This is Signal vs. Noise, a weblog by 37signals about design, business, experience, simplicity, the web, culture, and more. Established 1999 in Chicago. Visit the Product Blog for more information on our products.

Love it! We’re signing up right away.

Very exciting. Congrats on the launch!

Congrats!

Probably the first reputable one of it’s kind. Countless others require a fee.

As a matter of fact, we are looking for a web designer in Boston. ;)

This sounds like a greay service.

Good Luck! Looks Greate

Forgot to say that it looks great!

Congrats! I love the logo!

I think this is a great idea but I’d like to make a suggestion. I’m a writer who specializes in web copy which is a very specific discipline. I also do architecture for usability- though I am not a designer/coder. I see many attractive sites that fall apart because the writing is not web friendly or communicate poorly. How about adding a place where writers can post their online work in tandem with designer/developers? The two really need to work hand in hand and most designers are not great writers (just as my design skills are limited).

I think this is a great idea but I’d like to make a suggestion. I’m a writer who specializes in web copy which is a very specific discipline. I also do architecture for usability- though I am not a designer/coder. I see many attractive sites that fall apart because the writing is not web friendly or communicates poorly. How about adding a place where writers can post their online work in tandem with designer/developers? The two really need to work hand in hand and most designers are not great writers (just as my design skills are limited).

Oops I sent a form twice- sorry!

Looks great, but will this be international in the future?

Great idea. I am one of those people that emailed you asking for a recommendation on a web design firm. Had Haystack existed 2 years ago, I would have saved days of work scouring the web for design firms that jived with my design sensibilities.

Great domain name too. Care to divulge how much you spent on the domain?

Looks like a great resource, I would love to see it expanded to include the other disciplines that are on the job board (engineers?).

This is cool. This would work great for pizza, too.

Great example of you guys giving back and contributing to helping everyone succeed. Thank You. Site looks great!

yo

lol..this shit has no validation :P

stands up and claps

Well done. Sign-up was easy and the listings look great. Not sure if I would pony up the $99 for a pro account, but I don’t fault you guys for trying to earn a buck.

Congratulations on launch. I’m always impressed with the execution of your products. You found a need, it fits your company, and you went for it.

I’m curious how you went about choosing the Haystack brand and the haystack.com domain. Which came first? I assume you had to go and purchase it from the previous owner. Any tips for people who are thinking of starting up an idea, have a good idea for a brand name, but the domain is taken (but not used)?

I don’t see it mentioned, but why the choice to only charge designers for their spots, and not the companies looking to already pay a designer to do the work? I’m sure designers would like additional work, but in the case of the companies it’s not really a would-be-nice to get a designer, it’s likely necessary.

Stack Overflow (stackoverflow.com) recently launched a careers area that charges both parties, but charges potential companies more than those looking for gigs.

Great to see the new product all the same.

Awesome. I’m so glad you saw this need and jumped on it.

Seconding Martin, I think it would be useful to have some way of hooking up designers with developers. I’m a back-end and JS developer, but I’m not an artist, and I often find myself wanting to partner with a real graphic designer.

How do you plan to make money off of this? Completely through the $99 pro accounts? There seems to be a finite market for that.

Excellent work, guys! What entrepreneurs, I love it.

Wow. Launched already. You must have gotten an amazing number of signups pretty quickly.

Please, please add Austin to your list of cities. I was buried under the “Other cities” mishmash and finally decided to choose Dallas so as not to get lost in the noise.

The “other city” option is an interesting situation.

The question is… should we list our home city: Jacksonville, Florida (which we do now). Or select Miami or Atlanta which would be the next closest major cities listed?

As with many web design companies, we work with clients all over the country, so the actual location is not as important except for those who really want someone near them.

The obvious concern with the “other city” option is that there will be 10 times as many listings and you will get more lost in the noise than you might in an actual city selector.

Should be interesting to see how it pans out. We just setup our page here: http://haystack.com/company/21-design-extensions

You need a way for a user to flag a profile as fake: http://haystack.com/company/154-me

Also, once you’ve clicked on a profile and then go “Back to Listings” it’s not easy to get back to where you were in the list. You have to keep scrolling down and waiting while the listings load row by row.

