This week’s Weekly Site Review is of Paul Haddad’s PTH Consulting, a microISV selling PTHPasteboard Pro, a Mac clipboard utility ($24.95 USD).

[Note: Right up front I should note that this review was paid for by Paul, falling somewhere in between the regular volunteer free site reviews I do here and the fixed price confidential site reviews I do for clients. As you'll see, this does not mean I went easy on Paul, but it does mean he got to see it first, had the option of adding comments (not changes) and that I covered a couple of specific issues re his software with him privately.]

Overview:

Paul Haddad’s an extremely experienced Mac software developer and his microISV product PTHPasteboard 4 Pro has a variety of features differentiating it from other Mac clipboard managers. It’s clear from pth.com’s site that Paul has been successfully developing commercial software for other companies - too clear.

Paul - like many, many microISVs who are breaking out of the contract programming trap - makes a number of key mistakes that need substantial remediation if Pasteboard 4 Pro is going to sell up to its potential. Let’s take a look at these issues, and how they may be affecting your microISV sales.

Before we get to the Hook - or in this case the lack of it - The most glaring issue the site as whole suffers from is that it is a decent site if Paul wants to generate more software development work, but it’s not a microISV site. At some point, you have to bite the bullet - or at least have a site that sells your product first and everything else a distant second.

If you click through to PTHPasteboard Pro 4 real home page - which unfortunately most first time visitors will not do - you get a much better presentation. But there’s a problem here: Paul has a competitor on this page that right now looks nearly as good as what Paul wants to sell you: his Free Edition.

Creating a Free Edition of your for-sale product is a mistake many microISVs make - I made it. A year before I released my pay for product, I did a free edition. Forty thousand downloads later of that free version, with visions of giant yellow dump trucks of money coming to me because so many people were using my Free Edition, I released my Pro version, and I learned the hard way a hard truth: free versions cost more sales than they make.

30 day trial version? Absolutely! Free version you have to support, that pulls attention away from your real product (let alone having a different codebase, a mistake Paul did not make) - No way in hell.

For the rest of this review I’m going to focus on what’s happening on the PTHPasteboard page of Paul’s microISV site because it really should be the home page.

The Hook:

Well, if Paul were making money off the free edition of PTHPasteboard 4, I’d say there are the makings of a hook here: A highly useful tool that stays out of the way until you need it, the most mature multiple pasteboard program for Mac OS X. The problem is the Pro content has been tacked on to this page - the clear message that comes across is the Pro version is not what the visitor should be focusing on. Paul is selling PTHPasteboard -which is free - at the expense of the paid version.

The commercial version has two very useful features that set it apart from other similar products: being able to sync Pasteboards across Macs and what I found more interesting - the ability automatically apply different named sets of filters to text before you paste. This last feature has the makings of a good hook: “Tired of manually formatting over and over as you move text between applications? Let PTHPasteboard 5 do it for you with one click and a lot more.”

Yes, I did say 5 there, not 4. I think - Not withstanding Paul’s statement that “PTHPasteboard 4 is and has been FREE” - he should pump up the Filters features a bit so it works out of the box to turn HTML marked up text into clean text and the reverse. If you’ve every dealt with the pain of reformatting Microsoft Word copy into clean, usable HTML with basic markup and no inline styling so you can paste it into a blog post you are writing, you know how much of a pain in the ass this is. Pain = Money. Then he should release Pro 5 and make clear he is no longer actively developing the free version.

Let PTHPasteboard 4 be free forever - but being a microISV is not agreeing for life to a vow of poverty, and it’s time for Paul to stop hurting himself and make the revenue - the profit - he’s fairly earned.

Credibility Markers:

Relegating his consulting to a separate page - or a separate site - would definitely help Paul’s sales. So would relegating old legacy freeware applications - including the cool apps he developed for another vendor that contractually he can no longer improve - to a secondary page help. That way, Paul can have a page of freeware applications he’s written, and can even legitimately monetize those pages with the Google ads he’s already running on the site. Right now, Paul’s commercial app is just one of many.

Paul has several good testimonials going for him, but the non-standard approach of displaying the attribution before the quote instead of after it adds further confusion to a confused presentation. Confusion prevents sales; clarity makes sales.

Visuals:

There’s three problems with the visuals of this site: The three column layout does not excite and does not direct the visitor to what you and they want to do: purchase a solution to a problem that bugs them.

A good microISV site captures the first time visitor’s attention with an exaggeration-free prominent statement of what problem the software solves and why the visitor should care (the Hook), backed up with additional copy and graphics that present your relevant value and build credibility and trust. Your site’s layout can help make this work, or it can get in the way. In this case, it’s the latter.

Second visual problem: The screencast (which would be improved by editing it down from 4:35 to about 1:45) and screenshots (which have no explanation, no association with relevant value) are buried. At the very least switch out the slow model gallery of each image with popBox - each image you want to see painfully loads right now, increasing the irritation factor without helping the prospective customer understand what the product’s benefits and value to him or her.

Tech Support:

If all Paul was doing was generously making available freeware, the phpBB forum and the mailto link for the more industrious would be fine. But that level of support is not adequate when it’s time to get people to open their wallets. I’d recommend that the forums be retained for the free apps, but a regular tech support process be put in place for the paid edition. There are numerous ways of doing this, including a free Student/Startup hosted FogBugz 6 account.

Blog:

The only thing worse than no blog for a microISV is one that’s died on the vine, as in this case. I get the feeling that Paul did not know what to blog about, so here’s a few suggestions:

• Development progress, even if there’s no progress. If you are going to use your microISV blog to keep your customer base informed, that means you have to update them when you do - or don’t - release updates. (Note: I’m guilty - far more guilty than Paul - on this count.)
• The people who are using your product. These posts aren’t recycled testimonials, they are a way for prospective customers to see if by association they fit in as your customer. For example, Paul has a testimonial from a review of PTHPasteboard from a university student who swears by it. Who is this person? What do they do? People find people interesting: the more you blog about your customers, the more customers you will have.
• Other Mac apps you like. Not competitors, but other apps that Mac users will find interesting and you want to recommend. Stick to the positive, drop those microISVs and vendors a short email letting them know you blogged favorably about their product and they might return the favor.

The Bottom Line:

Paul has the technical chops to succeed as a microISV, and he’s one small upgrade away from having a product that solves a new kind of problem an increasing number of people have - moving text cleanly between the web and desktop apps and web apps. PTHPasteboard Pro 5 could be a real contender - but Paul has to stop being so nice to his free (loading) users and start focusing on what his customers need: a clear value statement, a clean commercial presentation of the value of his product with consulting relegated to the background.