Looking for some early adoptors to help shape a Sign Shop MIS

[Sign-OS]

Hi all,

Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

I've been in the sign industry for almost my entire working career and have worked in quite a few sign shops. Everyone seems to be doing the same thing: pricing from spreadsheets and managing production depending on the production manager's whims. The few shops that did run a software management system always seemed to be using something you needed a degree to figure out.

I have been working on something for the past year, and now I'm at the point where I'm not sure if what I'm building is just for me or is genuinely useful to other sign shop owners and operators. So, I figured it was time to reach out to people outside my immediate circle and see if I can get some unbiased opinions.

what i built: Sign OS

any constructive criticism welcome but im after some shops to get on board to help me make this work for thier needs so it becomes something usefull and not just a look what i can make type of product.

 

[CreativeCreative]

Hey there.

We're working on some internal tools that look similar in functionality to parts of yours, this definitely caught my attention.

Just signed up for the trial, looks really well put together so far.

Will give you some more feedback in the next few days as I use it.

 

[Sign-OS]

Hey there.

We're working on some internal tools that look similar in functionality to parts of yours, this definitely caught my attention.

Just signed up for the trial, looks really well put together so far.

Will give you some more feedback in the next few days as I use it.

Thankyou! really appriciate the feedback

 

[dypinc]

Is this 100% web-based? Like we really need more web based apps. Where are the local software apps?

 

[Sign-OS]

Is this 100% web-based? Like we really need more web based apps. Where are the local software apps?

the main app is web based but there is a part that is installed to your local computer to sync the files from local storage and the app if that's something you want (optional feature)

web based apps are much easier to maintain and distribute updates, from a development side of things and Microsoft charges a lot of money for a certification licence or the software is viewed as untrustworthy from their operating system which makes it extremity hard to come to market as a solo developer.

I could write a version for Linux to be installed locally on a machine in a week or two but there isn't the user base in the industry compared to what windows has

 

[Pauly]

Is this 100% web-based? Like we really need more web based apps. Where are the local software apps?

Web based is where it's at. I would never use production software that is PC based especially when it involves multiple people, multiple locations.

 

[White Haus]

At first glance I think it looks really good.

A few things I encountered after playing with it for 5 mins:

1. How do I change default unit of measure to inches? I was able to add it as Custom Unit but couldn't apply it, system units are locked. (Same would apply for time zone, currency, tax codes I would imagine, unless I've missed the section where that can be customized.
2. Having the pictures of random products to select when starting a quote isn't helpful/required. Cute, but unnecessary.
3. The UI is honestly really good for the most part. Don't love this font and the fact that it only appears sporadically throughout the site:
4. Looking through the product list, it would be nice to be able to quickly/efficiently make products active/inactive. Unless I missed that part, it appears that you have to go in, wait for it to load, then delete the product if you want to hide it.
5. When looking at machine rates, selecting any type of printer will always pull up the same list of printers regardless of their actual category.
6. When attempting to delete supplier, received the following error:


Sorry if that's more than you bargained for. I've been playing with, evaluating and complaining about MIS software for years and am super picky. If I wasn't so cheap I'd just pay a dev to create what I want, but I'd probably end up disliking that anyways.

Happy to discuss more once I have a chance to play around with it a bit more.

Either way, well done. I think it has a lot of potential.

Cheers,

Pat

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Is this 100% web-based? Like we really need more web based apps. Where are the local software apps?

Because of cross platform, web based IS where cross platform is. Windows, windows has like 2 or 3 GUI toolkits in various states (I can only think of Win32 and WinUI(given that's C#, that's about as resource intensive as web based)). Windows, like it or not, is where most people still are (although Win 11 and beyond, I can't really imagine why outside of fallacy of tradition (and I do like my tradition)). And that's official GUI toolkits that MS has a hand in.

Web based could be better and ironically, web based can be local (yes, it can be, it's trivial to spin up a local server that is unique to an app that closes when the app closes, most won't do that though). I do have a local webview app that I use for stop motion to capture data from a DSLR (there are no web APIs that will connect to DSLR cameras I might add, it has to be local in some way if physically tethered, even for TCP/IP there needs to be local to actually connect at the hardware level ). And yes, there is a way to have it local, with a local server, that would allow access to various other points outside the computer that's using it. I tend to stick with the LAN. Now most people like WAN, I dislike that, it's a security issue (it gets to be more of one the more 3rd party that are involved).

