Show HN: I asked an HN member for feedback and she blew my mind
A few days ago, I responded to a comment by bloggergirl offering to read anyone's web copy and help. I shot off an email hoping for a paragraph or two of feedback on my startup's copy.
Instead I received a professional, detailed deck of tons of invaluable well thought out feedback. It must have taken her an entire afternoon.
Here's a link to it: http://www.slideshare.net/shereefb/recommendations-for-bettermeans
To top it off, this isn't someone with a lot of free time on her hands, she's only days away from launching her own startup (page99test)
This community blows my mind!
124 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 186 ms ] threadPoster is not kidding about how complete and professional this slide deck is. I'm impressed!
Very, very nice work. You should be charging for this kind of quality :)
Without thinking about it, her generosity inspires me to spend more time here looking for an excuse to help someone in return.
Countless are spending time doing their best to share authentic valuable knowledge. They are not thanked enough.
Thank you!
http://www.google.com/search?q=pimp+my+code+site%3Awilshiple...
I've personally taken the former route - rigorous self directed learning with a dash of discipline and love for the knowledge will turn you into something far greater than what could be elicited from you by "just going through the motions" at a college.
Granted. I'll probably be going to college soon anyways because I want to pursue Aerospace - but that's, again, self inspired (rather than "ZOMG I NEED TO GOTO SCHOOL OR MY PARENTS WON'T KEEP PAYING MY RENT" - not saying all people are like that, I know more likely than not most people are self-sufficient; I said that more in line with how parents tend to enforce college on their kids instead of letting them be inspired to the action).
> The problem is that I'm the first to admit I'm not a fantastic programmer.
Is a trait unfortunately very few programmers actually have, most of them think they're aces (especially when they're not) and:
> My strongest trait is just getting stuff done and getting code out the door.
Is a very desirable property.
I think you're not half as bad as you may think you are. The mentality you display is more or less exactly what I'd be looking for in a new hire.
Perhaps you could be some sort of "entrepreneurial personal trainer" :)
I don't see a problem.
I've written a few thoughts on pricing here:
http://blog.historio.us/on-pricing
Basically, we're looking to launch some not-so-pleasant changes to the account system soon :/
I'd love to team up with a designer and crank out some websites for people!
1. SW attracts a lot of different types of people - BizDev/UIX-Designers/Coders/Legal/etc... You may help someone w/o the technical chops bring some traction to their vision/dream/idea.
2. You WILL meet people that might be useful to you down the road. So great, you have the technical chops, but lack bizdev - well, you are in luck b/c you have met people who have that skill that might be able to help your dream come true.
3. It's fun! It's intense, but very fun. Especially if you are a competitive individual.
4. It's not a bad recruiting ground for tech talent. These people go to these events because they have passion. What more could you ask for?
When I went to it, I wasn't sure what to expect. A bunch of unemployed novice programmers? A pure networking event? I never, in my wildest expectations, expected to meet such quality people at the top of their respective games.
I've never been to events like this (hackathons/etc...) so maybe this is a common thread. For me, it was a great experience that I would repeat again - regardless of my current status.
Hope this helps someone.
Want to finish an open source Techmeme on AppEngine? A buddy of mine got half-way there building it but had to bail. I want to get it finished so we can stick it in an iFrame and add it to WindyCitizen.com as an alternate view of the local news in Chicago, showing you what's hot in the local media right now.
It's a crime that we don't have Techmeme-like sites for more verticals than Tech and Media news. That's what I'm interested in and have made progress on.
I only know a little programming myself, and have no real familiarity with working with databases or AppEngine, but Django + AppEngine should work (from what I understand about them) for this project.
I don't know if this is something you can do within a weekend, but if you are interested in helping a rookie get his feet wet, feel free to contact me. The info is in my profile.
Of course to expand the functionality to websites, there would have to be an automatic way for the coupons to be 'redeemed'. The basic flow I have so far is:
1. User creates new coupon (give it a name and description)
1a. App generates unique code for coupon and stores the coupon information in a database
1b. (external to app) User uses coupon code to create coupons to be distributed through whatever channels are appropriate (mailings, website, emails, etc.)
2. User received coupon from customer and manually records a redemption (based on the unique code)
2a. App records redemption count to DB
3. App displays statistics of coupon redemption (how many, when, maybe other attributes)
The least we can do is bump up a post about her startup the day it launches.
Bloggergirl, get ready for the voluminous amount of web traffic on launch day!
Does that have merit?
bloggergirl offer help accepted by kabuks resulting in this post.
I wonder if HN isn't a little big for this though.
When in doubt, just concentrate on what you can do :)
I've already been doing that for a while, I was just wondering if it might be useful to give that some bigger shoes.
I'm sure that any of the sites here that are large enough to be selling ads would have some unsold inventory or inventory that they could miss without any pain whatsoever.
If you have to set that up on a per-instance basis it is a lot of work (it is for me) so that might take the sting out of it and make it more practical.
Also, what is the "excess inventory" that you are referring to?
A submission to hacker news is a pitch to the community ... the community will vote up anything that has merit ... that was the point of the community in the first place!
