gkrev
Pros
- Neat and tidy interface
- Smart and very user-friendly design to have the whole plan broken down into different stages and steps, making the entire process more approachable and the content more readable - unlike many similar apps which are basically a word processor with some template headings and sections
- Pricing-wise, I appreciate the discounted price offered by taking out fancy functions like collaborators which I don't need. It'd be a great deal if they continue to develop the app and make the business planning a living and evolving document/process (the current design is more for one-off use)
Cons:
- only 1 idea slot; minimum 3 idea slots would be really useful, not so much for working on multiple ideas for different clients like professional writers/planners do, but for comparing different scenarios of the same idea or similar ideas (eg. different budgets projections, market/customers focus, marketing/partnership priorities)
- whiteboard is not included, contrary to what was promised (but I already knew before purchase). It'd be nice to at least offer a lite version of whiteboard for non-premium plan users
- no roadmap, no idea what/if the development team is working on improvement and new features
To step up their game,
- offer minimum 3 idea slots
- provide a roadmap of what they are and will be working on
- more professionally-looking cover pages and more sophisticated layouts for the business plan export
- option to use free stock image/icon available online (instead of having to upload images for each)
- undo button/version history
- "discard or save" pop-up when we close with unsaved changes
- more colours and a collapse/expand function for sticky notes
- include a branding section and a marketing campaign section, as well as an overall milestones section (a business also plans for those, not just the financial setup and projections, which are nicely structured and included)
- Direct Costs and Other Overheads needs to add the option to combine items of the same category/group in graphs (i.e. like how it is in Startup Costs)
- for all the financial entries, allow a selection of the exact time period, instead of just the options of onetime/monthly average/quarterly/yearly (which is not helpful for seasonal business)
Overall, I think ideabuddy has started out pretty well with unique design and strength of their app. Hope that the company will put in continuous efforts to develop and offer more great features (as pointed out above), to give more value to the app - an app that goes beyond one-off use and remains useful as a business grows.
Nemo_IdeaBuddy
May 9, 2024Thanks a lot for the in-depth review! We are aware of some of the current limitations and we are working on resolving those. Also, you can expect to see the milestone feature in the upcoming period. Apart from that, we will also improve the financial projections, and add more flexibility to this feature.
Enjoy using IdeaBuddy and stay tuned for more cool things to come!