While I do like using the web as a descriptor for UI, I don't like the resource intensiveness of the browser context. Given that RAM prices aren't going to go down of any significance, that adds to it. People should be using webview though, compared to the browser. It can give a more local app experience, there is more control over how windows can look versus the traditional browser experience. And like I said, it can be local and it can also allow for outside connections as well.

Keep in mind though, the browser is a shared resource, just like any other .so, .dll file. That extra tab is trivial in memory consumption compared to that first one that was created to fire up the browser (this is what makes Electron such a mess, webview is better is that regard).

I could write a version for Linux to be installed locally on a machine in a week or two but there isn't the user base in the industry compared to what windows has

This is why I've had to do more and more of my own stuff. For a lot of things, that's the issue. Ironically, Windows is only there because of 3rd party support, but I digress, I can derail pretty quickly with this type of topic.

The issue about trusted software is very much a thing. And MS and Apple, knew what they were doing with this. Most people will not go further if there is a "here be dragons" type of notification. Most people will do away with freedom of choice for some type of paper thin security at the end of the day.

 

[Sign-OS]

At first glance I think it looks really good.

A few things I encountered after playing with it for 5 mins:

1. How do I change default unit of measure to inches? I was able to add it as Custom Unit but couldn't apply it, system units are locked. (Same would apply for time zone, currency, tax codes I would imagine, unless I've missed the section where that can be customized.
2. Having the pictures of random products to select when starting a quote isn't helpful/required. Cute, but unnecessary.
3. The UI is honestly really good for the most part. Don't love this font and the fact that it only appears sporadically throughout the site: View attachment 182973
4. Looking through the product list, it would be nice to be able to quickly/efficiently make products active/inactive. Unless I missed that part, it appears that you have to go in, wait for it to load, then delete the product if you want to hide it.
5. When looking at machine rates, selecting any type of printer will always pull up the same list of printers regardless of their actual category.
6. When attempting to delete supplier, received the following error:
View attachment 182974

Sorry if that's more than you bargained for. I've been playing with, evaluating and complaining about MIS software for years and am super picky. If I wasn't so cheap I'd just pay a dev to create what I want, but I'd probably end up disliking that anyways.

Happy to discuss more once I have a chance to play around with it a bit more.

Either way, well done. I think it has a lot of potential.

Cheers,

Pat

Hi Pat this is fantastic feedback thankyou!!! jumping on all these points right now i have added another 30 days on the trial account for you to give you some more time to have a play if you wanted to so you don't feel rushed

 

[Pauly]

Hi all,

Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

I've been in the sign industry for almost my entire working career and have worked in quite a few sign shops. Everyone seems to be doing the same thing: pricing from spreadsheets and managing production depending on the production manager's whims. The few shops that did run a software management system always seemed to be using something you needed a degree to figure out.

I have been working on something for the past year, and now I'm at the point where I'm not sure if what I'm building is just for me or is genuinely useful to other sign shop owners and operators. So, I figured it was time to reach out to people outside my immediate circle and see if I can get some unbiased opinions.

what i built: Sign OS

any constructive criticism welcome but im after some shops to get on board to help me make this work for thier needs so it becomes something usefull and not just a look what i can make type of product.

I don't want to be or sound rude, but i feel like you'll be chewing more than you bargained for.
Supporting software is a a job in itself.
We have our custom platform and a few custom apps and those are internal.

Fell free to PM me if you want to chat about it or throw ideas around.

 

[Sign-OS]

I don't want to be or sound rude, but i feel like you'll be chewing more than you bargained for.
Supporting software is a a job in itself.
We have our custom platform and a few custom apps and those are internal.

Fell free to PM me if you want to chat about it or throw ideas around.

Not rude at all, that's one of the reasons i want the unbiased opinions it would be a full time endeavour without a doubt but i'm also not silly enough to think that i can do it all by myself
my ultimate aim is to be running this full time and have a couple of staff assisting where my knowledge is lacking but that is only if it is something others can get behind and creates real value for shop owners

I'm currently still working full time while 'm getting this off the ground becausei have to play the long game, build the product up, stress test it and acquire real brand trust

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I've been in the sign industry for almost my entire working career and have worked in quite a few sign shops.

