whiptastic
10-31-2011, 01:45 PM
I wanted to take a minute to relay my experience with Horsestreet Handicapper and Dave Schwartz’s products. I’ve been working with HSH for a little over four months. When I first started looking for a DB handicapping product, I spent a couple of days reading up here on what people were using and why. I took a look the “bigs” most commonly discussed here, and settled on HSH – mostly because I liked Dave’s approach to the game.
Let me start off by saying that there is a fairly steep learning curve. I’ve been working in the software industry for many years, so I’m not unfamiliar with technology – and it still took a solid 3 weeks before I became conversant. The nature of this application is different than most in that it’s highly configurable and open ended. You can take one of many different approaches. There are so many settings and controls that it is easy to get overwhelmed. The good news is that the HSH support is really strong. As with most of the vendors that advertise here, Dave is actively involved in his product (i.e. he eats his own dog food, so to speak). There is an extensive archive of video instruction that walks the user through the program. Better still, there is an active community of users who are involved with different aspects of HSH. The groups that Dave formed are an excellent way for a beginner to flatten out the learning curve for both the application itself as well as how to use it in day-to-day operation.
Dave is really committed not only to the success of his product, but also to the personal success of his clients. He really works hard to make sure we have the best tools and processes in place to tackle this game. Even if you are not an HSH user, Dave’s video seminars are highly informative and key nuggets can be gleaned from his presentations and applied to whatever package you are working with. I can’t say enough about how impressive that is in today’s market of outsourced support.
To summarize: the good… powerful application that is highly adaptable and configurable, tremendous support not only for the application but for the individual user, ongoing education, online study groups, Dave’s mentor-ship (I can’t emphasize these last two enough). The downside… steep learning curve, interface can be overwhelming, some areas of the program are held over for legacy support but never used (i.e systems). Overall, I am very pleased with my purchase and am excited with all of the new features in the pipeline!
Let me start off by saying that there is a fairly steep learning curve. I’ve been working in the software industry for many years, so I’m not unfamiliar with technology – and it still took a solid 3 weeks before I became conversant. The nature of this application is different than most in that it’s highly configurable and open ended. You can take one of many different approaches. There are so many settings and controls that it is easy to get overwhelmed. The good news is that the HSH support is really strong. As with most of the vendors that advertise here, Dave is actively involved in his product (i.e. he eats his own dog food, so to speak). There is an extensive archive of video instruction that walks the user through the program. Better still, there is an active community of users who are involved with different aspects of HSH. The groups that Dave formed are an excellent way for a beginner to flatten out the learning curve for both the application itself as well as how to use it in day-to-day operation.
Dave is really committed not only to the success of his product, but also to the personal success of his clients. He really works hard to make sure we have the best tools and processes in place to tackle this game. Even if you are not an HSH user, Dave’s video seminars are highly informative and key nuggets can be gleaned from his presentations and applied to whatever package you are working with. I can’t say enough about how impressive that is in today’s market of outsourced support.
To summarize: the good… powerful application that is highly adaptable and configurable, tremendous support not only for the application but for the individual user, ongoing education, online study groups, Dave’s mentor-ship (I can’t emphasize these last two enough). The downside… steep learning curve, interface can be overwhelming, some areas of the program are held over for legacy support but never used (i.e systems). Overall, I am very pleased with my purchase and am excited with all of the new features in the pipeline!