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Ask HN: Review my Startup, MotoListr.com

8 points by tontoa4 ↗ HN
Hello All,

My startup is called MotoListr @ http://motolistr.com

The website is a motorcycle classified site that's incredibly simple. The first page you come to is the actual searching application. The default is to show ALL motorcycles.

I started the site because I got fed up with competing sites with more advertisements than content, and broken and non-intuitive search/sort functions.

This is my first end to end project, I taught myself PHP/MySQL along the way.

Please let me know your first impressions/opinions of the site.

Thank you, Nick

8 comments

[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 35.6 ms ] thread
satyajit
Not much happening here, but a very simple interface. Clear, easy to navigate. Though little basic. Sending email page has funny question "Are you human?" - isn't that too easy to crack? You don't even take 'y' as an answer, only obvious ans is 'yes'!

From biz perspective - how do you plan to monetize? By $9 listing? What would this provide that Craigslist doesn't? Sorry to sound -ve, but I just wonder... because I am dealing with similar questions about monetization in my startup, though in a diff space. All the best!

tontoa4
Here's a screenshot of the email you sent.

http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/5822/email-from-form.tiff

I'm going to target the Niche, and spend the income from the site on advertising to get it popular. Dealers are be able to list at a discount by buying bulk listings at a reduced price per listing.

The reason I can charge is because:

1. Ebay charges $30 for a motorcycle listing 2. CycleTrader (closest competitor) charges $25+ 3. My website is simpler, with NO ADS just pure content. 4. When the $9 the customer pays for a listing... they're going to get much more than $9 in benefits. I'm going to create value any way possible. Free listings that are ad supported also depend on pageviews and exposure... which means that if the site is too successful... it will undermine itself because the bikes will sell and content will disappear too quickly.

satyajit
I hope all you say is true and wish you all the best ... But as one of HN reader in recent past noted: people have gone too far with receiving free stuf on internet, so they don't want to pay ... From that perspective, you didn't talk about 'Craigslist' (No ads, pure content)!
tontoa4
I also added "y" to the accepted answers for "Are you human?"

It is easy to crack, but it does protect from the automated spambots. A captcha just seems to detract from the user experience, I think.

Thanks for your help.

sam_in_nyc
This is an idea that requires reaching a "tipping point" in order for it to work. It could work, but you're going to need a solid strategy for getting people to adopt this over, say, craigslist or one of 20 other classified sites.

Being "incredibly simple," at this point, is probably not enough to get enough people using it.

Best of luck

tontoa4
Of course, but it's a huge improvement over my competitors. I think JUST targeting the Niche will help too. Plus I can be free for as long as is necessary to reach the "tipping point." It's the chicken and egg problem in the beginning. I agree just being simple will not be enough in and of itself.
eli_s
Looks good to me - from what I can tell bike riders seem to be pretty tight bunch so if you get a few on board they'll probably recommend you to their friends.

On this page: http://motolistr.com/listing/316

The 'Email Seller' box is after the fold. This is the most important part of your page it needs to be right at the top next to the image of the bike.

Your design would probably work well with a fluid layout too. It takes a lot more work but if you do it right then you will get a better experience for small and large screen sizes.