I'm currently still working full time while 'm getting this off the ground becausei have to play the long game, build the product up, stress test it and acquire real brand trust

If you are still in a shop while you are trying to get this on the ground running, that's your first place to stress test it there (if they give the green light for that for testing on some projects that aren't big ones until it gets some hrs on it).

A lot of tools that are out there started as an in house tool. Now downside, is that you may have to have some features that are added later as the shop that you are at may have some needs that the next shop won't and vice versa. My stop motion program is no dragonframe, but it does exactly what I need. Feature creep will come in if I were to make that available to the masses. So that could be one downside for testing at specific shop, but have direct access to those bugs/features issues, can really help with fixing them.

Just the thing is, if you are at a shop, that is a place to atleast test the areas that ALL shops will need. There is some functionality that ALL shops/users will need in specific programs. Outside of that, I would suggest a plugin system, easier with local apps (even web based ones), a bit harder when dealing with offsite web apps as that would allow the end user to extend without having to rely so much on features getting in the base program and if there isn't enough desire, it may never get in there.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Is AI allowing people to make this software easier? Don't we see a post like this at least once a week with a sign shop that made tools for themselves and now wants to share it with the world for $200 a month? The last thing I think of who would be a software developer would be people that work at a sign shop.

 

[White Haus]

Hi Pat this is fantastic feedback thankyou!!! jumping on all these points right now i have added another 30 days on the trial account for you to give you some more time to have a play if you wanted to so you don't feel rushed

You're welcome. I'll send you a PM with further feedback once I get a chance to poke around a bit more.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Is AI allowing people to make this software easier? Don't we see a post like this at least once a week with a sign shop that made tools for themselves and now wants to share it with the world for $200 a month? The last thing I think of who would be a software developer would be people that work at a sign shop.

It can give the illusion of making things easier. In some areas it does do better compared to others. I would imagine just from a sheer volume stand point that web would do pretty well, just due to what is out there available to scrape. Not only that, MS would have a huge level of access to something like Node (since they own it, of course, they also own Github, TS is their baby as well).

Now, here is the problem, it is a high level of abstraction (very much like no/low code frameworks). People that don't know squat can get a little further along, but unless they manage to fill in the gabs, it won't scale quite as easily. It's quite similar to auto conversion. In certain areas, it does very well, in others not so much and there are some that will use it for all use cases, because they don't know any better.

What I worry about most is loss of knowledge. 2nd and 3rd generation of users (if we are lucky, starting to see some of this with even 1st generation of users, the early adopters) that won't know beyond this won't know what they don't know. It's one thing to know what it's abstracting, so if something goes wrong or don't have access, can still carry on, it's another to be "dead in the water" when it goes dark for whatever reason. It's akin to, if the power goes dark can you still do your job type of thing.

As to if people working at a shop should be engineers, that all depends. Some really good tools start off as in-house programs (Blender being one). Now it's one thing for it to be in house versus general user facing. UI, features or lack thereof etc aren't the sticking point for in-house tooling versus for the average public. At its core, doing this is problem solving and I would much prefer that individual shops do this instead of being beholding to another company. How many here have made their own physical tools/tables/mod printers etc? Why is that the norm versus software tools as well? Information is right there to do it, even without what passes for "AI".

 

[Evan Gillette]

I signed up for a trial, a couple of my first pain points were similar to Pat's. You will need to get a few US testers to get the feel of what we expect. At first glance it seemed like a rip off of SignTracker, but not after you dig in. Like many of the usuals that hang around here, I have trialed most of the options out there on the market over that last 5+ years. Most "small" shops have a delicate balance of cost and complexity. I was very close to using inktavo but it wasnt flexible enough yet and pivoted to sign tracker and after a few weeks running it we decided ultimately to go back to our homemade tool on airtable. Biggest reasons were:
1) NEEDS to be able to interact with other SAAS easily
2) Simple and light is best, especially for re-order or small order entry. We aren't going to assign tasks to something that takes 20 minutes to complete.
3) Automatic sales tax calculation is HUGE for our sanity (currently handled by quickbooks online).
4) Integrate with accounting software as clean as possible, not just push a record to it. I assume this is not easy, but I have always found in-app invoices clunky and messy when "pushed" to accounting software.

