3 ms·

Ask HN: Do we have a MVP here? Help us out

8 points by hariis 16y ago

Since our first release 4 weeks ago, we have iterated and incorporated the feedback we got. We are now beginning to shift our focus on letting people know about our product. We have gotten so far ~500 visitors but not many are using our product. http://caniafforditnow.com Context: Our app/tool performs a financial health check and evaluates your affordability of a purchase. The user asks the question, provides the financial numbers, and the tool provides the Answer in the form of a verdict and a Report. When I say User not using our product, I mean not asking the question and not completing providing the details. We would like to figure out why the asking rate and completion rate are dismal a) Are we not targeting the right audience? (so far mostly from HN, reddit, Facebook Ads, and very few from financial forums) b) Is our product's value not clearly conveyed on the site? c) Our product does not provide value? d) None of the above. Just keep pushing and it will happen What do you think and what do you recommend? Thanks

ssing 16y ago
Clickable link: http://caniafforditnow.com http://caniafforditnow.com
mgkimsal 16y ago
Site design is problematic - it doesn't look solid - it looks almost spammy, as if if I gave you any info (personal finance info!) it'd be compromised. Level-headed check, I know that's not the case, but the appearance is not very hot. I'm not a huge fan, but look at Quizzle.com. It's slightly busier in some ways, but there's a lot more polish, and the value prop is right there in the tagline "don't guess - know". Actually, that's a bit nebulous, but it feels stronger. You've got 3 thrusts: Get a Second Opinion before Purchase Get a Free Financial Health Check Anonymously and Instantly Boost your Financial Savvy by responding to Questions Focus on just one as the main push on the home page, lose the others. This is 'site redesign' stuff, and not quite what you asked for, but I think you might have the makings of something. A solid base of people sharing info here could lead to other products for upselling. Also, targetted ads - if someone's looking to buy X, not only would have people suggesting whether they should or shouldn't buy it, you'd have ads right there giving them options. Or perhaps that's crossing a line in your mind? Again, conceptually, I think there's the seed of something there. It just feels a bit hokey at the moment.
- hariis 16y ago
  yeah, you can tell, I am not a designer, my goal is to just keep the design neutral (not get any awards for it :) and focus on selling the functionality. Damn, keeping it neutral is turning out to be so hard :) Any ideas welcome in this regard as well.
  - pdelgallego 16y ago
    There are many sites that sell pro templates for a very affordable prices (e.g, Theme forest http://themeforest.net http://themeforest.net)
  - notahacker 16y ago
    I think the basic concept is a good one. Specific (and mostly functional) design observations: - Your logo/header looks like a banner ad. You'd actually be better off with a simple text logo in a neutral sans-serif font. Same goes (to a much lesser extent) for the general design - if you don't want to pay a designer than go for something even more minimal - spammers aren't big fans of white space or grey text. - The "Please be assured..." text at the top of the forms should be a neutral colour and not warning red - Having a section called "Payment Details" is very bad for a free service. I realise there's a logical reason for it being called that, but it leaves the user wondering whether its a bait and switch which will end up sending recurring monthly bills. Especially when that underhand tactic is very widely used for "free credit checks" all over the internet anyway... -Your "I want to" field is too small and outside the main flow of the page - at a glance it could be a search box or newsletter submission form. Instead, merge it into the home page. Break down the main homepage flow into two steps: (1) What do you want to buy? Your form field goes below, probably including a second field for the cost as I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to include that. Experiment with dropping the form from the home page altogether (2) Can I afford it? "Fill in our free, anonymous financial health checklist and we'll calculate an instant answer" with a big "Check Now" button to the next page just below. I've also reworded to something less threatening than "Provide us with your financial numbers". Subtle differences in wording mater for something like this - I once had a job where I did have to ask for people's bank details whilst still studiously avoiding words like "details" or "numbers" "We evaluate your financial health against..." and the associated links goes below this. You might want to test whether the "recently asked" section on the home page is a good or bad thing for user signups
toast76 16y ago
I think it's not overly clear what the site actually does. There's a lot to read and none of it really jumps out at me to explain why this site is of benefit to me. The biggest problem, as has already been mentioned, is that it looks like a spammer's site. I know you say you're not a designer, that's ok, I'm not either. But when dealing with financial stuff you MUST look professional. I'm pushing my own barrow here a bit, but try a service like http://fivesecondtest.com http://fivesecondtest.com or (for fairness) something like http://conceptfeedback.com http://conceptfeedback.com If you want, shoot me an email at support@usabilityhub.com and I'll get you set up with a free 5st premium account so you can get some test results quickly.
- hariis 16y ago
  Thanks for the feedback and offer. Sending you an email now.
jeroen 16y ago
I tried it out and got stuck at Gross Monthly Income. It is limited to "Minimum: $2,500 Maximum: $8,000". So what do I do when I don't fit in there? Other seemingly arbitrary limitations: - Net income : Net Income should be less than Gross Income. - Liquid assets : Currently we support between $1000 and $1,000,000 only.
hasenj 16y ago
It's not clear at all what the site does. The text field under "I want to" is too small, what am I supposed to do with it? I mean what kind of stuff can I type in there? It seems like I should tell you a lot more than just three words. I mean, it says "provide us your financial numbers", how am I supposed to provide you them in that tiny box? Out of curiosity I tried to type "buy a house", and then it took me to a new page. Now in that new page, the "I want to" box is larger, and it says under it "Example: Buy a TV, Visit Europe, Go on a Cruise". Too late to give an example at this point. Also it's not clear who will be advising me, will a real human look at my situation and give me advice, or will it be left up to a machine? It seems to me that the calculation is simple enough that I can do it on my own, the hard part of such a decision is not the number crunching, it's about what else do I want. Sure I can buy a house with a mortgage of say 1000/mo, but how would that affect my life? What if I actually want to travel around the world? Should I still buy a house? How will the machine know?
- hariis 16y ago
  Thanks for a great feedback on your thought process while filling out the fields. Will certainly look into that. When you have 2 things in mind, you can break it down into 2 questions, for ex: first check your affordability for the house. If you get approved, the report tells you your status at that point. Based on that, ask another question about your Travel. If you sign up, the app will remember your financial details from the first question. No need to type them again. Let me know what you think. Once again, thanks for your excellent feedback.
zachallaun 16y ago
It seems that a general consensus from feedback thus far is: 1) It is difficult to tell what the site does, and 2) Once that's figured out, few people stay because the site doesn't seem to solve a problem they actually have. You mentioned iteration; What do you mean by it, specifically? Have you made substantive changes in functionality? Or have you simply added "most requested features"? The difference here is important, as it may be the difference between finding a problem that needs solving and adding resources to a solution searching for a problem. My recommendation (for what that's worth) is to engage in a bit of customer development, the initial goal of which is to find who has the problem that you feel like you're solving. Hasenj noted that the calculations seem very simple (given, many contributors here are programmers and/or math nerds). That said, you do not know how many of your actual customers may be thinking the same thing. However, if you can find (and by find, I mean specifically target, talk to and learn from) a group of people who consistently benefit from your service, you are in a much better position to move ahead. Effectively, this group will act as your cheering squad, providing feedback upon which you can grow and word-of-mouth upon which you can ultimately scale. I consider this to be much more important than the design (although that is important as well). While better design may attract people to stay longer and/or use your service for the first time, it will not help with retention unless you're solving a problem that people legitimately have. Design doesn't provide an accurate indicator of scale-potential; Function does. You may have known all of what I just told you. Hell, you may have already done it all. If, however, it was new to you, I would suggest checking out Steve Blank's book The Four Steps to the Epiphany, found here: http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/0976470705/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290478480&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/09... Best of luck!
- hariis 16y ago
  Thanks for summarizing. I kinda knew about the customer development part, however, we are not able to get users to see past the design and into asking the question and seeing the Report at which point the value of the tool can be determined. We have only iterated the design, believe it or not. This tool closely mimics the popular TV show 'Can I afford it?' by Suze Orman, and so we know there are quite a few people who can benefit from these evaluations that we do. The value is in remembering to do all the checks at once. The challenge is to find these folks who can benefit. Any ideas to reach such customers welcome. Today's feedback has been quite beneficial, hopefully we can get past the design hump. Thanks to everyone.

