App Review: Bidsketch, Web-Based Project Proposals

So I just began trying out the web-app, Bidsketch, which provides tools for creating nice looking project proposals.  This may be a bit of a pre-mature review, since I’ve been using it for less than a week.  However, I do have some thoughts I’d like to share both on the app itself and the Bidsketch pricing model.

I won’t go into detail on each and every feature of Bidsketch.  For that, you should check out their nicely laid out feature tour.  In a nutshell, Bidsketch offers a system of templates which you can piece together to produce a web-based project proposal.  As a final step in the creation process, you can skin your proposal with a variety of design templates, or you can even design your own using CSS (a feature I have yet to dig into, but very intrigued…).

In this app review I’ll tackle various areas and provide a grade (A to F).  And away we go…

The Problem

Every great web application must solve a common problem.  For me, the problem I’d like to solve is two-fold:

• I want to spend less time creating project proposals (without sacrificing quality and thoughtfulness).
• I want to improve the presentation of my proposals and offer a web-based version along with a downloadable PDF version (until now, I’ve only been providing a PDF version).

Ability to solve my problem:  B

Have I saved time by creating proposals via Bidsketch rather than my old method?  So far, I don’t think so.  Even though I have defined my default copy for each area of the proposal (goals, solutions, fee schedule, etc.), I still end up re-writing a lot of custom copy for each individual project.

Has the presentation improved?  I’d say yes, with the potential improve even more once I fiddle with customizing templates.  Having a web version with the option to download a PDF is great.  Very professional and user-friendly, and reminds me a lot of the way Freshbooks works for invoices.  The PDF looks pretty good (basically mimics what you see on the web version).  However, my minor complaint would be that I’d like to better separate areas into different pages in the PDF.  There were some sections which were split between two pages, making for an awkward read-through.

Usability

Usability is extremely important in today’s market of web applications.  This is especially true when you’re app is targeted at web designers, who deal with usability issues every day!

Usability score:  C-

Not downright awful, but I do see several usability issues with Bidsketch.

The first is pasting content into the text areas.  For some reason, as soon as you hit command + V, a lightbox window opens where you can paste your content.  Bidsketch then strips all formatting and inserts the pasted content where the curser is.  While this may solve some weird formatting issues when pasting from a MS Word doc, it can be very frustrating.  There are many times when I wanted to paste an entire unordered list (I’m addicted to bullet lists!) and the app not only strips out the bullets, but they’re replaced by *.  I then have to manually delete each *, and create the bullet list all over again.  Not fun.

The next issue is navigating around the various areas of the proposal creation process.  The process is broken into 4 screens, each with a set of text areas.  The only way to move between them is with a forward and back button.  My first problem with this is that the forward and back buttons are at the very bottom of the screen, not at the top (or better yet, both).  The other problem is that I can’t jump from screen 1 to screen 4, or 4 back to 2, etc.  You’ve got to navigate sequentially, which is a pain, especially when you need to scroll to the bottom of each screen every time.

The last issue is more of a bug than a design issue, but it’s something that needs immediate fixing.  When the proposal is ready to go, Bidsketch provides a way to email it to your client.  This works nicely when sending to one email address.  However, when you add multiple email addresses (which it indicates you can do with a comma), pressing send produces an error alert, “Email field is incorrect”.  I can only assume that the email was not sent due to some kind of error.  So I double checked the emails and tried sending again.  Same error.  So I delete the second email and send it separately to each recipient.  On each I get the “Successfully sent” message.  However, I later found out that every time I received that error, the email did send! So I ended up sending the proposal to my client 4 times!  Not cool.

Oh yeah, one more frustrating problem:  Uploading my company logo is either very buggy or poorly developed.  The system either stretches my logo way too big, or shrinks it way too small, depending on the dimensions of my uploaded image.  Either tell me what dimensions it needs to be, or make it flexible enough to display the image with accurate dimensions.

Why didn’t I give it an F for usability?  Here are a few things I like:

• Ability to save section templates for use later.
• Ability to add new sections and items on the fly.
• Ability to drag and drop to re-order sections.
• Inserting template tags, like {client_name} is nice (but I’d like to see many more available template tags).
• Nice, clean interface when viewed by the client.
• Custom template design features.

Value

This is the make or break aspect of any commercial application.  Does it provide enough value to justify the price?  Bidsketch offers two monthly plans:  $14/month and $24/month, the only difference being the $24/month plan offers 75MB of storage for images and flash compared to the 35MB available in the $14/month plan.  Both plans offer the first month for free.

Value score:  C

First, let me evaluate the pricing model.  To be honest, I’m a bit confused.  I personally don’t see the value of upgrading to the $24/month plan.  Is having an an extra 40 MB for presenting images and flash within proposals that important?  I don’t think so.  I certainly don’t think that extra 40MB of storage is worth an extra $10/month.  My proposals are primarily text.  To use 75MB of storage, you must be putting a lot of images in your proposals (which I don’t understand.  Are you doing design work before you even win the project?)  Or you’re putting some type of flash elements in your proposals (again, I don’t see where this comes into play, but maybe others do).  Or you’re producing a massive amount of proposals every month, which for me is not the case.  I aim for quality projects with healthy fees, rather than quantity.  Personally, I’d stick with the $14/month plan.

Now, is $14/month worth it for this app?  I think it’s a bit high.  There are too many issues which need to be improved or resolved.  It feels much more like a pre-release beta version than a release version with a significant price tag.  Sure, one successful project could more than cover the cost of Bidsketch, but $14/month still has an effect on your bottom line, which needs to be justified.

While Bidsketch somewhat solves a problem, I don’t consider this to be a crucial tool for my freelance business.  Freshbooks is the centerpiece of my invoicing and bookkeeping system, which makes it crucial to my business.  Dropbox is a flawless app and provides the piece of mind that I’ll never lose my files.  Worth every penny.  I can’t say the same for Bidsketch.  It’s nice to have, but I could certainly continue on without it.

I see two ways to improve the pricing model of Bidsketch:

1. Separate pricing options by how many proposals you can send per month, not storage space.  Something like 3 proposals per month, 10 (my ideal plan), 25, and maybe a 50.  Perhaps offer a 1/month plan for free, although I like the 1 month free system which is currently in place.
2. Offer a lower priced option.  Keeping with my first suggestion, the 3 and 10 proposal/month plans should cost something like $5 and $8/month.  Given the value this app brings, I think this makes sense.

A lot of potential

I was drawn to this app because it’s something I’ve had in mind for quite a while.  In fact, I’ve been kicking around various ideas to try producing an app like this myself.  Perhaps a proposal creation app built on WordPress, either in the form of a theme or a plugin.  I haven’t pursued it due to lack of time.  But if you’re a developer and interested in collaborating on the idea, shoot me an email!

For now, I’ll continue to use Bidsketch, at least for the remainder of my free month.  I’m undecided on whether or not I’ll continue with the paid subscription.  If nothing else, it does provide me the opportunity to give my proposal writing a refreshed approach, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while.