I will look more at it and try to give some feedback on yours specifically.

 

[Sign-OS]

I signed up for a trial, a couple of my first pain points were similar to Pat's. You will need to get a few US testers to get the feel of what we expect. At first glance it seemed like a rip off of SignTracker, but not after you dig in. Like many of the usuals that hang around here, I have trialed most of the options out there on the market over that last 5+ years. Most "small" shops have a delicate balance of cost and complexity. I was very close to using inktavo but it wasnt flexible enough yet and pivoted to sign tracker and after a few weeks running it we decided ultimately to go back to our homemade tool on airtable. Biggest reasons were:
1) NEEDS to be able to interact with other SAAS easily
2) Simple and light is best, especially for re-order or small order entry. We aren't going to assign tasks to something that takes 20 minutes to complete.
3) Automatic sales tax calculation is HUGE for our sanity (currently handled by quickbooks online).
4) Integrate with accounting software as clean as possible, not just push a record to it. I assume this is not easy, but I have always found in-app invoices clunky and messy when "pushed" to accounting software.

I will look more at it and try to give some feedback on yours specifically.

Hi Evan,
are there any SaaS intergrations in particular that you need im happy to have a look to see if the intergrations are in my capabilities
i do have a quickbooks two way sync at the moment not just a push but the US tax system is a little more complex than what we have here in Australia so im still trying to get my head arround it and am still in the research stage as its not something i want to get wrong.
thankyou for the feedback

 

[Sign-OS]

Is AI allowing people to make this software easier? Don't we see a post like this at least once a week with a sign shop that made tools for themselves and now wants to share it with the world for $200 a month? The last thing I think of who would be a software developer would be people that work at a sign shop.

I completely understand the skepticism, and it's well warranted with all of the trash that's out there on those no-code platforms now.

Sign OS was built the old-school developer way with an IDE, a GitHub repo, iterations, and testing. Over the past year, AI has certainly allowed me to ship sooner and work faster, but this could have all been achieved without it. The stack has been hand-picked for security and data integrity, and I own the code and database. If I ever want to delete or change anything, I have full control, including the ability to change servers and hosting countries.

Even the AI integration is a custom-trained model, meaning I own the model and weights and am the only person who has direct access to it. This ensures customer data cannot be trained on by the big AI corporations.

I'm doing my best to make this a real contender in the industry, so please reach out if you have any concerns.

 

[White Haus]

I completely understand the skepticism, and it's well warranted with all of the trash that's out there on those no-code platforms now.

Sign OS was built the old-school developer way with an IDE, a GitHub repo, iterations, and testing. Over the past year, AI has certainly allowed me to ship sooner and work faster, but this could have all been achieved without it. The stack has been hand-picked for security and data integrity, and I own the code and database. If I ever want to delete or change anything, I have full control, including the ability to change servers and hosting countries.

Even the AI integration is a custom-trained model, meaning I own the model and weights and am the only person who has direct access to it. This ensures customer data cannot be trained on by the big AI corporations.

I'm doing my best to make this a real contender in the industry, so please reach out if you have any concerns.

I have to say, the way you've handled this project and the skepticism (which can be a real thing around here, rightfully so) has been impressive.

As others have mentioned, it's literally once a week that we get a similar post (I have a sign shop, created some software, test it out/sign up for me please) but yours does appear to be the real deal.

I commend you for the way that you've taken the time to address all the feedback and concerns so far.

I will try my best to give you some more feedback next week once I get a chance to sit down and poke around some more.

I know nothing on the dev or business side of launching a new SAAS product but more than happy to help as a user/tester if it means you being able to compete with the big (greedy) players out there that have the monopoly.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Sign OS was built the old-school developer way with an IDE, a GitHub repo, iterations, and testing.

It wouldn't be me if I didn't nitpick, but old school wouldn't have been an IDE, it would have been something like Vi (I use nvim by the way, I just can't resist).

While your "AI" model may have been your own, if you are actually pushing code, even in a private repo, to github, I would have concern there. Now if you are just using git locally, thats something else. I actually like Fossil, and just use my own servers.