Thanks everyone for the feedback! I made this tool for myself and other entrepreneurs, not just lawyers. Last year when I was negotiating with investors I often wanted to diff their changes against my original forms. A tool like this would have helped me.
I recognize that there are many challenges involved in selling to lawyers, and I'm talking to lawyers about that. Here on HN I was hoping I would hear about how DocCompare is or isn't helpful to entrepreneurs, investors and hackers.
The last funding round I was involved in, I used a combination of mercurial (show changes over time) and scripted Word diffs. It worked really well. And there's no chance I would have uploaded any of it to a site or server I didn't control.
But you really ought to talk to some lawyers about their use of it because solicitor-client privilege is pretty important and uploading it to website X sounds like disclosing the documents to X.
DeltaView has right-click integration; that will always be faster than opening a web browser, logging in, and transmitting files into the cloud.
> easier to use
It's a tie at best. See the right-click integration point, above. DeltaView has a huge amount of customization potential, but most users don't need all of it.
> cheaper
That's what worries me most. What is the revenue model and why should lawyers trust a stranger to not misuse their docs (or Anonymous to not hack the server, etc)?
To put it in perspective, DeltaView is (at most) $175 bundled with other software. To a lawyer, that's an hour of billing time at most. I don't know why a lawyer would rather risk sending confidential docs into the cloud when the alternative is software that costs (at most) one hour of billing.
I don't mean to come across harsh, but the product appears to be at best an iterative improvement in an industry that is very slow to change and is very concerned about confidentiality. The benefit of "it's free" does not carry nearly as much weight among lawyers, who often able to pass costs along to their clients and don't have the same cultural attachment to "free" as do average 20-something developers.
It just seems like the professional legal market is the wrong fit for a very powerful tool. Are there other markets worth considering?
Not all versions of Word have a comparison feature, and when present, it's not very easy to use. Track changes only works if all parties use it, it can't be turned on after the fact.
Even if track changes has been turned off, you can do a comparison between two documents that results in a redlined document. Not sure what this does other than make a pretty redlined document.
The difficulty I have with this article is that it's more about rebranding subordination than management. Managers have the power to do things like organize a "DNA" team, rewarding the best technical minds. Creating an elaborate organizational system with its own language is like deploying chaff.
Ultimately in any organization power originates from a legal source and fans outward via a network of trust relationships. The structure of the network is a hierarchy, with individuals closer to the source wielding more influence. It can be explicitly codified, or left implicit as is often the case in "flat" organizations.
In either case, the best way to move up the ladder is to become trusted by people closer to the source of power. This requires social aptitude, there is no substitute.
I think the flat vs hierarchy debate is pointless. Instead the debate should be about what kinds of people should have influence in a company? What standards should be communicated to ensure that smart latecomers quickly ascend the company's social network? Values, such as obedience and conformity, tend to reinforce the social hierarchy. Values like dissent and diversity create a more fluid social environment where trust relationships can be forged across different social strata in a company.
I think this social fluidity should be emphasized over "flatness." I'd much rather work in a fluid company than a flat one where people are binned into overly formalized teams of influence. I suggest that if you want good people to rise to the top, make fluidity the DNA of your company.
It really misses the point in proposing a way to formalize non-hierarchical power. Hierarchy is the form of formalized power that is easiest to understand and the most efficient to work with, especially for technical people who have other things on their minds besides politics.
The power of influence and respect can't really be formalized anyway. If people think technical excellence and the company's technical success are important to their personal success, then the best technical people will wield power through their ability to inform and advise. If your best technical people have less power in the organization than they ought to, it's because other employees intuit, probably correctly, that technical quality has nothing to do with their personal success.
I also think the flat v. hierarchy is pointless. In my experience, people are to some extent naturally hierarchical in their social structures. If you don't agree - think about an argument on some implementation detail that has dragged on for hours, days, maybe weeks. People are begging "Will somebody just call it already?" There is an efficiency in having somebody who knows when and how to call it. That is a form of hierarchy. Look at an open source project - the ultimate decentralization case - and yet 99% of the time there are one or more alpha geeks. That is a form of hierarchy. The fact that it arises spontaneously and is consensual does not make it less so.
The problem with hierarchy generally is not in the concept - it is in the implementation, and its poor scalability.
[Disclaimer: I herd geeks for a living. I get to call it. That does not mean I think I am better than my coders, nor that I know more than them, nor that I should be paid more. I like to think I am an asset to them].
Dissent and diversity in a company sounds great...till you realize that way leads to Yahoo/MSFT while hierarchy/command'n'control leads to Apple, Facebook, and the newly invigorated Google.
Serious dissent between companies is good, but strong dissent within means no guiding vision or purpose.
Love this article, and the pictures are great. Your comment is also a good justification for finding an inspiring office space. Unfortunately for startups its tough to find affordable rentals with vaulted ceilings, gallery like interiors and red-brick walls. Maybe this is a good reason to band together with other friendly startups or look into crazy alternatives. Artist studio space can be rented for just a few hundred a month, I wonder if you could get away with turning actual gallery space into an office...
being very creative would work, but would it be bad to travel and work? I wonder if there's a cost efficient way. I didn't rent an office, I basically just paid for some coffee and camped out at a few cafes.
I recognize that there are many challenges involved in selling to lawyers, and I'm talking to lawyers about that. Here on HN I was hoping I would hear about how DocCompare is or isn't helpful to entrepreneurs, investors and hackers.