I tried a Show HN for one of my projects. It's now dead. For my latest, Fork the Cookbook (http://forkthecookbook.com) I actually approached bloggers and talked to them, one by one. It's a tedious task, but I absolutely refuse to buy ads except for quick tests.
I wish people(hackers) would spend same amount of time building and marketing/selling their idea. Unfortunately, i think its human nature, it is always easy to start with the fun part, and give up when the steps need to be taken become uninteresting/difficult.
Hackers love creating stuff, but when it comes to the selling that idea to their potential users, they dont have enough energy.
Possible. Its also part of the trough of sorrow. Its hard to remain motivated when nobody is paying attention to you.
A lot of websites I liked using that launched at the same time I did on HN are now dead despite my asking to pay to use them. slowcop.com is one that springs to mind. I used that damn near every day and still miss it.
I wonder just how much success (small and large) can be attributed to just continuing for years till it actually works.
Maybe people just underestimate how long it takes to actually get traction.
Sorry about the late reply. It was somewhat similar to YSlow for Firefox. I always thought it had some potential because the implementation was so slick.
They were offering all sorts of other services though. The ability to rerun after a deployment and get the comparison, daily/weekly/hourly reports and other services.
I really liked the idea, but as you say I can see how they wouldn't try to compete with Google. That said though considering the Reader fiasco they might have been perfectly positioned had Google decided to shut it down.
I absolutely agree. I have fallen into that trap a number of times. The latest was indeed with Fork the Cookbook. Some bloggers filed a DMCA request (fun fact, recipes cannot be copyrighted, so they essentially were perjuring themselves). It sapped so much energy from our marketing and coding efforts, that 3-4 weeks later we're still recovering - took ages to convince ourselves that it was still worth doing.
Of course recipes can't be copyrighted, but you running into this issue proves just how much you screwed up at trying to understand your audience.
Don't blame them for filling DMCA requests, blame yourself for not building something that they'll want to use and contribute to.
Think about it for a minute. Does Github grab your source code without asking you and then offers people the option to fork it? No! Devs upload their source code to Github because they get a value out of it.
The same goes for food blogs or anything else. If your target audience can't get any value out of your product, then you're dead before launching.
As devs, we need to keep this in mind: people won't care if they can't get value. Just because it took you days/weeks/months/years/decades to build does not mean it will produce value for anyone. Only studying your target customers and building on top of this knowledge will.
For what it's worth, I just discovered your site and i find the overall design and experience awesome.
It's light, clean, pro, has some fun elements and a bit of a nicely integrated branding which is cool (the forking idea). Well done!
Well, there is nothing bad with this. Many people enjoy producing some proof of concepts, but polishing and making a product out of it is another (possibly boring) thing.
Think of it as a recreational activity, along with spending time with family, reading books, watching movies...
It is a great way to get data, which is why I mentioned "except for quick tests".
For actual growth, it's actually a pretty poor channel. A lot of time and energy will need to be spent optimizing ads, LP, CTA, etc. Time spent on funnel optimization can be better spent running tests elsewhere.
I have personally found it to be far easier to pop a few emails and reply over the course of the day. People who are genuinely interested about the product will link to it (take for example this fine lady: http://preppypaleo.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/paleo-banana-brea...). Those are the people we want to look for.
That way we can more effectively run tests and grow users more naturally, as opposed to having a HN-level spike and not have any follow up activity.
The current tests we're running/actively developing for are pro-accounts. So instead of spending time obsessing over ad quality, CTRs, optimizing landing pages, we can spend more time working on writing the software needed to test our assumptions.
I think it really depends on the kind of product and your target market. Certain types of ads might not be worth the time and effort due to various factors.
To provide a counterexample though, I'm working on a student planner (tabuleapp.com). Homework management is a surprisingly big pain point for students, and we've found that Facebook ads are an excellent way to reach our audience. Near the beginning of the semester, when the need for a new organizational tool is highest, we had a lot of success from our first ad with no time spent on optimizing it. I can't think of a better way to reach thousands of college students that's scalable and affordable for a startup.
Just gave your app a shot (design student here). Some feedback:
As a designer:
* I love the expanding bottom bar and it's a very creative use of that space, you might have in your hands the new "Path menu" phenomenon.
* Your Path menu, on the other hand, could use a little bit more design effort.
* Item details is too busy / roughly designed that it looks busy, would benefit from a second look.
* Your logo on the other hand and above all, is quite awful. You might want to hire a real logo designer or illustrator to get that working.
* "Location" looks like the header of the details box as you're visually connecting them.
As a student:
* I like the idea, and I can immediately see the use case,
* but the intent is unclear in having "duration". Deadlines don't, and it feels like you're trying to replicate google calendar. Removing that ability would make it more clear that it's essentially a deadline app.
* I have different kinds of assignments, so for example this does not work very well for assignments other than those on paper.
* I want to be able to take a photo of the assignment sheet (there is almost always one) and attach it to the deadline.
* Better yet, do OCR on the sheet and fill the deadline for me. That's tricky, but not impossible to get 90% right.
* New Due Date is unclear. I'm not adding due dates, I'm adding assignments.
* There is no point in having a global class name search for a single user.
* It's unclear if the global names listed here are attached to specific universities. If yes, you're not showing me the uni name or allow me to search for it, if not, what's the point?
Here you go. If you need more feedback, reach me from HN profile, happy to give more. I'll be using your app.
I absolutely agree. If your startup/project etc is the kind that falls into the long tail, you will stand to benefit from advertising a lot.
For Fork the Cookbook, we had at one point contemplated targeting "recipe management app" and related keywords. I did a quick estimation of effort (I work in online advertising as my day job), and decided that effort was better spent blogging and looking for bloggers.
It depends, but I'd say in the beginning you want to get qualitative and not quantitative data. Adds are good for quantitative data, but if you write mails and people respond, they will usually tell you stuff. Most only a bit, but some a lot.
1-to-1 communication is the best way to learn about your potential customers in the beginning. And once you need to learn about them quantitatively, it'll become easier to use adds, because you know the pain points but also the wording of your customers.
Or in other words, spend your time and money not on advertising, but on making a product so compelling that your users/customers advertise for you. Think Dropbox, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Skype – no advertising, but a product that people will encourage others to use.
I would imagine that if you were entering a crowded market with an idea that simply cut costs, but provided no real unique consumer facing benefit, you could afford to ride on CPC.
