Hello.
I am writing to you about a small start-up, with an emphasis on inventing new words, definitions, and phrases for concepts that do not exist - http://crowdt.com/. Also, you can vote on the cool new words or definitions. Users votes range from little value to 10 cents - 50% goes to the author of the word or definition, 5% is spent on development of the site, 30% is allocated to all downstream users to support those who saw the word before you, 15% of the payroll is for deleting votes and unsuccessful content. For self-serve, each day has only 10 users - these users are paid from the fund.
This whole system is setup not for money, but to change the world in an aesthetically beautiful way - with words. Hundreds of thousands of scientific papers, text instructions, and life situations require good, clear and concise images in order to be better remembered and help people became more intelligent.
* The design is confusing; it does not lead the user well.
* To add value to the world, you either have to solve a hard problem or create significant delight (entertainment). The idea of creating new words is amusing, but I doubt there is any market for it. One of the most important things about entrepreneurship is choosing your markets well. It's much easier if (1) you choose an existing market instead of creating a new one and (2) the market is hungry.
The samples I got ("Your suggestions for a dental clinic for vampires" and a bunch of others, some of those not fit for reprinting here) do not match well with your goal of changing the world in aesthetically beautiful way.
If those are user generated suggestions then maybe you should add an approval process.
This makes very little sense as presented, not to mention that I think it solves a problem no one really has. It's more a side project than a start-up. I'm not sure how or why money has entered the equation so soon. Hate to be discouraging, but I couldn't see this existing off anything but viral luck and some ads.
I don't use Facebook, so my experience of the site is likely to have been very limited:
"Let only people that" - let only people that what?
Done link - huh? Done what? I see no responses. If I click the link, I get an error.
Links off to Facebook? Why push your traffic away?
What are the icons before and after the phrase meant to do? The first one looks like a radio button which is very confusing.
Might be because I have ads blocked, but the navbar is illegible. I can't see any branding either.
It's difficult to navigate when everything has a white background with no borders, and not aligned with each other visually. More standard design elements (submit button that looks like a button, reload link with curved arrows) would make the learning curve less steep, even if the language doesn't really make sense.
Also the need to log in via facebook is super annoying. I'm guessing that you're trying to avoid junk submissions? I'd rather fill out a captcha to do a one-off submission than to sign up to a site that I might never use again. If the site was really entertaining though - and it has the potential to be - frequent posters would be tempted to log in to get rid of the captcha.
As it is, despite seeing some good seed definitions, I quickly gave up after it asked for a facebook login. Look at your logs and I suspect that most others on HN feel the same way.
Drop the Facebook login requirement - let people contribute anonymously, then require them to sign up if they want to keep a record of their submissions.
15 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 44.3 ms ] threadThis whole system is setup not for money, but to change the world in an aesthetically beautiful way - with words. Hundreds of thousands of scientific papers, text instructions, and life situations require good, clear and concise images in order to be better remembered and help people became more intelligent.
* It's not clear what the web app does.
* The design is confusing; it does not lead the user well.
* To add value to the world, you either have to solve a hard problem or create significant delight (entertainment). The idea of creating new words is amusing, but I doubt there is any market for it. One of the most important things about entrepreneurship is choosing your markets well. It's much easier if (1) you choose an existing market instead of creating a new one and (2) the market is hungry.
* I do not have a facebook account.
If those are user generated suggestions then maybe you should add an approval process.
I don't use Facebook, so my experience of the site is likely to have been very limited:
"Let only people that" - let only people that what?
Done link - huh? Done what? I see no responses. If I click the link, I get an error.
Links off to Facebook? Why push your traffic away?
What are the icons before and after the phrase meant to do? The first one looks like a radio button which is very confusing.
Might be because I have ads blocked, but the navbar is illegible. I can't see any branding either.
You should let people contribute the words anonymously and then vote them up. Also, what are you charging for?
It's difficult to navigate when everything has a white background with no borders, and not aligned with each other visually. More standard design elements (submit button that looks like a button, reload link with curved arrows) would make the learning curve less steep, even if the language doesn't really make sense.
Also the need to log in via facebook is super annoying. I'm guessing that you're trying to avoid junk submissions? I'd rather fill out a captcha to do a one-off submission than to sign up to a site that I might never use again. If the site was really entertaining though - and it has the potential to be - frequent posters would be tempted to log in to get rid of the captcha.
As it is, despite seeing some good seed definitions, I quickly gave up after it asked for a facebook login. Look at your logs and I suspect that most others on HN feel the same way.
Seems fun if you're a language nerd, like I am.
Commercial uses: Product/brand naming
Sent from my iPad (finally that's relevant)