MXroute 4.0 Announcement
Hey friends,
Today I am proud to announce MXroute 4.0. That's what we're calling a complete UX overhaul, which does also include some new features and a unified experience for all of the customers deployed on our DirectAdmin servers (sorry to legacy cPanel users, only half of it is ready for you, but most of you guys are settled and fine).
Here's a quick TLDR version:
- New billing management panel
- New ordering flow that actually makes sense
- Single login to billing and control panel
- Automated (but invasive) 2FA removal
- New service control panel
- Simplified spam filter configuration
- Easier access to DNS records
- Cal/CardDAV implemented for everyone, easily outlined in new control panel
- New reseller control panel
- Custom URL, branding, and login form customization of our new control panel for resellers
While we still have a long way to go to reach my complete vision, this release catapults us so much closer to the finish line.
I understand that some of the simplifications are going to rub long time users the wrong way. I don't mean for them to, and I do mean to do more updates that address some of the reasons. However, I also want to go ahead and be perfectly honest here. There is absolutely nothing that can be done that pleases everyone. The thing we can do that pleases the least number of people is nothing, just let things be as they are and make no improvements. The improvements we've made here are specifically designed to address the problems that cause the most number of support tickets. To explain why that is the goal, I have to tell a story. Here's where the TLDR stops.
When we first launched, this was meant to be a very small business that appealed to Linux admins. These were people who were totally fine with a rough UX, what they needed the most was to stop dealing with IP reputation issues at hosting providers. All I had to do was throw together some licensed and open source software to help them manage the service, and then I would manage the outbound reputation to take that off of their hands.
Well, fate had other plans. Dreamhost experienced a growing number of complaints about the email side of their service. Their customers started recommending each other to us. Suddenly we became an end-user platform overnight. Through no attempt of our own, we continued to grow in that direction. Suddenly that rough UX intended for sysadmins became the reason that almost none of our customers understood anything about how our service operated. Sure, we made documentation to try to ease the pain, but it did very little to reduce ours. You see, with this new user base the list of options were growing pretty thin:
Option 1: Ditch the end-users, refund them and try to be more hostile in the ordering process so that they would go away.
Option 2: Increase service price for every customer so that we could realign our business strategy around hiring support staff.
Option 3: Stop offering support, it works how it works and if you don't like it you can leave. We actually tried this one. I'll never forget the one guy who probably would have been less upset if I had snuck into his house and murdered his pets. He wasn't the only one, but he was the only one who vocalized it so hard that I needed a shower after reading it.
Option 4: Increase service price for every customer to realign the business strategy around hiring developers to improve UX.
Option 5: Slowly improve UX based on the feedback from these end-users until we were finally able to reduce nearly all of the pain points that caused them to open support tickets.
Option 5 is the only option that allowed us to continue with the same business strategy and pricing model. To be frank, I'm not sure that raising everyone's price would have even allowed us to pull off Option 2 or Option 4. Because once you alienate enough users who feel like you've provided them no immediate value (only the promise of future value), ending up with 25% of the customers you had and the same bottom line on the revenue sheet doesn't really fund developers or support staff, and punishes the users who remain for it.
So really, when you boil it down, Option 5 was the only one that made any sense. So yes, while I do believe that this direction will alienate a few users, I truly believe that this path is the most effective path for providing the most value to the most number of people. And that is why I'm excited to make this announcement.