Comments on: We say a sad goodbye to Get Sign Off http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off Advice on web design and digital strategy from Paul Boag Fri, 10 May 2013 03:27:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Scott Hoff http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8777 Scott Hoff Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:40:42 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8777 Paul,

You are in many ways my web design hero. I have listened to your podcast for years and I “feel like I know you well.”

I’m sure this was a heartbreaking decision and I feel for you.

]]> By: Marc http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8776 Marc Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:07:26 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8776 Just for feedback…

We currently send PDF proofs to client who note them and return them. We looked at GetSignOff – and thought it was a bit too involved for our clients.

But great article and well done for having the guts in the first place and to hold a public inquest.

]]> By: Colin http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8775 Colin Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:37:51 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8775 Hi Paul,

Possibly something that you wouldn’t want to give out, but it would be really interesting to hear, from a learning point of view, how many clients you managed to sign up to the service, and what percentage just opted for the basic package, as opposed to upgraded to the more expensive accounts.

Probably not something you normally write about too but I’d also be fascinated in knowing what size/type of hosting you required to run the app based on the number of clients you had? I’m playing with VPSs at the moment with a view to building a few different web apps – would be great to learn from your experience.

Cheers,
Colin

]]> By: Johan http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8774 Johan Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:36:55 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8774 It does not sound like you used GetSignOff with your own business with your clients.

If you had it may shown early on if it was worth developing further.

]]> By: Tom Bryan http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8773 Tom Bryan Mon, 07 Mar 2011 02:47:44 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8773 Damn, I was just about to sign up!

Brilliant, brave article though Paul – it gave me a lot to think about.

]]> By: AJ Kandy http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8772 AJ Kandy Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:23:51 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8772 That’s a hard lesson to learn, Paul, and I’m sure it was a very hard decision to make. Thanks for sharing the story. I’m interested to know, if you care to share some more, what the revenue situation was…i.e. if it got some marketing love, could it have spun off into its own company?

On that note, have you considered selling the GetSignOff assets? If I had a spare million pounds under my mattress I’d make an offer…

]]> By: janko bosch http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8771 janko bosch Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:13:29 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8771 Sorry to hear GetSignOff didn’t work out. Not surprised to hear though. What will happen with Ryan Taylor? Will he become part of the team?

]]> By: Turnkeye.com http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8770 Turnkeye.com Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:19:31 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8770 Greg,

If you are an existing customer you can still login and use the service until the 31st May 2011.

http://goodbye.getsignoff.com/

]]> By: Greg DeMaderios http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8769 Greg DeMaderios Fri, 04 Mar 2011 16:07:14 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8769 While I find this post interesting and beneficial, one thing it doesn’t address is whether or not you agonized over the clients that were using GetSignOff. This post doesn’t indicate that you took that into consideration at all. Did you consider closing the service, but continuing to maintain it for the people who were paying?

As more and more services show up on more and more URLs, companies need to take into consideration their reliance on SaaS and the “cloud” infrastructure and what that can do to the foundation of their businesses if SaaS providers decide to pull the plug.

]]> By: Rachel Andrew http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/say-goodbye-to-get-sign-off/#comment-8768 Rachel Andrew Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:39:24 +0000 http://boagworld.com/?p=5049#comment-8768 Making a thing is definitely the easy bit – supporting, maintaining and promoting the thing takes way more time than you ever imagined – we know this from launching Perch (until then we were, like Headscape, a service providing business). The amount of time taken to offer great support, and then to act on issues where the support tickets have been raised due to a bug, or something complicated about the product cannot be underestimated.

This is where pricing is really important. Products must be priced in order that you not only pay for dev time/marketing etc, but also for support time – if you have users of your product on any kind of free version or plan then you have to factor in supporting customers who won’t ever turn into paying ones.

We’ve been fortunate in that some early decisions we made for Perch turned out to be really good ones, and we’ve been able to turn it into quite a success and balance it with client work. We’re also a much smaller company than Headscape which I think actually has worked in our favour as we have fewer overheads, set processes and practices, so can change how we do things very quickly.

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