Remember Work App??

Cianos

So a couple of years back I posted about a project we had just released, an app for small businesses to share tasks with clients/colleagues.

Well after a disastrous experience with the first version, we were lucky enough to connect with a fantastic locally-based developer who lead a small team of remote devs to produce what we had envisioned, and have just released yesterday.

The idea is simple - imagine WhatsApp with integrated tasks. We had initially planned on a wider range of features but we’re starting off as simple as possible this time, and getting the product/experience exactly right, and planning future features according to what our users are looking for (within reason!).

We’re hoping it’ll be useful for those who aren’t at a computer all day, to coordinate with staff, even use as a personal task list. There aren’t many solutions out there for non-deskbound workers, It’s very early days but we’re hoping Work App can be that solution.

Check it out if you like, it’s free and we’d love to hear your feedback!

onedmc

Sounds like a great idea. Ill check it out.

ironclaw

Firstly, congrats on the app. I'm a developer myself so anything that follows this is just my own feedback from industry:

- Your privacy policy and ToS is boilerplate and doesn't seem to apply to the app itself. Any major company won't touch your app until you have a solid privacy policy in place along with security write up e.g. GDPR, SOC2 etc. Even down to where your app is hosted.

This would scare the beee-jesus out of most companies:

"We will maintain certain data that you transmit to the App for the purpose of managing the App, as well as data relating to your use of the App"

- Which leads to another question, how secure is the app? Do you use encryption? Is it end to end? Have you had it tested? This is a BIG one if employers ask staff for details over the app or even if the company is discussing internal information. Also for yourselves, I'd get a security audit of the app done especially if the job was outsourced. Very few developers can output secure code and YOU are liable for any breaches.

- Pricing. It seems like the app is free but it's good to have a page about this, it's the first thing I look for when I open a new app as otherwise, I assume I'm going to get done or asked for a cheque in a few weeks. How are you planning to monetise by the way?

- Usage. Get a video up there and some case studies. I'd love to see the app in action. Screenshots don't do it justice.

- Ex-employees. How can I delete my data if I leave an employer? Are you GDPR compliant?

- Why would I use this app over say Slack or Wire?

Cianos

Thanks for the feedback!

We'll definitely be making the ToS, etc, more robust, thanks for the points listed.

Right now the app isn't aimed at enterprises or major companies so there aren't any features to manage members within an organisation. We'd certainly hope to roll out such features later on. At the moment individuals can sign up and use it whatever way they wish but it'd be great to eventually be able to offer enterprise features for larger organisations to manage accounts/access.

The app is indeed free and will likely stay completely free for the foreseeable until we implement some kind of pricing model which would have to follow the rollout of more features. I've added "Download for free" to the website so thanks for pointing that out! Videos and case studies to follow for sure

What the pricing model will be, we're not sure yet, we'll wait to see what the data indicates. We're currently leaning towards capacity usage. So for example free for X number of Workspaces and X number of participants per Workspace, and pay for a higher limit.

ironclaw wrote: »

Why would I use this app over say Slack or Wire?

You probably wouldn't, and that's fine! We're not trying to compete with the likes of Slack, Wire, Asana, Basecamp, Trello, Notion etc. These are all great tools and I use a few of them myself, but they tend to be too complex for certain businesses, with steep learning curves.

We feel there's a gap in the market for low-tech companies to benefit from mobile-first productivity software. Many of these businesses are currently using WhatsApp as their main method of communication so we're hoping they'll see Work as an easy step-up as something that's just as easy to use with the benefit of simple productivity features and no training required.

Again, early days but we're looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Thanks again for the feedback!

JohnRock

That's a really good idea, the like the design. I hope it goes well for you

Cianos

JohnRock wrote: »

That's a really good idea, the like the design. I hope it goes well for you

Thanks very much really glad you like it!

I thought I'd post a quick update for anyone interested in following along.

We've been getting a few users organically through the app stores and we're happy enough so far and it's great to see people actually using it!