I guess that’s the kinda thing you only notice once you have 1000 listings. :)

Pretty cool though!

I think the “Other cities” thing is a great example of “let’s launch it, see what happens and adjust on the fly.”

I love that.

Isn’t this inherently flawed?

By only allowing a web designer to upload just 1, or 6, images of their portfolio implies that web designer have a style to design in that all of their designs will look like one of those 1-6 images.

Great web designers don’t have a style. They can create drastically different designs to accommodate the needs of the customer.

Take Jason Santa Maria’s Portfolio as an example.

None of the designs in his portfolio for past clients look like they have any type of common style. You could even goes as far as to say that they look like they were all designed by a different person.

But the one common element between all of his designs in his Portfolio is that they are extremely well done and clean.

Allowing a user to only upload 1-6 images in Haystack fundamentally limits what a designer can showcase … which them implies he has a style.

I believe interactive designer brings a wide range of skills and talents and provide many kinds of services. Now it looks like everyone is represent in a thumbnail with a price.

It’s like using a escort search for your future soul mate. I can empathize with the need, can’t say I agree with the approach.

Holy crap. I just tried to sign up. The web site is so visually busy my eyeballs were about to explode.

This definitely must have been designed by one of the new guys. It does not at all feel like the site was designed by 37signals.

Can you make the uploads linkable so I can visit the actual sites they have designed? At the moment I have to either copy and paste a url or google to see it.

Not sure about this app, http://collabfinder.com/ has quiet the same idea, with a part dedicated for the developers. And everything is free. Also I don’t retrieve the design style of a 37signals product… I may be need more time…

As a potential buyer – why would I use this over design crowdsourcing at such sites like 99designs.com, etc.

At those type of sites, as a buyer – the designer actually creates the work product before I even buy and then I select the winning design concept.

Huge time saver for potential clients (or Creative Directors) looking for talent. Minimal amount of clicking and browsing, forcing designers to put their best foot forward. Love the concept.

The execution is solid, too, though the URLs aren’t pretty (what is that number? When they signed up on Haystack? Who cares?) and the location copy is limiting. I’m headquartered near Atlanta, not in Atlanta.

Otherwise, I’m happy to be onboard, and I thank you for another way to help me find the right clients.

It seems overall the goal is good. Congratulations on the launch.

Although I also have to agree with some of Teddy’s points. When presenting design to a client that client has to understand what they are paying for. Showcasing simple images and a price tag doesn’t sell design or someone’s design abilities. It sells a style or image presented by that designer in that image.

If the website was full of videos where the designers can present themselves in a 2-3 min video, then I would agree. As then the designer can create a worthy presentation of his company and his/her knowledge of design in that time frame.

It also seems somewhat odd to see price ranges without any description of what type of web design services are provided for that price. The price for web design can range from 5k – 100k or even more depending on the scope of the project.

How about adding a sub category: “I want to design a:” | Personal Website | Marketing Website | Web based Application | etc…

This way at least the prices are relevant to what is being presented.

Overall I think this has a chance of turning into something viable. Good work.

Where was this two weeks ago? In a quick jog through the site, I found a local designer that I didn’t find in any of my massive, time-consuming searches for local web design talent.

Now, how about adding Denver to the cities list?

@Sarah: Because throwing a brief and working with someone are two different things?

I noticed the email links appear to be regular exposed “mailto:” links. Isn’t it best to encrypt those, or use a contact form ? Lookin’ good though. I have a similar project, and you’ve got me a bit worried :)

Listed, done.

Great idea, looks like the execution is solid and polished. Thanks for doing this, good luck on it being a great success.

It’s nice to see a company practice what they preach. Get the site out there, get feedback, and then make changes.

Looks good! I look forward to seeing how it evolves.

Good launch as usual. However, currently not as game-changing yet as your other products. Maybe it’s the lets-build-as-we-grow strategy. But i’m sure given your visibility this service will gain traction in no time.

Well done, gents. I look forward to watching this one grow.

All the best, looks great.

