Seems like a very cool idea. $29/mo is pretty steep though fora lot of uses. Thoughts on tiered subscriptions? I think there's lots of smaller interest /friends communities that would use this if it had a cheaper option.
@dplakon What would be a reasonable price point for you and how many profiles do you plan on adding? Right now the $29/mo plan is for up to 100 profiles.
@dplakon@treggify Hi Tregg. Same question for you. What would be a fair price point and how many profiles would you expect to list? I'm collecting data to see if it would make economical sense to support a cheaper, limited plan.
@marckohlbrugge I think up to like 50 should be around $10/mo to hit a wide enough use case. I wouldn't expect to pay $30/mo til around 250 or so.
Also, it really depends on the use.
Honestly though, have you thought about making this integratabtle as a team page for companies? Those things are a nightmare to keep up to date and if you have a plug and play API that companies could plug their team pages into, that'd be very very useful and totally worth $30/mo. Slack is usually up to date with who currently is working at the company.
@dplakon@marckohlbrugge Thanks for reaching out. I think a $10 plan would be a pretty good deal for something like a slack channel. I'm not exactly sure how you're determining pricing, so I'm not sure how many users that should include.
Report
While it looks quite cool, I have a feeling I'm missing a point here. You ask $29/month and what do you get for that?
- a one-page community directory
- a way for people to sign up for said directory, so they can be featured on that page
There's not much else to it, right? Or am I missing something?
If I'm not missing anything, that I think $29/month is rather steep. But that might just be me. Your story mentions having validated that people want to pay for this, so I might be an exception...
@daandebie Hi Daan, are you a developer by any chance?
The functionality is relatively straight forward and so is the underlying technology. What people pay for however, is the value it provides to their community. Being able to show off who's who, strengthen the connection between members, serving as social proof to potential new members, etc. That's what people ultimately pay for and I hope that's worth way more than $29/mo.
There are definitely people for who this is not worth the price tag and that's fine. But right now I'm focused on the customers for whom this type of product is really valuable so that's why I chose this price tag.
Report
@marckohlbrugge Fair enough! I'm a developer myself indeed, and maybe that causes me to be biased with regard to the "worth" of the product. But you're right, ultimately it's about what people are willing to pay for it, regardless of how easy/hard it was to build :)
I hope you become super successful!
@daandebie@marckohlbrugge What feature covers the "social proof" you mentioned above?
Since stumbling across Omawho.com several years ago, I've wished for something cool like this but also questioned the true value enough that I never built it. Sounds like you found a way to connect the dots, so congrats and best of luck!
Report
@marckohlbrugge I did find a competitor that looks to be doing pretty much the same thing, but is a lot cheaper: https://www.producthunt.com/post...
Not only is it $18/month, but it seems they allow you to create many communities (which they call "packs") for that money.
What does Faces do better?
@daandebie Ah yes. I know the makers of that product. They are cool people :)
I haven't tried YourPack apart from the public-facing demo, but the products do seem quite similar. There's some differences in design, customisation, and how much depth each member profile has.
I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. Really depends on your needs. My advice would be to try out both and see which one you like best.
Hi all 👋
Excited to launch Faces today. More than 4 years in the making. Kind of.
All the way back in 2013 I created a site to showcase creatives and makers from my local community in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Ever since people asked me to create a similar site for their community. I was working on a lot of different products already and figured some other company would step in and create a service for this kind of stuff.
Few years later, late 2016, there still wasn't a simple service to create a visual overview of the people in a community. I did some quick Twitter research and it turned out more people were interested in such a page and even willing to pay.
So I created a few pages at $200 a pop (for the first year) for a handful of customers. Initially I literally just copied the codebase and did a find & replace for their community name, logo, etc. Later I replaced those with 'environment variables' so the codebase could be the same for each community, although there was still no way for customers to update those variables themselves and setting up a new page required me to spin up a new Heroku instance.
About 2-3 weeks ago I finally started working on a true multi-tenancy version of Faces. That means every community page is hosted on the same server using the same codebase. Basically it means that people can now create and manage their own page, without requiring my involvement. A true SaaS.
Anyway. That's where we are today. I'm excited to see what you'll do with it and let me know if you have any questions or feedback. 🙌
P.S.
Thanks to @espreedevora for pushing me to help her make a page for the LA startup community ( https://community.wearelatech.com ). Seeing her grow that community inspired me to turn it into a service other people could use as well.
