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Ask HN: Rate my startup: openpoll.us

9 points by maresca ↗ HN
openpoll is a pure electronic democracy. It will help keep a watchful eye on politicians and be an excellent source of public opinion on the laws that govern America. I have been working on this project for the better part of the past 3 years, and would appreciate it if you guys would take a look. ALL feedback is encouraged and appreciated. Thanks.

https://openpoll.us

21 comments

[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 59.7 ms ] thread
jcol
You should probably seed some interesting political discussions to get the comments going. I'm surprised it took you 3 years to build this-- it could have been done in a weekend and with a much better UI.
maresca
Where do you suppose one gets all of the legislative data to a site like this? Saying this can be done in a weekend is a huge underestimation.
jcol
They are all on the web (such as http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bills/bills0001.asp) - I would just create a bot to scrape the content automatically.

I hope you didn't do it manually...

EDIT: Also, the amount you have may not be necessary. It just makes your site look dead when you have 350 pages of legislative bills with no comment activity or voting activity. You would have been better off starting with just a few and building it up from there. Personally, I would have done medical marijuana bills because everyone has something to say about that.

maresca
That's exactly what I did. I created bots for every single state. I wanted to scrape as much data as possible so I went for all the data available that every state had. Writing each bot took only a day or two, but running them took much longer. I also did all of this in my spare time on top of a full time job. If I worked on it full time, I probably could have done it in 6 months.
jcol
Every successful website starts with a focus area and it grows outward. You simply can't target every legislative policy in every state without overwhelming your visitors or pointing out the fact that your website isn't active.

A site like yours, if done properly, could go viral in certain online communities, but not in its current state.

If I was in your shoes, I would pony up a few thousand dollars and get it done right by someone who has some experience building websites that receive traction.

jhowell
What would you have this "someone" do? Are there people you can go to and say, here's a couple of grand, build me a site with traction?
jcol
Building a website that has the potential to gain traction requires understanding how and why your users are going to use your site. Sure he can A/B test it himself, but at this rate, he's going to spend another 3 years figuring it out and by then he will have burned out and lost motivation.

People that want to visit a website that lets you vote on legislative policies and then talk about it, would likely be of above average intelligence. The fact that he has a comment system and nothing but a few "I agree" type posts and submitted it to HN for feedback is a clear sign that he doesn't understand the mechanics of building a website that people want to visit.

I'm not sure why everyone these days thinks they can just throw up a website and people will magically appear and start using it-- it's not that easy!

maresca
This is only a MVP. Traction or not, I will still be working on it in another 3 years because I feel that Americans' voices in politics fall on deaf ears, and this is too important to give up on.

Targeting a market of only people of above average intelligence is wrong and undemocratic. The purpose of the site is so that EVERY American can understand the legislation that governs them. Based on the current political setting, this site is exactly what America needs. Sure it may be rough around the edges, but it will get there.

But damn me for trying, right?

jcol
What if you only have 30 users after putting 3-4 years into this? You don't know burn-out till you've experienced it.

You can't target everyone because everyone doesn't care. You can't target everyone because you don't have the budget to support it. You can't target everyone because you will never reach the critical mass needed to sustain it.

Unintelligent people usually avoid politics because it is a highly complex subject. Your website is not perfect for them because your website doesn't simplify anything for them. Getting the average Joe to care about legislative policies will require you to understand why they avoid it in the first place.

See all of these things you aren't taking into consideration? Someone with experience can save you the trouble of having to figure them out on your own.

All I'm saying is that if you find someone to help you polish this up, you can avoid a lot of common mistakes and save yourself a lot of time and frustration.

kshcho
for this to be remotely useful and interesting, you do need some critical mass of people interested in discussing these topics. i'm sure you've thought of these already, but if i were you'd, i'd ping every legislator i could about the site and what it's trying to offer - potentially get them to start dialogues with their constituents through it or something. i'd also reach out interest and lobbying groups(on both sides - e.g., repeal Prop X, support Prop Y) - it's all about just building the presence. one argument against those is that you'd want to get "real people" discussing the issues, but i think you'd at least get some impassioned perspectives from these people, who are the ones that arguably care the most - from there, you can hope it builds on itself in facilitating a dialogue.

to the earlier comments, the site probably needs a design refresh and some tangible, clear focus where visitors can engage (not currently clear)

systemtrigger
The guy said he spent 3 years on it _while holding a full time job_. That's not equivalent to "spending 3 years on it." He's trying to make a forum for congressional bills and his v1 looks good. Instead of criticizing him for releasing a less-than-optimal service, how about channelling that energy into a mockup or something tangibly constructive?
jcol
Let's be realistic; it took him 3 years to get this far, so he probably only commits minimal time to it. It's not a bad thing, but this is the internet, you can't move that slow and expect success.

Maybe you think I'm being too blunt but I've seen this situation time and time again. It's really tough to start a site when you have a full time job, but at his pace, it's nearly impossible.

He has the scrapers and a functional site, okay great, that's the easy part. Now here's the hard part: iterating the site hundreds or thousands of times. So if he took 3 years on the easy part, how long do you think it will take for the hard part? I didn't hear any mention of him quitting his full time job.

He has a full time job and maybe some money in the bank, The cold truth is that if he really thinks "this site is exactly what America needs" and wants to bring this site to life then he needs help.

Damn me for being realistic and wanting to give the guy some REAL advice that he can take to the bank. I know everyone stays happy when you just repeat the same old mantras in every thread and call it day, but that's not my style.

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utnick
I think your site needs some work, both the design and the chicken and egg participation problem. However obviously there is some value in having scrapers for every state legislature. Maybe you should pivot and become an api provider for this info?
maresca
Good point. I will definitely be providing an API at some point, and will also open source everything after some independent code reviews. The design was an afterthought. I spent so long gathering data that that was my main focus. Now that I am done, I can really focus on marketing and design.
kongqiu
Really cool idea to open this data up to the masses.

A few ideas:

Maybe you could do some sort of "introduction" video or tutorial so that a new visitor can tell what the site is about, use cases, where to find help, etc.

Could you maybe create a master list of "issue" keywords and then scrape the legislative text for these keywords, and then use this to tag each bill? Tags would help with discovery.

*Similarly, scraping the data for Legislator names would also be interesting.

maresca
I am working on creating a good landing page right now.
bigsassy
I'm all for open government data. You may want to take a look at Sunlight Foundation's various projects:

http://sunlightlabs.com/projects/

And have you seen Open Congress yet?

http://opencongress.org/

maresca
Both really good sites. Sunlight labs has a great API for state data. They don't have every state nailed down yet, but still a very good amount of data. All of their stuff is in python, but I'm a .NET guy, so I did everything in C#.

opencongress is a good site. Sites like those need more exposure to the general public.

Other honorable mentions:

http://www.govit.com/

http://www.mygov365.com/

dreamdu5t
You need far better UI and design. You need it.