We changed the value proposition to be more focused - where it used to be "Chat & Share Tasks" we thought this may not be immediately appealing to the people we're trying to reach, i.e managers, team leaders etc. The main difference between Work App and other To Do apps is the Chat function, but thinking about it further Chat wouldn't necessarily be perceived as a problem solver in and of itself - the real perceived value is being able to quickly communicate and manage tasks.

As such for now we've changed the tagline & value proposition to "Send quick tasks".

We hope it'll also help solve a couple of other issues;

1. A sizeable proportion of users were downloading the app but abandoning it before creating an account. We hope that the prospect of Sending tasks makes it inherently obvious that an account would be required. I know that "Chat & Share tasks" does as well to an extent, but if the user is coming in because they want to fulfil a specific objective (ie send tasks) then hopefully they'll be better qualified as a user who is more prepared to follow through and create an account. As such, we'd hope for a better conversion from any marketing spend.

2. Similarly, we hope that users will do some of our marketing for us. If we catch someone's eye in the app store with the "Send quick tasks" tagline the hope is they'll immediately have it in mind who they will want to send tasks to. As such they'll already be primed to invite other users to the app. So one conversion becomes 2, 3, 4 or 20.

It also feels a bit tighter to have a very clear value proposition - i.e why should someone use it if it's for chatting - isn't that what WhatsApp and Facebook is for? Whereas sending tasks is its own thing.

Our biggest challenge is going to be user retention - you can spend €100 in ads and get a bunch of users on, but there's not much point if they drift away after a week or two. Also a retained user is much more valuable than a new user. So our next set of features will be looking at enhancing the experience for users but also with the hope of bringing them back into the app.

These will (hopefully) be:

Task reminder - when a task is sent, you will be able to quickly set when a reminder will be sent. If the task isn't completed the assignee will get a message e.g 3 days later to give them a polite nudge to get it sorted! In terms of retention it means that the assignee will come back into the app, and hopefully take action (e.g send a quick message back to the group, or mark the task as complete if it's been done) to keep the conversation and productivity going, which is all great from a user engagement point of view.

Repeating Tasks - Imagine a manager giving staff the end of shift checklist, or a supplies check that needs to be done every month. Rather than having to create this task every time, we want users to be able to create the task once and set it to repeat daily, weekly, monthly etc to reduces their workload and save them a tonne of time and hassle. From a user engagement point of view it will hopefully mean that instead of one outgoing task/message to pull users back to the app, it does it every day, week, month or year and becomes more of an integral part of users' day to day activities.

Here's a quick initial mockup of the updated add task screen:



We're currently assessing these features and fingers crossed will have something along these lines out soon. I'm hoping that this will improve our DAU (daily active users) and be an enhancement we can start to more confidently seek new users with since these retention features make any gained user a lot more valuable.

Will post again as things progress if there's any interest!

Make It Real

One tiny, off-topic thing...


"Remember Work App"

"Remember Alta Vista"

"Remember Bebo"


I know you're trying to remind people, hook into previous goodwill here, but words have such power!

Might be something to check in your overall comms, that you're looking forward with belief in your app.

Hope this is of some help.

Cianos

Make It Real wrote: »

One tiny, off-topic thing...


"Remember Work App"

"Remember Alta Vista"

"Remember Bebo"


I know you're trying to remind people, hook into previous goodwill here, but words have such power!

Might be something to check in your overall comms, that you're looking forward with belief in your app.

Hope this is of some help.

Thread title probably wasn't the best alright! Ah well

y0ssar1an22

i like the idea. i can see it working in small accountancy practises (thats all i can speak for) where deadlines for simple forms are missed due a number of reasons, usually it boils down to someone forgetting, or 'not being told'.

this can cost practises dearly, so i can see huge benefit in that regard.

I hope it goes well for you.

Make It Real

Cianos wrote: »

Thread title probably wasn't the best alright! Ah well

No biggie, Cianos. Different place, different voice.

Best of luck with your app!