I come to your site and I have no idea what it's for. Even if a friend in a band said, "hey, check this out," if I don't see something on the homepage that tells me I'm in the right place, I'm going to close the window. So in big letters say it's "Analytics for musicians" or whatever. Then I know this is the site my friend told me about.
I did wait, and got the message to watch a 9 minute video. You lost me. You might have 60 seconds to show me why this is the greatest site ever. Nine minutes is waaaay too long.
I highly recommend MicroISV's that Sell by Bob Walsh. http://47hats.com/ebooks/ $20 ebook that will tell you how to make a successful landing/homepage. Best $20 I ever spent.
Tim, you need a beautiful landing page with lots of graphics and info. Don't fight against that golden rule. Even if you like simplicity and functionality, leave that for the app once you sign up.
Kudos!
When I visited in Chrome, I wasn't sure what your site offered. When I visited in IE, I got a laugh out of your warning screen, but at least I was able to read the page title - "Advanced Data Collections and Analytics System."
Clicking through the sign up forms, I'm guessing it's analytics targeted at creative groups, but I'm not sure what your competitive differentiator is.
EDIT: After reading your post (looks like we were typing at the same time, I guess it makes sense and I appreciate your efforts to stand out. If I were to mention it to a colleague though, without any other info, I'm guessing said colleague wouldn't stick around long.
The interface is a little overwhelming -- maybe it's more natural on a mobile device, though. From the video I saw there are too many features. I'm not a musician, but I know a couple and they're not the meticulous type that want to track everything.
The UI is minimal but pretty busy at the same time. I guess minimal isn't the right word, because it is a bit overwhelming. I would add splashes of color to the most used or most important 'function' on every page to help the users focus.
Maybe make the default/hint text for the input say "Band" instead of "Group" -- considering all I see when I visit the website is "RELA - Group - User - Pass" at least this would give me an inkling that it's for musical bands.
I watched the tutorial video and it seems like cool idea. In regards to the video, the music was a bit too intense and distracting for me. Maybe you could remix or choose a different track??
It might be good to say what RELA means
have you tried posting up on dontstayin.com?
People there are lot more rude and not really technical. But they are very keen on partying and organising events.
I have a feeling I'll get some comments about how its intent isn't immediately obvious but I wanted it to operate like a true application. I am honestly tired of seeing 99% of startups' websites looking like only a slight variation of the last.
I've intentially made the initial page is so (seemingly!!) limited so that anyone who visits for the first time is pretty much forced to read what it is (you'll see it if you wait 2-4 seconds!)... and once you know what it is... you know exactly what it is and for that information to remain afterward makes it cluttered. I'm also covering a fairly small niche with the product so most people who visit will know what it is beforehand anyway (by word of mouth - given the nature of the business). You'll notice that if you start typing your name before 2 seconds arrives, the popups telling you what it is don't appear. ;)
If you can't tell, I'm a big fan of simplicity and efficiency but with high function. There's a lot more going on with my app than it seems at first glance.
I would also like as much feedback as possible regarding the mobile version since I've only been able to test it on a small handful of phones. I'm actually in the process of downloading as many emulators as I can right now.
On average I've been putting in 70+ hours a week since July, as I've put it together entirely from scratch. No frameworks whatsoever other than a graphing library and the phpmailer library (more reliable/portable than the native mail function). I think it's time I slow down a little bit and get on with my life... lol... I'm 23 and this is my first startup... and I'm going solo... unfunded... so any guidance in helping this move forwards is GREATLY appreciated!!!