You review random sites, get karma points then your site gets reviewed by other users in proportion to your karma. Brilliant. Symbiosis at its best
http://feedbackroulette.com/
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1815682
(Specifically I have a Python/AppEngine link exchange app that I never launched, as well as a Java/AppEngine context sensitive ad-serving engine with clickthough tracking & optimization etc that I built for fun)
This is and has been a fantastic site (I'm personally fairly recently a registered user, before that I was just reading), and I hope it will continue to be. But I do also know that if it continues to grow, it will mean there will have to be changes (more people = more trolls, etc). Dealing with change is always hard, I hope the spirit of HN will remain.
EDIT: actually meant to be a follow-up to jacquesm's post. It appears I failed :-/
That's happened to me too. I think it's a bug.
[1] http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html scroll to "Who are the editors?"
Basically, don't require more info from the user than you need right now. An example is you can read HN/reddit without an account - but if you want to vote/submit/comment, you need an account (and that's all: email etc is optional).
Although you might really want signups, and so it seems to makes sense to get them ASAP, the counter-productive result is that people don't go further. I didn't; the GP didn't - and that's even after the wonderful publicity here on HN. You've got to make it as adoptable as possible.
1) White text on brown background is very difficult to read for many people.
2) Horizontal scrolling is bad.
3) The main headline is far too big. You should be able to take in a headline in a single glance.
4) The placement of the gigantic green button seems somewhat arbitrary. In general, those buttons always look as if they've been designed for a baby toy.
5) I'm forced to create an account to read a sample.
6) The "written about by" references are not clickable.
The general impression is that the site looks cluttered, trying to spread out a modest amount of actual information over as large an area as possible.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1835288
1-5k? 5-10k? More?
But I am noticing this new design style (more a layout) - and I am not one to really focus on that.
Just composite it with the body background to obviate the transparency, make it a jpeg, and halve your page load time.
bloggergirl, you need to write and sell an ebook on web copy. Marketed correctly (and I have no doubts that you'd be able to), you'd make tens of thousands of dollars at the least. I mean, a $20 or even $25 ebook on web copy that will increase my conversion rate? Incredible value prop. I'd buy it.
What a neat idea, please, yes, do this.
Sounds like a smart move for both of you.
Perhaps the $79 pricepoint came with the proviso that the customer documented it and their follow-up changes on their company blog.
Could stay afloat using just HN as a source of customers, I suspect.
Ebook has the advantage of being a possible passive earner, but I've never bought an ebook personally whereas I could see myself using a service like this.
Very positive outcome.
Someone takes the time to invest a few hours into helping a fellow entrepreneur with a particular strength they have.
Word gets out, and it turns out that the specific help they gave is directly related to the purpose of their recently launched startup.
This could be either a brilliant PR coup, or just genuine good-neighbourliness coming home to roost.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Or rather, the motives wouldn't have been 'pure', as in strictly from the point of view of, I-want-to-help-out-another-guy-type-of-pure.
With Feedback Roulette, every submitter is also a reviewer. "Communal review."
With the paid editorial service, submitters only pay pre-authorized editors.
I really hope your site does well because BETTERMEANS.COM is a super-smart idea. It was a total privilege to get involved with your website at all. I hope everyone checks it out.
BTW, I received an email from you and will get back to you pronto privately. In the meantime, much appreciated. And to everyone else who wrote to me re: help on copy, I'm happy to get back to you over the coming days: joanna AT page99test DOT com.
Go, Hacker News community!
btw, you should use your bloggergirl account, instead of a new one so folks start recognizing you in this community.
Great deck by the way. Pretty epic goodwill.
I would also like to help review copy and provide feedback if anyone needs it.
I do brand management marketing at my day job and have a near-obsession with clear messaging. It's a shame if you have a great product/service but your customer doesn't understand the benefit.
I launched a "toolbar" (it's actually a bookmarklet) two weeks ago and although anybody I show it to in person thinks it's great, everyone else just gets confused. I put a lot of work into it, an unhealthy amount really, and as a result have found its lack of adoption frustrating to the point of just giving up. I use this thing every day, to bookmark and to search, yet I cannot adequately explain it much less motivate people to understand what it does. It feels awful.
At any rate, the URL is http://dashler.com/toolbar if you want to take a look. I'm not even sure the idea is a good one, anymore. Of about 1000 visitors, only about 2 use it regularly. I'm ready to scrap the whole thing. I would very much appreciate any advice you could offer pass along. I'm looking to ditch the video and use a slideshow of screenshots, but I'm not even sure where to begin.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1783632. Is the HN submission of it.
I'd be grateful for any advice! Thank you.
I was watching the video tutorial and it helped explain the concept. I think videos are overdone these days, but this is a case where a live demo helps clarify how much time you save by not typing or clicking on different browser pages to search.
I want to play with the site and features to fully understand the benefit of the bookmarklet before providing feedback.
In the meantime, here are a couple questions for you:
What made you create this bookmarklet?
What type of person would most benefit from this tool? (Target market)
When you explain the concept to people, at what point do they start getting confused? (Maybe you just need to improve a certain part of the message, not the whole thing.)
Where are these 1000 visitors from and why don't they use the tool? (You could be attracting the wrong people, or finding the right people but talking to them in the wrong way.)
Of the 2 people who use the tool regularly, what made them decide to use it and why do they like it? (Analyzing successes provides insight for what to continue/repeat in the future.)
Why do you think screenshots would be more effective than a video?