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Ask HN: Review my startup, PoorlyProgrammed.com

3 points by bbrutalhhonesty ↗ HN
Hey HN,

I'm sort of new around these parts! You see, I'm sort of new to the serious-web-development-scene.

Anyway, I've just made a website, PoorlyProgrammed.com, where you can make your own website. Woopty doo, right? Well.. there's more to it. You can get a free subdomain name, free hosting, free designer templates, free plugins.. and you'll never have to drop a penny.

In fact, the website itself never asks for any form of payment unless you choose to upgrade to another package (yeah, there had to be some way of making money). You can upgrade your package to include more storage space, premium plugins and themes, and even give you the ability to place your own ads on your website.

My point being: I believe I'm offering a genuine service here. It would mean a lot to me if you guys could give me some pointers, tell me what I'm doing wrong, and more importantly: tell your friends about it.

Thanks, HN.

9 comments

[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 31.1 ms ] thread
onetimeusename
Why is it called poorlyprogrammed? Do you have an acceptable use policy anywhere? I didn't see one and I doubt you want people uploading child porn. What did you use to build the platform?
bbrutalhhonesty
onetimeusename,

Great questions. It's called 'PoorlyProgrammed.com' with the intention of irony. The slogan is: "Not just another poorly programmed website".

I don't have an acceptable usage policy anywhere YET. But you make a solid point: I should make that a priority.

The platform used to create this is wordpress. I did my best to hide that fact because I feel that alerting people to the fact that it's wordpress would just make people roll their eyes and click away. It has that connotation; the "oh, that's for noobs" feeling.

Thanks for your feedback!:)

krapp
>I did my best to hide that fact because I feel that alerting people to the fact that it's wordpress would just make people roll their eyes and click away.

You didn't hide it very well, i'm seeing the wordpress login bar at the top of every page, it's also pretty evident in the url structure and the source code.

But a bigger problem as I see it is, you're sort of competing with Wordpress' own self-hosted solution (https://wordpress.com.) It's not that people don't trust Wordpress (though a lot of people don't) but that it's already ridiculously easy to get it in a million different places - and you can't hide it, it's impossible.

bbrutalhhonesty
You're absolutely right. I have more housekeeping and icon editing to do. I'll never be able to restructure the URLs, though.

I'd like to ask for your advice on your second point, though. What would be a positive way to spin this? Because I am absolutely competing directly with them. What would you do to make that situation positive?

krapp
I think your best bet is to position yourself as a wordpress hosting service, and offer wordpress hosting, domains, etc at a reasonable price, since that is actually what you're doing. If you're going to try to compete against wordpress using wordpress, you're going to lose - cheap hosts, even free hosts which will let you install wordpress and use whatever plugins and themes you want, are already available in abundance, and hiding the fact that you're using wordpress is going to be impossible.
bbrutalhhonesty
After giving it some thought, you're right.

Do you know what steps I need to take in order to sell domain names? Where do you go to apply? (I'll google this as well; maybe you know something I don't though).

krapp
Sorry, no, i've never sold a domain. Google should be fine. Good luck.
henrixd
You obviously are quite young. You should avoid using all provocative terms and be more boring (young != stable). You should treat web page as an company. You need to change your domain-name. When figuring out names, think things that are clever but creates feelings of respect. Clever only with the way that tells you are intelligent.

Normally I don't like advertisement like this, but you were very open and disclosed your agenda. This kind of page is actually very good starting point to learn these things. To actually do something, instead of just practicing theory or doing small programs for your self.

And I really like your big changing images, they are pretty. Thats the feeling you have to bring to whole web page. At bottom all those yellow free texts feel like something from '80 and that epic text there was something that would've make me change host.

One small last thing. When you ask people "How to make your very own web page?" thats giving them more problems to solve. You should give answers, like "Here make easily your own web page here"

Anyway, I haven really have my coffee yet so.. don't judge me, these are just few my ideas.. good luck.

bbrutalhhonesty
You're right, I am pretty young. But I'm surprised you could tell that by my web design; bravo! Addressing your first point: would you suggest a domain name change?

The yellow 'Free' texts do come off a little.. slimey.. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

I'll definitely be changing the title to something that sounds a little more solution-like.

I appreciate your feedback. If you think of anything else, please let me know!