Ask HN: I use my own product, but others don't. Why?
A few days back I launched restaurantmapper.com, a way to easily discover restaurants when you are on mobile. I personally use it a lot, because I find it easier than Google or FourSquare. But, the response I'm getting from people I've shared it with and on forums I've shared it is... non existent. No response. Please can someone tell me - what's going on? is my design really bad? am I solving a problem only I have? is it not clear what the product does? What is the issue... thank you.
30 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 74.5 ms ] threadEdit: I see you have form[0][1] for this, you don't seem to appreciate what's needed to make a link clickable. You need the "http://" on the front.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9680810
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9881349
Edit 2: I see you've edited it - good response.
Clicked a few of the items you have listed on the left. I like the design.
We're always trying to find new restaurants and try new places so I would use something like this - but as an iPhone app - not really a website.
I dabbled in restaurant apps a few years ago and came to some conclusions:
More often then not, people make restaurant reservations or look for a restaurant to go to while at work - sometimes, people don't want to use work computers to do this (+ firewalls) so from their phone is best.
More often then not - picking a restaurant is pretty spur of the moment - "hey want to go out to dinner? sure - where? I don't know - let me look something up quickly" - and what is the device most of us have on hand? Our phone.
(completely based on personal research)
So - make an app, and possibly try another demographic.
Why would I learn to use yet another tool? You already use it, you already know how to use it, but I would have to invest effort in learning its quirks.
Seems only to be focused on London, UK. Is this right? Didn't work on three of the other major UK cities I tried, which makes it useless for me.
How would I find out about it? What does it offer that I can't get from Google or FourSquare?
Why should I invest the time and effort, with the risk that in a week or two it will disappear?
Those are my immediate usability comments.
Edit: These are of necessity "drive-by comments," neither crafted nor gestated. I'm in the middle of other stuff, and had some immediate thoughts. Take them as intended to be overall helpful. And now I need to go.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9883697
Is that because you didn't see it, or didn't like it? Have you taken it on board and incorporated its advice?
1) Show all restaurants (with markers) on the map, so that when someone visits, they know there is data on it.
2) Tell people that you are currently only in the London+surrounds area
3) The biggest issue you face is that Google already has this built-in to their Google maps product
4) Maybe the URL is too long for (some) of the target audience
Good luck
For example, I can visit Google Maps, type in 'Italian food in Mayfair' and I instantly have results. On your site I type the same thing, and I get nothing. Instead, your site gives search suggestions for Indian and British food for my Italian search, and I'm forced to click one of the suggestions.
It also doesn't allow me to search cuisine and location at the same time. I can search for Italian food across your entire database, or I can search for a location like Mayfair. To do both, I need to search the location first, and then apply a filter for Italian cuisine. Also, why can I search cuisines, then filter cuisines? I mean, I can use the British search suggestion, and then apply a filter for Indian. Why is this even possible? Filters shouldn't exist, the search bar should be able to combine cuisine and location.
Lastly, for my original search, your site shows 8 results. Google is returning hundreds. You're going to get absolutely no traction when you offer an inferior product to a well established competitor with millions of users.
Why don't you tell us some reasons why someone should use your site instead of the competitors, like Google Maps?
https://www.airbnb.com/s/Rome--Italy
Some Airbnb improvements that could be applied to your site.
1. Give more room to the results, instead of having the map cover 80% of the screen.
2. Search bar for location, then checkboxes for cuisines.
3. Slider for price.
4. Update the results when you move or zoom in or out on the map.
You could have a lot of advantages being London based, given the concentration of people and wealth, solving a specific case rather than a general case.
i.e. some more direct browse options would be nice... such as
- I'm hungry - What's Open Near me now (this could be a filter)
- Top rated
- Browse by type
Maybe have a login accounts where people can check off/rate places they've visited (for those adventurers that want to eat at every fish and chip shop in London.)
---
Marketing - Have you done any flyers? Visitors to London may not be aware of the service... Just as something as simple as:
Hungry?
[QR code]
www.restaurantmapper.com
Maybe add in a strip of various foodie pics to entice.
---
Here's my ongoing side project work on a mobile community resource: http://www.doplaces.com might give you inspiration...
Also it takes time to get traction via word of mouth certainly more than days. Keep up the good work.
You gather reviews and Michelin stars and stuff, which is probably good for you and some target audience, but I don't care about that stuff.
Michelin guide judges seem to belong to some other world of foodie snobs who order stuff I would never order and don't care about the aspects I do care about, like price, ease of access, humility, coziness, friend recommendations, etc.
When I'm out and about, or when I'm planning an evening, I'm not interested in seeing all possible options. In fact that just makes me more confused because now I have to look at 50 different fact boxes and try to decide on dinner based on a bunch of facts and stylized pictures.
The only similar site I've used and actually liked is SpottedByLocals, which is more labour intensive because it is made by locals and expats who go to places, take their own pictures, write their own reviews (with a bit of personality), etc.
So on SpottedByLocals I get an interesting "curated" subset of restaurants that I know have been visited by what I think of as "actual humans" and who provide actual on-the-ground information instead of generic overviews.
Thus, for me, the site would be way more interesting if it only had 12 restaurants that you have been to, with one or two Instagram pictures each, a little tip ("I loved the hummus"), and maybe something about what's in the neighborhood.
Metaphorically it's like if I were to ask a friend "hey, where should I have dinner in London?" I don't want 200 restaurants, I really only want one, as long as it's decent.
One random idea would be to Tinderify the user interface. Instead of making me hover over dozens of map pins, it would just ask "does this look good? y/n."
Or maybe a kind of 20 questions approach, so I would say: "Nah, too fancy. Nah, too meat-based. Nah, too far from Soho. Ah, yes, that place looks good."
>am I solving a problem only I have?
Most likely.