You're asking me to connect my stripe account to your site, and give you 2% of my money and you won't even give me your first name? All of your info is anonymized and your domain who.is don't have real contact info, nor your Quora or twitter accounts...
I immediately thought you were a scammer.
<rant>
You know what pisses me off the most about a site like this? Where is your contact info? Demo? Screenshots? Samples? Names? Email? About? Who the hell are you? You provide no names, no contact info, just an overly minimal site that links to another even less informative site with no names. And I see this so often that it infuriates me. It breaks the basic most fundamental rule of the web which is, Trust and Authenticity. AKA Credibility.
http://who.is/whois/freshplum.com Even your WHO.IS info for your domain is anonymous. The only idea I have that you're not a scammer is that your HN account nick007 is 1000+ days old. And your first name might be nick and you might be a part of Ycombinator's summer 2011 class. Your clients aren't going to play the clicking game like I just did to try to find out if you're a scammer or not.
I know I'm comming off as an asshole critic (the kind HN needs less of) but, WTF man. I had to dig your names out from the bottom of your press release. The one document on all your sites that actually tells me something.
Who is spreading this philosophy of 1 page anonymous sites that ask you for credentials?
Here's a one page website I made. http://www.timeforzen.com. All it does is stream free creative commons songs. I'm not even selling anything and I still have an about page and contact info.
</rant>
(Also for those of you who are saying 5% is too high, don't forget ebay and amazon fees add up to 11%-20%. Amazon is so expensive that I can't afford to sell my calendars on its site. And Gumroad allows you to sell links to digital content by charging 5% as well. So it's normal.)
I'm sorry you feel this way. I agree that HN needs less vitriol like this, but I can understand where you're coming from.
Expect an 'about page' at some point in the near future. In the meantime here are a few links that might help you learn more about the company, the team, and the product (I found most of them by googling "Freshplum" and "gethelium"):
Now that I've calmed down, I have to say I'm so sorry for my rude rant. I don't know what triggered it but honestly my heart rate literally increased when I saw you didn't have a single name, a single email address, no contact info at all on GetHelium. I've never been that passionately angry before over a website. Maybe I'm overly-obsessed and need a break from design. Maybe I lost my life-savings to a con artist in a former life, I don't know.
I signed up and was about to connect my Stripe account when I realized it. I felt like I was being played. Who were these guys? Are they for real? Can I trust them? I automatically assumed I could because their site's on HN and got upvoted. And a flood of hormones and emotions came in, I felt weak, powerless to judge, unable to trust, unable to ask, confused, angry. All such negative emotions caused by a website without contact info.
Contact info is my #1 pet peeve in all of designdom.
You don't even need a seperate about page, just a picture of you guys at the bottom in the footer, with your names and email addresses.
Credibility and trust is more important than Usability, Pricing, Design, and everything else. NOTHING is more important. That's why so many sites have pictures of the owner, its workers, testimonials, links to Tech Crunch and the New York Times articles about them. Anything to build trust and say, "We're not going to run off with your money."
- Bad design is forgivable, you might not have had the time or budget. Lots of sites with terrible design still get money and customers.
- Bad UI is also forgivable, you might have bad taste. Lots of websites with terrible and confusing UI still sell, solve problems, and make money.
- Hiding contact info while asking for money has no excuse. It's deceptive. It's something thieves do. So credibility is the #1 most important thing.
Chris, it was not our intention to hide any contact information, but I agree that we could have done a better job of surfacing information about us. We did simplify the content of our public pages in the interest of moving quickly, but we will be addressing this shortcoming soon.
FWIW, the contact email address for our product, support@gethelium.com, can be found in the Helium management dashboard. Hopefully this addresses your concerns.
> don't forget ebay and amazon fees add up to 11%-20%
True, but comparing Helium with eBay and Amazon is like comparing apples to oranges. Both Amazon and eBay are marketplaces where you get visibility from buyers other than just payment processing. Helium should be compared to more the likes of Shopify (integrates Stripe), Volusion and BigCommerce.
Yeah, I already mentioned above I finally found their names at the bottom of their press release on their company's website. Poor guy, I'm sorry I'm usually not like this, this is just my #1 pet peeve.
Comments
You're asking me to connect my stripe account to your site, and give you 2% of my money and you won't even give me your first name? All of your info is anonymized and your domain who.is don't have real contact info, nor your Quora or twitter accounts...
I immediately thought you were a scammer.