Also shout out to @levelsio@flowen_nl@andreyazimov@oskarth for their continued support and feedback in our secret chat group. Thanks to @rpish for keeping BetaList up-and-running while I was off working on Faces. Shout out to all the beta testers and early customers @leonpals@itsakeller@mindaugaslt and countless other people 😍
@marckohlbrugge Great launch story - good to hear how you got to this point with Faces. How did you find people on Twitter who'd be interested in this? Search, or just through your followers?
@ramykhuffash Thanks Ramy. I found them just through my followers, by tweeting about the idea. Key element is that I followed up by asking for payment. It's kinda risky asking your friends/peers for feedback as they tend to be overly positive, but if they are willing to pay for your prototype that's a very good indicator there's real demand.
Report
@marckohlbrugge I love this story. Letting demand dictate build and only going all in when it's clear people will pay for the solution.
Having watched the build on Twitter, I love the care and attention Marc puts into the little details. Super neat app 👌
@marckohlbrugge Awesomesauce! Congratulations on launching the SaaS! We have been talking about this a few times. I think it's a great way for communities to show off their members.
I'm actually part of the Startup Foundation group, and personally I have not 'got anything' from it just yet. So I guess, even as a really active member in many communities, I still have my doubts for the benefits of the user... From my experience in (online and offline) communities, the strength really lies in the 1 on 1 / face to face interactions. Being part of something bigger than yourself is great, but I found every time again that discovery and serendipity is way more important than lists or search.... (you talk about discovery, but basically it's filtering and search).
I know it's just a cool thing to ship, and I salut you for that, but I'm wondering what's next to 'showing off', how do engage the 1on1 exchanges? :)
@marckohlbrugge Looks great...any possibility to see a payment integration and auto invitation. See a lot of slack communities with payment fee and tools like slackpass....build that for Faces and I think you have a super nice feature imho!
Great product Marc. One use case of Faces, which I see myself doing, is using it on the Sign Up Page. Human beings are born to recognize other human faces (YouTube Thumbnails which has a face on has more views than any other thumbnails) and putting this in the sign up page will definitely increase conversions. :D
@pratik_shetty Interesting idea. I'd say the main benefit of using Faces over coding something yourself is that people can create and manage their own profile. Is that something you see being useful for this use case too?
@marckohlbrugge : yeah. If i had a system where the "Top 10 in the leader-board" / "power users" would end up being featured in the Sign UP page as a reward. In this scenario, Users being able to manage their own profile will be much more handy then manually updating their details. I will definitely experiment with this on VideoWiki in the near future and will let you know the results :)
@pratik_shetty@getfaces@marckohlbrugge Having a leaderboard would be awesome. I am actually doing a launch and looking for simple tool for creating a leaderboard.
Report
Wow I love this tool! There's a huge need for this as most community tools prioritize conversations but don't actually introduce you to people. The layout here is lovely. My request would be for a simple slack integration and a "slack an intro" button. Not relevant for every community, but would be an awesome way to get the conversation started for those communities who do have slack groups.
@francium Thanks Francesca.
I'm actually working on a Slack integration right now. One of the largest Slack communities is already using it: https://members.startup.foundation
The way it works is you connect to your Slack account and we automatically import all your members. By using Slack's custom profile fields you have your Slack members update their profile right from within Slack and everything is automatically synced with your Faces page.
I plan on launching the Slack integration publicly in a few weeks, but if you want to get in on the private beta let me know! marc@getfaces.com
@francium@getfaces@marckohlbrugge This Slack perspective seems promising, as although many communities (not companies) are using Slack, it really lacks the profile features a loose-knit group of people really need.
@francium@getfaces@davidfrahm Yep. I think there's a big opportunity there. If you want I can notify you when it's available. Just need your email address :) (you can DM me on Twitter if you like: @marckohlbrugge)
This is something that's been sorely needed (especially for Slack communities). It sounds like you're already working on the Slack integration; has anyone asked for a Discourse integration?
@mijustin Yep, beta testing a Slack integration right now. I do remember someone asking for a Discourse member directory on Twitter a few months ago. Was that you haha? I'll have a look and see what's possible.
Warp
Divinate
Loot
Loot
Warp
Divinate
Loot
Sworkit
Loot
Loot
Hovercode
Loot
Wildcard (Pre-launch)
SponsorGap
VideoWiki
Loot
VideoWiki
Loot
Loot
Sworkit
Loot
Transistor
Loot
Trueface
Loot
Trueface