I get the lack of the social side - but that might just bite you in the ***. Despite what some people want to think, right now social media is the king among millennials. Don't just push your appeal to a generation, make it optional. If you want it great, if you don't - great. Older generations who are not interested in the sharing side I would also think are likely to not want to use a PC for this either, so you might be limiting your audience.
I'd also look at doing a multi-car trial, so we can see how the app works with more than 1 vehicle.
Tie yourself in with brand/model specific forums - give them an offer, allow the app to create signature strips (basically free advertising for you).
Mobile app. Not vastly important in the early days, but if it were me, I'd be planning for it - thinking about what benefits it can offer users and you.
I'm still playing around with the interface, looks nice from what I have uncovered so far.
Thanks for all the great feedback - it is really appreciated.
Your points about social are well taken. For us it is about priority and focus - especially early in the development of the service. We want to make sure we are primarily focused on delivering the absolute best tool for enthusiasts to manage their rides - whether they want to share or not - then provide a very strong set of privacy controls to enable those who do want to share.
If we were focused on social - our priority would have to be on maximizing the number of users and the social interaction "eyeballs" - to drive advertising or data based revenue. So the product would have to be optimized for getting you to sign up and talk about your rides, not necessarily the best for helping you manage them. Those are design trade-offs we are not willing to make at this point.
Ultimately, our business is built on the belief that serious enthusiasts will pay a reasonable fee for a professionally developed tool that is purpose built to help them be more effective in managing their vehicles. We may grow the social feature set over time, but that will always be second priority to the functionality of the tool for enthusiasts.
On the promotion side, we are definitely working to spread the word about RideCache through social. You can find us on
facebook,
twitter,
instagram and
youtube. Yes, the older generation is sometimes reluctant to embrace new web applications like RideCache, but we are finding that many of them appreciate the fact that the next generation of car enthusiasts - and the next caretakers of the special cars they love - are the up coming millennials who will appreciate (and in many cases expect) robust digital tools like RideCache.
We are starting to be involved in the brand/model specific forums and providing promotions there as you suggest - but we are just getting started. You can easily include the link to any vehicle's RideCache page in your signature - and we encourage that. We even offer vanity URL's for people that want those customized.
We do have a native mobile app on the list for possible future development, but the current app is highly mobile optimized and works so well on mobile that we have had little demand for it so far.
Finally, for those that would like to try the Enthusiast Level of RideCache (manage up to 8 vehicles, normally $50/year), I will see if Ryan will allow me to provide a discount code for 50% off the first year via PM for those that request it.
Thanks for taking the time to provide the detailed feedback - and for trying RideCache - it is very much appreciated!