<rant>
You know what pisses me off the most about a site like this? Where is your contact info? Demo? Screenshots? Samples? Names? Email? About? Who the hell are you? You provide no names, no contact info, just an overly minimal site that links to another even less informative site with no names. And I see this so often that it infuriates me. It breaks the basic most fundamental rule of the web which is, Trust and Authenticity. AKA Credibility.
http://who.is/whois/freshplum.com Even your WHO.IS info for your domain is anonymous. The only idea I have that you're not a scammer is that your HN account nick007 is 1000+ days old. And your first name might be nick and you might be a part of Ycombinator's summer 2011 class. Your clients aren't going to play the clicking game like I just did to try to find out if you're a scammer or not.
https://twitter.com/freshplum: Here's your twitter, again no names.
http://www.quora.com/Freshplum: And your Quora, again no names. Just "a pricing company".
I know I'm comming off as an asshole critic (the kind HN needs less of) but, WTF man. I had to dig your names out from the bottom of your press release. The one document on all your sites that actually tells me something.
Who is spreading this philosophy of 1 page anonymous sites that ask you for credentials?
Here's a one page website I made. http://www.timeforzen.com. All it does is stream free creative commons songs. I'm not even selling anything and I still have an about page and contact info.
</rant>
(Also for those of you who are saying 5% is too high, don't forget ebay and amazon fees add up to 11%-20%. Amazon is so expensive that I can't afford to sell my calendars on its site. And Gumroad allows you to sell links to digital content by charging 5% as well. So it's normal.)
Hi Chris -
I'm sorry you feel this way. I agree that HN needs less vitriol like this, but I can understand where you're coming from.
Expect an 'about page' at some point in the near future. In the meantime here are a few links that might help you learn more about the company, the team, and the product (I found most of them by googling "Freshplum" and "gethelium"):
* https://angel.co/freshplum
* http://www.crunchbase.com/company/freshplum
* http://www.linkedin.com/search/fpsearch?keywords=freshplum
* http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/11/01/freshplum-launches-...
* http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/freshplum-goes-after-small-...
* Demo: http://sam.odio.com/2012/10/31/buy-me-beer/
* http://allthingsd.com/20110621/sam-odio-i-left-facebook-to-r...
And, if there's any more information you'd like before signing up, there's always email. Our addresses are in our profiles.
Now that I've calmed down, I have to say I'm so sorry for my rude rant. I don't know what triggered it but honestly my heart rate literally increased when I saw you didn't have a single name, a single email address, no contact info at all on GetHelium. I've never been that passionately angry before over a website. Maybe I'm overly-obsessed and need a break from design. Maybe I lost my life-savings to a con artist in a former life, I don't know.
I signed up and was about to connect my Stripe account when I realized it. I felt like I was being played. Who were these guys? Are they for real? Can I trust them? I automatically assumed I could because their site's on HN and got upvoted. And a flood of hormones and emotions came in, I felt weak, powerless to judge, unable to trust, unable to ask, confused, angry. All such negative emotions caused by a website without contact info.
Contact info is my #1 pet peeve in all of designdom.
You don't even need a seperate about page, just a picture of you guys at the bottom in the footer, with your names and email addresses.
Credibility and trust is more important than Usability, Pricing, Design, and everything else. NOTHING is more important. That's why so many sites have pictures of the owner, its workers, testimonials, links to Tech Crunch and the New York Times articles about them. Anything to build trust and say, "We're not going to run off with your money."
- Bad design is forgivable, you might not have had the time or budget. Lots of sites with terrible design still get money and customers.
- Bad UI is also forgivable, you might have bad taste. Lots of websites with terrible and confusing UI still sell, solve problems, and make money.
- Hiding contact info while asking for money has no excuse. It's deceptive. It's something thieves do. So credibility is the #1 most important thing.
Chris, it was not our intention to hide any contact information, but I agree that we could have done a better job of surfacing information about us. We did simplify the content of our public pages in the interest of moving quickly, but we will be addressing this shortcoming soon.
FWIW, the contact email address for our product, support@gethelium.com, can be found in the Helium management dashboard. Hopefully this addresses your concerns.
> don't forget ebay and amazon fees add up to 11%-20%
True, but comparing Helium with eBay and Amazon is like comparing apples to oranges. Both Amazon and eBay are marketplaces where you get visibility from buyers other than just payment processing. Helium should be compared to more the likes of Shopify (integrates Stripe), Volusion and BigCommerce.
Also... Stripe is easy enough! I've implemented it a couple of times, and it only takes a few hours. No way I'd pass up 2% to spare a few hours.
Hey Chris,
I found a bit more information on the co-founders on the Fresh Plum press release page. https://freshplum.com/pr/freshplum
*Please don't shoot the messenger (me) :)
Yeah, I already mentioned above I finally found their names at the bottom of their press release on their company's website. Poor guy, I'm sorry I'm usually not like this, this is just my #1 pet peeve.