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I'm running a single person company at http://flatangle.com/ http://flatangle.com/, where I provide traditional astrology software and services. Last week I've

I'm running a single person company at http://flatangle.com/ http://flatangle.com/, where I provide traditional astrology software and services. Last week I've made available my latest web app (http://elements.flatangle.com/ http://elements.flatangle.com/) but I also sell traditional astrology reports at http://flatangle.com/products/reports/ http://flatangle.com/products/reports/. The business costs are pretty low, but since I'm not very good at marketing, my revenue is also still quite low. I'm doing this fulltime, along with freelancing to have some cashflow..

udkl 10y ago
Have you looked at the designs of other astrology related sites ? They do not have a clean, blog/article like look. When I first landed on the site, I was confused about what it offered. If you put up the charts app screenshot on the main page instead, that would have helped understand it immediately. Take this comment with a grain of salt though. I'm not big on astrology, so I could be way off. Have you thought of integrating this into facebook etc ? or am I wrong about the customer profile you are looking to target ? Nice name, Btw.
- jventura 10y ago
  > Have you looked at the designs of other astrology related sites? Other astrology sites are ugly as hell, and I had to make a break from that style. Look at this site from the largest software maker in the area, straight from the 90s: https://alabe.com/solargold.html https://alabe.com/solargold.html But yes, my site is very confusing because I'm still on the process of trying to find what works. I create all my applications as subdomains of flatangle.com, that is why my main site is still confusing on its offer. > Have you thought of integrating this into facebook etc? I have an application which says the temperament of a person based on their birth data (think more extrovert or more introvert kind-of analysis). I though on creating a facebook app for this, but as a marketing tool for my other reports, so first I have to build them.
  - udkl 10y ago
    > Other astrology sites are ugly as hell, Users of astrology sites are used to these ugly designs. This is the case with arcade gaming sites too ... which is why you see modern arcade sites are ugly. You aren't designing the site for you. You are designing for the customer and the customer is used to and sometimes subconsciously prefers the ugly design. http://therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/the-reality-of-ugliness http://therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/the-reality-of-uglines... Because there is reasonable doubt of the newer cleaner design, I urge you to at-least A/B test an ugly looking design that your target users would be familiar with. ------------------ Signature : I use http://www.hnreplies.com/ http://www.hnreplies.com/ to track replies to my HN comments. Do you ?
neil_s 10y ago
You have a PhD in Computer Science, and are heavily bought-in to astrology? May I ask what attracted you to it?
- jventura 10y ago
  Ah, long story short, I've always been interested in the stories around it. Some years ago I took a course and began practicing a very practical subset of the field called Horary. With an horary chart, you can theoretically infer yes/no kind-of answers to questions and I got interesting results to say the least. From that I've leaped into Traditional Natal Astrology (the one that tries to describe you personally), but always with a very practical mindset. I've also got very interesting results from that. One day I decided to pursue doing serious research in it (I've created a library for it: https://github.com/flatangle/flatlib https://github.com/flatangle/flatlib), and I've written a paper which was published in a publication in the field. Currently, I now have one or two preliminary results for other researches, but since there are no grants available for this and people in this area are usually not taken serious by academics, I've decided that I have to build one or two products to sustain me financially before I can pursue with my researches.. So, why I, a engineer/researches/entrepreneur with a PhD, am heavily bought-in to astrology? There's lots of low-hanging fruits in terms of pure research, the potential to make a difference in people's lives is enormous (the desire for men to understand themselves is as old as man himself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself), and I couldn't bear my own existence trying to be "disruptive" with the next social app. That above, or maybe I'm a fool! :)

udkl 10y ago

Have you looked at the designs of other astrology related sites ? They do not have a clean, blog/article like look. When I first landed on the site, I was confused about what it offered. If you put up the charts app screenshot on the main page instead, that would have helped understand it immediately. Take this comment with a grain of salt though. I'm not big on astrology, so I could be way off. Have you thought of integrating this into facebook etc ? or am I wrong about the customer profile you are looking to target ? Nice name, Btw.

jventura 10y ago
> Have you looked at the designs of other astrology related sites? Other astrology sites are ugly as hell, and I had to make a break from that style. Look at this site from the largest software maker in the area, straight from the 90s: https://alabe.com/solargold.html https://alabe.com/solargold.html But yes, my site is very confusing because I'm still on the process of trying to find what works. I create all my applications as subdomains of flatangle.com, that is why my main site is still confusing on its offer. > Have you thought of integrating this into facebook etc? I have an application which says the temperament of a person based on their birth data (think more extrovert or more introvert kind-of analysis). I though on creating a facebook app for this, but as a marketing tool for my other reports, so first I have to build them.
- udkl 10y ago
  > Other astrology sites are ugly as hell, Users of astrology sites are used to these ugly designs. This is the case with arcade gaming sites too ... which is why you see modern arcade sites are ugly. You aren't designing the site for you. You are designing for the customer and the customer is used to and sometimes subconsciously prefers the ugly design. http://therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/the-reality-of-ugliness http://therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/the-reality-of-uglines... Because there is reasonable doubt of the newer cleaner design, I urge you to at-least A/B test an ugly looking design that your target users would be familiar with. ------------------ Signature : I use http://www.hnreplies.com/ http://www.hnreplies.com/ to track replies to my HN comments. Do you ?

neil_s 10y ago

You have a PhD in Computer Science, and are heavily bought-in to astrology? May I ask what attracted you to it?

jventura 10y ago
Ah, long story short, I've always been interested in the stories around it. Some years ago I took a course and began practicing a very practical subset of the field called Horary. With an horary chart, you can theoretically infer yes/no kind-of answers to questions and I got interesting results to say the least. From that I've leaped into Traditional Natal Astrology (the one that tries to describe you personally), but always with a very practical mindset. I've also got very interesting results from that. One day I decided to pursue doing serious research in it (I've created a library for it: https://github.com/flatangle/flatlib https://github.com/flatangle/flatlib), and I've written a paper which was published in a publication in the field. Currently, I now have one or two preliminary results for other researches, but since there are no grants available for this and people in this area are usually not taken serious by academics, I've decided that I have to build one or two products to sustain me financially before I can pursue with my researches.. So, why I, a engineer/researches/entrepreneur with a PhD, am heavily bought-in to astrology? There's lots of low-hanging fruits in terms of pure research, the potential to make a difference in people's lives is enormous (the desire for men to understand themselves is as old as man himself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself), and I couldn't bear my own existence trying to be "disruptive" with the next social app. That above, or maybe I'm a fool! :)