Ask HN: We built a site but got beaten to the launch by another site. What next?
10 days ago my friend and I built a site - www.makeusdate.com. We saw the great coverage that breakup notifier had got and were discussing it 10 days ago.
I said to my friend that I really liked a girl called Molly, who was one of my Facebook friends, but that I was too scared to ask her for fear of rejection. At this point we had a lightbulb moment and thought we could build a site whereby a person could select the Facebook friends they would like to go on a date with and these people never have to find out. If however they used our site and liked you back then the two of you were sent an email telling each other you liked each other.
The idea was simple, the idea was great fun. I told my football team about it who loved it! A group of non techies, understanding and liking the idea meant we had to crack on and do it!
We discussed it, designed it, my friend slaved away and coded it and we were ready to launch by Saturday afternoon. However I woke to a text message from my brother 'Bad news, sorry mate - http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/25/crushnotifier/'.
We were devastated. We had been beaten to the idea by a matter of hours. Techcrunch had picked it up and so had a load of other sources.
We tried in vain to send these sources our site, our idea but we heard nothing back. Our site is different to Dan's in that you don't need to provide the email address of the person you crush, we also were focused on the date and planned on giving people good ideas for dates based on their shared interests.
I appreciate the idea is not for everyone and I know it met a pretty tough response on here. However we were proud of turning an idea into a site in 10 days and we really enjoyed doing it. We don't want to give up and we would love for people to use the site. The only way that will happen is if we can get the site and idea out there but in a completely unique way.
This is where you guys come in! We were hoping you could suggest untapped sources that we could pitch the site to, people we could tell who could get us some traffic. Basically we are looking for help in trying to get our site out there!
Thanks in advance for help you guys give us. Hopefully if we get the site out there and enough people use it, maybe Molly will sign up and like me back!
42 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 60.7 ms ] threadFrom what I see (and this was mentioned elsewhere in the thread), you're going to have trouble building that viral aspect without the self-propagating behavior. If you're not emailing, contacting, or posting on the wall until there's an actual match, there's no reason why the matchee might end up on your site.
Apps that have some amazingly useful quality get talked about. Something like this probably won't be mentioned, even by the users, as much, because it's more of a short-term fascination than a must-recommend tool. At the very least, do you ask the person with the interest if they want to post a status update / wall notification about the site?
Aim at those people, be creative.
Iphone wasn't the first phone, Kindle wasn't the first ebook reader, google wasn't the first search engine.
You get the picture. Go fight for your customers.
For actionable ways to increase your visibility, social media is your best friend. Spread the word on facebook, leverage your friends and family to start talking about your web site on people's walls. Use twitter if at all possible. Tweet celebrities that you have a crush on them on your web site. Put that url every where. Social media is all about shameless self promotion. The idea is good, people won't think of it as spam.
We appreciate we will always have competition, we are excited by that as competition leads to a better product. I just want to hear of some creative ways in which I can go after my audience
You know what's better then tech crunch? Cnn, New York Times, Washington Post - think bigger, and definitely think more main stream then tech crunch.
Ideas are rarely unique. In fact, competition makes people aware of your space. Just execute the crap out of it.
HN is one resource to tap into and next are your non-techie friend. They are the real-users and they don't read TC. I am just trying to say that TC and all the "techie" sources put together just equals a SXSW maybe? But there is a whole wide world out there - try with high school teens? I bet they can get it viral!
Text one of them!
Just because there is already one of something doesn't mean it has to be the only thing.
You're still definitely in the running but you will need a cunning plan to get to critical mass in such a crowded place. Afaik the reason CrushNotifier asks for email addresses is to email the crushes you select letting them know they were selected by someone (viral growth); without that you're going to have a hard time getting anyone on dates.
If you set it up to email Molly and let her know one of her friends crushed on her, theres a much, much (much!) higher change she'll sign up and like you back.
Just keep working on your site, keep telling people about it, and stop worrying about what "the other guys" are doing.
50% of it is having better marketing. Just because there is an app with a head start doesn't mean you can't start marketing in your social networks (both real and virtual) and online (not necessarily paid for either)
Quality, will often win out, if you have the better app.
If.
Corollary - it's all about the execution, not the idea.
Well said. Build a better app. Market the hell out of it. Prepare for war.
See, one of the qualities women appreciate in men more than anything else is self-confidence. If you are not self-confident enough to approach a girl and ask her out or at least start flirting, you are out of luck, most of the time, plain and simple.
So, instead of doing that, create some service that allows guys to build self-confidence. You may use rejection therapy, gamification (points for telling random girls on the street that they look beautiful or whatever), anonymous group support... you name it!
Call it "pivoting" if you want.
So what!?!? Get out there and find users anyway. You've mentioned a few benefits to using your app over CrushNotifier, keep going.
If you are not familiar with the story, Google Mint vs. Webabe and look at articles from the past year. Yes, the scale is very different but get some inspiration for yourself.
Good luck!
Get people to talk about it on Facebook, use your circle of friends and people you just know. Get a youtube video of it in action and get people to share it. Spend some money and pay for a real marketing team.
The internet is huge, it's not about who has the idea first. It's who can build the most usable product and make people aware of it.
We did the simple rule of "no but's, just and's" (every idea someone has to say "and" to, no shooting down ideas, saying "but" or debating them at all until you are done brainstorming) and came up with a giant whiteboard of possibilities for us to try out.
Our next focus is going to be community engagement. Look at the people using your app and try to be a genuine member of that community. Things like commenting on hackernews (weee!), writing blog posts about productivity, commenting on similar blogs, etc. Just be genuinely helpful, honest, and don't spam.
Also look at generating content for related projects. Try and find podcasts to be a guest on, ask a blogger if you could write a guest blog post, etc.
Either way keep your chin up and keep on trying. Don't let one competitor burst your bubble.
Also, you don't have to worry if someone got their product out before you. The initial media coverage will not make the product.
Also share your idea with school and parent groups.. they will like your idea (I am a parent)
Also, contact teen magazines etc. The would find your application interesting and applicable cause teen girls are always having crushes on guys...
Hope that helps a bit.
here's an example, maybe up your alley - http://www.inc.com/articles/201102/a-dating-site-thrives-in-...