I backed the Flic 2 on Kickstarter and received the product a few weeks ago. I'm happy with the product, but disappointed in the support.
I originally came to the website to look for documentation for http requests
. I couldn't find any. I also was excited to see Android TV
and a bunch of other functions in https://flic.io/all-functions . I can't seem to find Android TV
anywhere in my android application. Also, there isn't any documentation on how to use most of these services with flic. I also couldn't find any logging for when execution fails. I know that my http request isn't working, but I have no idea why.
There are going to be a large cross section of customers who use the basic functions of flic and are happy enough. These are the people who will account for one, and only one sale.
As a business owner, I often look at the work of João Dias the main developer of tasker. As the leader of the project, he has not simply made people like tasker enough to purchase. He has made a small group of raving fans. All over automation threads on social media, there are tasker enthusiasts recommanding it over and over. One raving fan might bring in 10 more customers over time. If I were part of the Flic team, I would be looking at what he is doing and how it could be implemented. Some things I've noticed or would like to see:
- The hub is sleek looking and seems to work well
- The button press makes the button feel well made
- On some threads there are over a thousand views with no Flic response
- Response time on other threads is in the days to weeks range - this frustrates the people you could turn into raving fans
- Documentation and logging is seriously lacking
- Most people using
http request
will know curl - show examples of translations to flic
- Android webUI looks professional - but could benefit from 'hints'/'tips'
- Apps that are not available yet, should be noted or removed from
functions
webpage
At the end of the day, this is your company. I really want to see this succeed. I'm not taking the time to write this out of malice. I'm hoping that you all read this as 'constructive criticism'. I also understand that your team is small and presumably 'have a lot of other things on their plates'.
Having someone from the team, once a day, check the forums and acknowledge question would be a good start. For every hundred views a forum thread gets, you can imagine hundreds more that gave up and think poorly of the product. If you can help out the superusers, you might have people like me frequent this forum and be able to help out new users. You see this a lot on https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker where customers who understand the product freely donate their time to help new users.
Thanks for your time, and best of luck.