Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:31:34 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:31:34] S0: I think I'm a little confused about what to use it for, though. It's like it's an AI... The only AI workspace you'll need, it's one desktop, every tool you need to handle any task. And it's hard when it's so broad to figure out what should I use this for. And maybe, literally, you can use it for anything. Yeah. But I feel like sometimes it's helpful. Like, what do you want the user to do when they hit this? [00:31:54] S1: Yeah. I mean, to to your point right now, like, from a visual perspective, it's very overloading. Right? You have Yeah. A lot of content in the sidebar. Yep. You have this chat history here that you can kind of scroll through. Then it seems like you have some sort of an interface here, but also kind of the main messaging Uh-huh. Of nStack sits right over here. It's hard for me to figure out exactly what to focus on first. Yeah. My German graphic design professor would always say when we were making posters in school, we were... I he... I was studying typography, he would always say that this poster doesn't dictate. It's not dictatisch. It means there's nothing in this poster right now that is drawing my attention. Like, I I don't know what to do when I look at it [00:32:29] S0: Yeah. [00:32:30] S1: Basically. Yep. I don't know what to look at first. [00:32:31] S0: Yep. Yeah. Do I click these icons? Do I go in the Slack like thing? Do I go in the chat? Am I texting [00:32:37] S1: the chat and talking to the chat here? Yeah. Why am I called Mark? [00:32:39] S0: Yeah. You're Mark, I guess.
00:32:39 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:32:39] S0: Yeah. You're Mark, I guess. [00:32:40] S1: I'm Mark now. I think feedback here, which would be nice, which probably would be, like, some of the some of the clutter here, would almost collapse Mhmm. And make it more around the the introduction and the headline and and what do I want the user to read and take away. Yep. And maybe a a simple way into a very quick demo of the tool or of the software offering would be really would be really important. But at least it's, you know, there's a... It's it's it's very whimsical and and feels kinda retro, which is nice. [00:33:08] S0: Yeah. And and there's always... Usually, or there should be one specific goal that is, like, the primary goal or the primary KPI or the the main thing you want a user to do when they hit the site. I'm not sure what it is here. Maybe it's, like, get started. Maybe it's talk to this agent. Yeah. But whatever it is, there's so many other things that are pulling your attention and distracting you from whatever it is the main goal is that they want the user to do. Yeah. And maybe the get started button is the is the primary CTA, but they have these other buttons over here [00:33:35] S1: Yeah. [00:33:35] S0: That were more in the middle that that looked exactly like those buttons. And so now there's multiple buttons that have the same color and are are calling... Yeah. It's like general engineering, marketing, get started. Yeah. What is the one that they want us to focus on first?
00:33:35 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:33:35] S0: That were more in the middle that that looked exactly like those buttons. And so now there's multiple buttons that have the same color and are are calling... Yeah. It's like general engineering, marketing, get started. Yeah. What is the one that they want us to focus on first? [00:33:48] S1: Someone once said this to me. It's like, oftentimes when we build websites, we focus on one thing on that website, and we make that really well. Mhmm. And we we we we built the whole narrative around that one thing. On Collins, it definitely felt more like the books the book stack was something that we we were proud of and wanted to show off. Yep. And that and that is the heart of of of the website is is a lot of the visual work. And I thought there was an easy way to navigate into that page, and then you can spend a lot of time there because it's easy to use. As end stack, I would be I was I would be asking myself, what is the what is the one thing I can rally around and get people to to to look at and do? Yep. And if they only take one thing away, it's better than trying to do everything at the same time. Yep. And that's kind of what's happening here at the next thing. There's a lot of things screaming for attention.
00:34:30 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:34:30] S0: Yes. It's the opposite of progressively disclosing information. Yes. And and maybe as as a positive, one thing that I think is probably good that they do is they're trying to drop you right in the product. I I assume this is actually how the product functions. Yeah. And they're not trying to, you know, tell you about the product and then get you to click a bunch of things and sign up and stuff. They're like, if the moment is people just starting to use the product, let's just get people into the product as early as possible. Yeah. But it still feels maybe like we need a little bit more context to figure out what exactly we should be doing here. Agree. NSEC, Thank you. Alright. Let's take a look at SkillSync. Free local first Mac app that carries your memory and skills across every agent and teammate. [00:35:08] S1: That's nice. Yeah. I mean, at least it's clear, I think, what what the company does. [00:35:12] S0: That's cool. Okay. Yeah. So it's got skills, and they sync. [00:35:15] S1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's in dark mode. The fonts are, I I would say, are very small. The difference between SkillSync as basically the logo and the first paragraph below it, there's a lot of percentages in in the typography height here that I that I that I think we could we we could skew in a little bit. They they feel a little off in in in my opinion. And again, there's there's a lot of very dense information. [00:35:39] S0: Mhmm.
00:35:39 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:35:39] S0: Mhmm. [00:35:40] S1: And oftentimes to what we were just saying about Nstack, it's actually... As soon as you start to abstract some of the functionalities and features, but still stay stay very detailed like they're doing here, it becomes very hard to understand exactly what it does. And, like, it... It'll require a lot of actual reading of all of these features to kind of understand what's going on. [00:35:57] S0: I'm curious of your take on this. So what they've got here is they've got, basically, a bunch of sidebar tabs Yeah. That are trying to show off different features. And you, I feel like, have an interesting approach on tabs. Yeah. Because all those sliders that you make, they're effectively like tabs. Right? [00:36:13] S1: Yeah. [00:36:13] S0: Yeah. It's just you have the affordance of knowing that there are multiple of them, and you can see multiple at a time. Yeah. And I feel like the trap that a lot of people fall into a lot of times with tabs like these is people... Users usually will not click on all of the tabs and explore them all. Yeah. And so you have to assume that whatever is hidden behind all of them Yeah. Nobody will ever see. How do you think about that? What... How can they encourage people to explore this more and get more information rather than burying everything behind tabs?
00:36:40 · Marvin Schwaibold, Aaron Epstein
[00:36:40] S1: There's this rule I always have. Like, you can't put more than seven seven lines of text on a on a slide if you're presenting work. Mhmm. Like, you have to come up with almost rules and constraints of how many features you wanna show off. Like, a good exam... I think I would use a three up component here. I would take all of these features. I would compress this information down and try to understand what are the top three things Mhmm. That SkillSync can do for you. You can do x, y, and z. Those are the three things you show off. All of those are tappable. They lead you into potentially sheets or or a view transition into into more information, and then you you have more context behind. Since it's very flat and broad, you're kind of, like, a mile wide, but, like, only an inch deep. You don't really know what you're what you're really looking at. That's what that requires, like Yeah. A deeper understanding of your feature set and and and then more condensing those down into principles and rules Yep. And main kind of, like, points. And then you can rally or bring more information under each of those kind of pillars Yep. And that'll help the users understand the flow of the website better and how to navigate it. And it's also better for the founders. I feel like if if I was still running my studio and we were working with this company right now, there would be an... A whole exercise in, well, what's the one thing you do? Yeah. If it's syncing skills, let's only talk about that [00:37:57] S0: Yeah.