notification). He can paste diet plans or recipes in to the Notes tab, and the client can pay him for upcoming sessions via the Pay tab.

Another use case might be a music teacher who can track exercises with a student via the To Do list, paste links or articles in to the Notes tab and again take recurring payments via the Pay tab.

We want to leave it open enough that each service provider can use the features in their own way, so how people actually use the small list of features would be up to them.

Graham

Cianos wrote: »

Sure. A use case would be a personal trainer who typically uses WhatsApp to communicate with clients because it's easier and faster than email.

With our app he would have the free chat/instant messaging and push notifications of WhatsApp, but can share a To Do list with the client to give them a list of exercises for the week that they can quickly reference to and tick off (for which they can both receive a push notification). He can paste diet plans or recipes in to the Notes tab, and the client can pay him for upcoming sessions via the Pay tab.

Another use case might be a music teacher who can track exercises with a student via the To Do list, paste links or articles in to the Notes tab and again take recurring payments via the Pay tab.

We want to leave it open enough that each service provider can use the features in their own way, so how people actually use the small list of features would be up to them.

Now that sounds much more viable than yet another instant messenger. I'd drop the 'instant messenger' descriptions/comparisons and find something else that encapsulates what you said in the 4 paragraphs above.

skimpydoo

The app you are proposing sounds a lot like Slack.

Cianos

skimpydoo wrote: »

The app you are proposing sounds a lot like Slack.

I love Slack! But Slack is much more like an improved Skype for business/project management. I guess you could say this is to WhatsApp what Slack is to Skype

ironclaw

Am I right in saying however that you will need the business operator and the user to download the App? Changing two Users behavior might be very tricky, that would be my only concern. Granted now that a personal trainer could say I use 'CianosApp' and then customers have to download it. That said, what does the App offer versus say Teamer? Remembering you still have to do something special and outside a normal persons norm e.g. Open an App, Check an email etc.

ToxicPaddy

I'd definitely be interested in taking a look as my team in work use instant messaging heavily and sometimes it simply doesn't offer the functionality we require.

Cianos

jimmii wrote: »

I think getting it running on PCs/Mac is worth doing as well one of the reasons email is so prevalent is due to it being easy to use on any device that way businesses can use it for B2B customer services as well instead of the live chat windows you have now.

We'll definitely be looking at making a web version at a later stage.

hytrogen wrote: »

Have you considered any specific security frame work, Like what "Telegram" does over Tor network?
Only asking after hearing all the horror stories with whatsapp leaks & snapchat blabs I would imagine a lot of the messaging market would be sketchy or hold reserves over something new that hasn't considered it.

As things progress we'll be looking more at higher level security. Since messages will be business related we want users to feel their content is secure.

ironclaw wrote: »

Am I right in saying however that you will need the business operator and the user to download the App? Changing two Users behavior might be very tricky, that would be my only concern. Granted now that a personal trainer could say I use 'CianosApp' and then customers have to download it. That said, what does the App offer versus say Teamer? Remembering you still have to do something special and outside a normal persons norm e.g. Open an App, Check an email etc.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here sorry!

ToxicPaddy wrote: »

I'd definitely be interested in taking a look as my team in work use instant messaging heavily and sometimes it simply doesn't offer the functionality we require.

What do you use currently if you don't mind me asking?

ironclaw

Cianos wrote: »

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here sorry!

I mean you are not tightly integrated with an existing service. Joe Public is used to say WhatsApp. If WhatsApp offered a developer API and you could integrate within WhatsApp with your idea, you'd clean up if the execution was good. However, you are asking a consumer to download, use and get familiar with another App and system. That is a huge hurdle to successful adoption. At present, a personal trainer can just add them to a group chat in WhatsApp or group on fb. This is far easier for a consumer to understand and adopt, and better for the business in the fb case as its easy promotion. Ok, it doesn't offer the extras as you described but would the average consumer care?

I can definetely see the appeal of what you are doing, don't get me wrong. I just have no idea how you are going to convince the average person to use it. Because unless they use it and can use it well, business won't adopt it.

https://www.intercom.io/ is the closest thing I can think of to what you are doing.

Cianos

ironclaw wrote: »

I mean you are not tightly integrated with an existing service. Joe Public is used to say WhatsApp. If WhatsApp offered a developer API and you could integrate within WhatsApp with your idea, you'd clean up if the execution was good. However, you are asking a consumer to download, use and get familiar with another App and system. That is a huge hurdle to successful adoption. At present, a personal trainer can just add them to a group chat in WhatsApp or group on fb. This is far easier for a consumer to understand and adopt, and better for the business in the fb case as its easy promotion. Ok, it doesn't offer the extras as you described but would the average consumer care?

I can definetely see the appeal of what you are doing, don't get me wrong. I just have no idea how you are going to convince the average person to use it. Because unless they use it and can use it well, business won't adopt it.

https://www.intercom.io/ is the closest thing I can think of to what you are doing.

Okay I get you. Consumers won't have reason to download the app themselves, in the same way that Joe Public is unlikely to ever just download Slack.

Rather, the service provider will invite them to use it because they recognise that it makes life easier for them and their clients, and it's how they get paid. If a personal trainer invites his new client to download CianosApp in order to provide his services, then the new client will probably download it - the personal trainer is endorsing the app and because the client trusts their personal trainer, they should trust the app and go to the effort of downloading it.

Then by keeping the UX really simple and as close as possible to existing experiences (WhatsApp etc) there shouldn't be any barriers to them engaging through the app from then on if the extra features do in fact make life easier for them.

jimmynokia

Count me in.

percy212

Best of luck. The Corinthian is always a downer on all ideas. There is always one. Ignore.

Graham

percy212 wrote: »

Best of luck. The Corinthian is always a downer on all ideas. There is always one. Ignore.

The more informed visitors often appreciate a balance of posts discussing both strengths and weaknesses.

Perhaps we should propose an alternative forum where every idea is given a virtual pat on the head and a gold star.