$99/mo for a paid version…when Krop creative database is $9.99/mo?

Wonder what the traffic will begin to look like for both of the sites. Is this worth 10x the cost?

Outstanding. As always very well thought out. I like the limit of 1 to 6 slides. I love how you guys approach building web apps. The product is simple and clean but within it lies incredible power and it is a joy to use them. I am going to tell my web designer friends about this. I was a little shocked about the 99 $ per month at first. But thinking about it, it makes sense, first of all anybody who pays that will take this serious and put up a well thought out and high quality portfolio and second of all the exposure you give could turn out to be pretty awesome for a good designer. I am definitely interested in how that concept will play out. Gotta go bookmark the site, bye.

$99 per month…. shameless :)

Nice and simple, but maybe too simple. Why is there’s no search option on the site?

You are web application artists.

If people will pay $99 for this service then I see that being a huge win for 37Signals. If they have to lower the price, then they get kudos from the community for lowering prices.

I see this being better then charging to little for a service and having to raise prices. That would create backlash from the community and hurt the reputation of 37Signals.

Well played 37Signals.

I’m just disappointed the logo isn’t a snow globe full of hay.

Why the exception? Will Haystack not appear in the list of products/services on the 37signals homepage?

Like the automatic pagination,

Hover this makes it impossible to read / click any content that appears on the footer.

Gah, I’ve been after that domain for years :(

Jason: Great initiative. I’d love to see this showcase site evolve.

What’s the purpose of the price range indicator, though? I don’t get that. Under $3,000 for what? Over $50,000 for what? Is this really useful in anyway?

I would argue that $10,000-$25,000 is a weak indicator that solely creates unrealistic expectations.

I hope it works out well for you.

Looking at this again… (still like it), and glad to hear that the location ‘issue’ is being addressed, although initially I can see this was not going to stop you guys getting it out the door.

How are the paid/free listings being displayed? Randomly on refresh, or statically as companies submit their listing? Obviously paid are on top, but just curious, since the ‘forever scroll’ feature keeps refreshing the page. Also it was mentioned before that when you click into a listing, and then go back it doesn’t keep your place in the scroll. Sort of confusing.

One thing is for sure, this can make a business realize there are a lot of fish in the sea of competition, but on the positive side there is a lot of opportunity. Hell you could even use this for SWOT analysis. Care to implement a RSS feed for each of the cities?

Great initiative: nice & simple.

I’m wondering though, will this be solely US-based or can European webdesigners sign up too?

Interesting, BUT the US city selection ‘method’ of selecting by locality is all but useless for anyone in an OTHER city … it’s a big world…

An excerpt from early in this post:

”... Now we’ll have an answer to that question as well: Haystack.

Here comes Haystack

Today we’re launching Haystack. Haystack is a site where…”

What was the name of your product again?

Nice one guys!

Just a heads-up: the header (with the Haystack logo) has a portion of it cut off the top in IE8 on my machine, but looks fine in FF.

A needed initiative. Thanks for addressing it.

I hope you consider adding a category (or perhaps an attribute) for developers—or teams that emphasize development. Sometimes I’m running projects that need not design but engineering.

I tel straight what i feel about Haystack, its just a big daddy of already existing 37signals job board.

Nothing impressive in it

Believe it or not I wanted to create something similar a while back. You guys beat me to it. Great job though!

A good idea would be to allow designers to tag themselves based on the services they provide – i.e. print, interactive, etc. With potentially thousands of entries in the database this would make searching more specific too.

I would also suggest specifying the number of years in business, or experience, as I think it’s an important aspect as well. Future features could also include the ability for endorsements from previous clients, again an important aspect from a potential client’s perspective. Such a system could potentially be used to in determining the order of the listings, instead of displaying them randomly as you do now.

Keep up the good work!

Looks great! Would it work to adjust the monthly pricing based on the price range you work in. Not sure if that is an idea you’ve considered.

Hi,

Nice app, but why is i restricted to america only? Are there any plans to make it global?

Scott

A great idea that’s well executed. I really like that it remembers what city and budget you chose when you return to the site.

