Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?

> but that's going to take months - months I could be working on some other project.

Then get someone else to do it. Is there anyway you could automate the brewery discovery and addition process such that you could distribute the actual thought process work through something like Mechanical Turk?

It's just the first that occurs to me reading through your post. If you could offload that task to machines/other people you could focus on more value-add features, moving the project forward.

I like the idea of being able to figure out that beers are brewed near by. But the data entry piece sounds a little arduous for the result.

Have you thought about crowd sourcing it? Maybe make localbeer.me a giant google map with all the breweries you've entered so far on it and the have a super simple form that lets people add their local breweries and their beer offerings. I feel like I know some hardcore craft beer drinkers who'd totally be into dropping in their favorite local breweries.

In the long term, you're going to have keep all the data you've entered by hand updated, and it seems like crowd sourcing would be a good way to get that info anyway.

I have been working on Had That Beer, www.hadthatbeer.com/signup?c=earlyaccess to check it out, for about 8 months now. I am the sole developer, designer, admin etc. I know the pain of all the manual data entry that has to be done for beers and by the time you are done a new batch of something else has been brewed and you are out of date. I would go through select geographic areas, get as many beers in as you can and start promoting it in that area. Best way to get feedback is to get users, and some of those users might not mind helping add a few brews.

I think your project is definitely worth pursuing. If you don't think so then maybe we could team up.

I think it does have value, but a few things that struck me as "must dos":

- make it better for mobile, since that's likely the platform I'll use in a strange city. Maybe this is part of the graphic design piece that you were talking about.

- make it easier to see ALL the breweries/beers near me. I would think that would be the main page instead of one at a time (I hate refreshing the page)

If this project was dropped in my lap, I would do this:

- work on UX above all else (and before data entry). Make it easy and enjoyable to see what breweries are near me and to add breweries and beers.

- focus on a single geographic area for data entry. I'm in Chicago, so I would make this a killer website to visit if you're visiting Chicago. Promote it heavily in Chicago (Facebook ads is super targeted and great for something like this, you can target beer drinkers ages 21 - 40 in Chicago only, and might even be able to narrow it further).

- Let users add content for additional cities if it becomes popular in your homebase. Remember, we already made it really easy to do that in step 1.

- I might even look into signing up bars to be listed on the site as carrying a particular beer/brewery when a user is near their location. In exchange they put up your flyer. Free promotion if the functionality is there.

I think there is definitely value here, but I would devote some serious time to improving UX before data entry. As others have said, there are ways around doing the data entry, but not too many ways around good user design.

Just added Twitter signin/account creation, in an attempt to remove a barrier to entry. Facebook signin coming next week. Here's hoping...

If your traffic is 20 visits per day, why on Earth would you need to spend money on "better servers"?

To answer your question directly, I don't think enough beer consumers care about that stuff.

A little late in the conversation. I think if it is something you are passionate about, you should stick with it. Maybe you can find a partner that can do UX/Graphic design or whichever skills you need but lack.

I strongly agree with all the advice around mobile. I would even consider trying to use mobile to crowdsource some of the data entry. Maybe incorporating some game mechanics will help here. For inspiration, maybe you could make the "beer" version of Spotify, Forkly, or DishOnIt.

Consider creating an API around your beer database and promote that some, could be win/win as it sounds like a pain point for more than just yourself.

Additionally, you should try and get in touch with the users that use it every day and the ones that abandoned it. Try to determine why they stay/left, this could really help you focus on the important aspects.

Lastly, go learn about Dave McClure's AARR metrics, get them in place so you can experiment more with the Acquisition and Activation funnels. I am guessing if you had a lot more users, you would be much happier.

Hope this helps a little.

Check out taphunter.com. They do something similar and, from what I understand, are getting pretty good traction here in San Diego.

It's at least one data point that users might want what you're building.

Seems, I'm too late. Aside, Technicalities..

My suggestion is, Why don't you create some content like beer reviews, Preferably videos.

Gary Veynerchuck had been hugely successful, by his wine reviews. Good news for you is, he doesn't deal with beers.

I'd suggest two things: 1. Beer Reviews 2. Interviews with Beer brewers (who doesn't want to give interviews)

You can host videos on youtube, and embed them on your website. That way you won't have to pay for video hosting.

In my opinion, humans judge a lot by seeing other humans, than seeing text, statistics or beer pictures. If you can throw in some charm, fun and honesty, you can make it big. Just my two cents.