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Ask HN: How do I fix my chicken/egg problem?

• itamarst 9y ago
  1. "made harder because we require folks to complete a profile before they can do so". Can you make it easier? 2. If you're promoting someone's else's launch seems like they'd be happy about it.
  • karjaluoto 9y ago
    1. We will make that easier, once we’re past the closed beta. I’m just trying to do is throttle this area a little. My concern is that if we open it up entirely, we’ll find it polluted with spam. So, we’re setting a completed bio as the baseline for posting new content. (And, yes, I realize I’m somewhat responsible for the Catch-22 I describe.) Once we see that it’s working properly and have a bit more time to build in some mechanisms (i.e., prompting members to complete their profiles, in order to gain post permissions), we’ll open up posting to the entire community. In a perfect world, we’d already have that in place. However, we need to get some critical stuff sorted first (i.e., the ability to edit posts). 2. Yes: I think so, too, especially because I remember essentially begging folks to “hunt” us on Product Hunt, when we first started Officehours. This is the weird part of where we’re at. I know that this is something I was looking for, a few years ago. In fact, I even wrote this post, on the subject: www.erickarjaluoto.com/blog/places-to-post-your-startup. However, getting those first folks to participate is often a little challenging. ;-)
• owens99 9y ago
  Do you mind if I ask how you decided a newsfeed with articles and product launches is the best direction to move your startup in? Did you consider other angles and discuss with your potential customer segment what their biggest pain points are? Usually, something isn't gaining traction because you are going about it in the wrong way, or you're not solving a pain point that is big enough.
  • karjaluoto 9y ago
    The pain point is one I’ve talked to a number of founders/writers about. They create stuff they’re happy with, and then struggle to get the word out. For example, one of these folks has a pretty decent following (you’ve likely read his stuff), solid list, and a number of books published. Last summer, he and I had a long email discussion about this. He noted that this (reaching new readers/buyers) was the one problem he just couldn’t solve. He found sites like HN increasingly difficult to crack, posting through other major media sources (e.g. Lifehacker, Huffington Post, Newsweek) low-yield, and social media less and less effective. So, all of this is part of a larger plan. Our core service has been in place for ~2 years. Through it, folks talk one-on-one, and get feedback, advice, ideas. We don’t have a ton of users, but it generally seems to work pretty well. In fact, someone yesterday noted that their 10 minute OH session led to an hour-long Skype call, and then an in person meeting. The problem with the initial product, and the one I think competing services also run into, is that there’s limited reason to come back to such a service—and make a habit of it. That is, you don’t check an advisor site on a regular basis, because you typically only need help from time to time. My hunch is that a lot of people heard about the service, thought it was viable, and then promptly forgot about it. The reason for adding Streams (the feed) is to give folks more of a reason to check back in—and to create starting points for discussions. For example, one might read an article, find the content interesting, and then want to ask further questions one-on-one. We also see this tying into questions, as folks will be able to post a question, and then have an advisor either respond to it in a comment, or offer a one-on-one. All of it relates to helping folks build connections, share their stuff, and find new ways to collaborate. I should probably also clarify something. I’m not so much fearful that this won’t gain traction. (It’s only been live for three days, and traffic is up 5x for each of those days.) That said, I know the process of building out such a thing is substantial. I refer to it as “the empty dance floor.” No one wants to dance, until someone is—and after a few more do, everyone leaps in. We experienced the same with our initial product. It took us weeks to get the advisor base (https://officehours.io/advisors https://officehours.io/advisors) past a dozen people—then it started growing on its own. So, my question isn’t so much one of: “why doesn’t this work?” because I think it can. It’s more of an: “is there a smarter way to reach out to new startup founders, and get them involved?”