The one extremely minor suggestion I would have is this—make the entire footer fixed like the “Back to the top” link. Because more profiles are loaded once you reach the bottom of the screen, if one were to try to click the contact link in the current footer, it could end up being like chasing a rabbit down the hole. Know what I mean?

Anyway, great job, great design.

No love for Canada. I thought we were neighbors. At least listing 4 main cities. Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary

I love it! Good way to approach a problem and find an innovative, minimalist solution.

Now I’m just waiting for my first contact through it :)

This new service was inspired on the many questions you 37s got like: “Can you recommend?”

This service doesn’t answer that question. People ask a recommendation (not a long list) from a trusted source (in this case 37signals).

I don’t see the difference or added value between googling “web design firm chicago”?

I was expecting something more innovative from 37s…

I don’t see the difference or added value between googling “web design firm chicago”?

You don’t see a difference between:

Web design firm Chicago

and

Haystack Chicago

Honestly? You don’t see a difference?

oops… might have been wrong about that “mailto” post above. My bad. Carry on!

@Anonymous Coward: Your point is clear.

My point is obviously not clear: I am referring to the fundamental problem that clients have to choose out of a long, long, long list. That’s why they ask a notorious source such as 37s for a shortlist.

Neither Google or Heystack solves this need.

I one way or another I would have liked to see an innovative approach to solve this, as Amazon did first with reviews of books over ten years ago.

But adapted of course to web design firms.

Hope it is clear now ;-)

I liked the “Back to top” button which pop out as I scroll the page vertically. I was thinking of this problem and you just gave a great idea for it.

One feature I think would be very helpful and also give people an incentive to purchase the “Pro” plan is to allow the free accounts to see how many times there profile has been clicked and viewed. Then for the “Pro” accounts it would be nice to see that as well along with what geographical area the visitor was located.

Big fan of the infinite scroll!

Why spend the effort/money to secure a domain name all of a sudden? Historically you guys just add “hq” or “now” or “it” after your URLs. Why did you decide to sweat it as opposed to getting creative?

Because they’ve got the money now – buying a name like that is pocket change to these guys.

We have something like this in Russia: http://ziik.ru/

The site doesn’t function with javascript turned off. This means the SEO value is much less. At some point, you might consider progressive enhancement versus javascript dependent. Regardless, kudos for launching.

Interesting.. interesting..

@37signals The two fields on the login-page doesn’t have equal width. Also, you may want to turn the “Remember me on this computer” text into a label so you can select/deselect the checkbox by clicking on it..

Just what the web design profession needs: Another job-board that treats designers like commodities instead of experts and exacerbates clients’ unrealistic expectations. Haystack reduces our varied expertise to a couple of screen shots and a price-tag.

Web design is a complicated process that shouldn’t be portrayed as simple for the benefit of 37signals at the expense of both clients and web designers.

Haystack does not present an original solution to the problem of hiring quality web designers.

I never thought I would associate 37signals with websites like 99designs.

Love it.

Awesome site and for a v1 is already valuable! I appreciate the hard work and the new perspective in the presentation. Can’t wait to see what the updates bring.

A suggestion I haven’t seen yet – allow the page width to dictate how many columns you have. Would look great full-screen on a new 27” iMac. :)

Great idea!

@Alexander…

Comparing Haystack to 99designs, (or CrowdSpring or Elance for that matter) is like comparing apples to oranges. It is not a job board nor is it crowd sourcing.

It is a way to get allot of eyeballs to see a glimpse of your work and then (hopefully) click on a link to your website. It is up to you to then have a kick ass website to get someone to then want to contact you. It is simply an opportunity for your work to be seen more.

Really great application! Only thing about the site that I had trouble with was getting a pin down on seeing the footer. The content kept loading whenever you’ve reached the bottom (continuous page approach you’re using) making it not possible or at least very difficult to read the footer and hence see the support email address.

This is pure genius! Consider us signed up. And based on 37’s track record, we look forward to seeing how their system evolves and adapts to lots of users and eyeballs.

Nice work, but why is there a footer if it can never be read? That’s frustrating.