8 points by hariis 16y ago

ssing 16y ago

Clickable link: http://caniafforditnow.com http://caniafforditnow.com

mgkimsal 16y ago

Site design is problematic - it doesn't look solid - it looks almost spammy, as if if I gave you any info (personal finance info!) it'd be compromised. Level-headed check, I know that's not the case, but the appearance is not very hot. I'm not a huge fan, but look at Quizzle.com. It's slightly busier in some ways, but there's a lot more polish, and the value prop is right there in the tagline "don't guess - know". Actually, that's a bit nebulous, but it feels stronger. You've got 3 thrusts: Get a Second Opinion before Purchase Get a Free Financial Health Check Anonymously and Instantly Boost your Financial Savvy by responding to Questions Focus on just one as the main push on the home page, lose the others. This is 'site redesign' stuff, and not quite what you asked for, but I think you might have the makings of something. A solid base of people sharing info here could lead to other products for upselling. Also, targetted ads - if someone's looking to buy X, not only would have people suggesting whether they should or shouldn't buy it, you'd have ads right there giving them options. Or perhaps that's crossing a line in your mind? Again, conceptually, I think there's the seed of something there. It just feels a bit hokey at the moment.

hariis 16y ago
yeah, you can tell, I am not a designer, my goal is to just keep the design neutral (not get any awards for it :) and focus on selling the functionality. Damn, keeping it neutral is turning out to be so hard :) Any ideas welcome in this regard as well.
- pdelgallego 16y ago
  There are many sites that sell pro templates for a very affordable prices (e.g, Theme forest http://themeforest.net http://themeforest.net)
- notahacker 16y ago
  I think the basic concept is a good one. Specific (and mostly functional) design observations: - Your logo/header looks like a banner ad. You'd actually be better off with a simple text logo in a neutral sans-serif font. Same goes (to a much lesser extent) for the general design - if you don't want to pay a designer than go for something even more minimal - spammers aren't big fans of white space or grey text. - The "Please be assured..." text at the top of the forms should be a neutral colour and not warning red - Having a section called "Payment Details" is very bad for a free service. I realise there's a logical reason for it being called that, but it leaves the user wondering whether its a bait and switch which will end up sending recurring monthly bills. Especially when that underhand tactic is very widely used for "free credit checks" all over the internet anyway... -Your "I want to" field is too small and outside the main flow of the page - at a glance it could be a search box or newsletter submission form. Instead, merge it into the home page. Break down the main homepage flow into two steps: (1) What do you want to buy? Your form field goes below, probably including a second field for the cost as I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to include that. Experiment with dropping the form from the home page altogether (2) Can I afford it? "Fill in our free, anonymous financial health checklist and we'll calculate an instant answer" with a big "Check Now" button to the next page just below. I've also reworded to something less threatening than "Provide us with your financial numbers". Subtle differences in wording mater for something like this - I once had a job where I did have to ask for people's bank details whilst still studiously avoiding words like "details" or "numbers" "We evaluate your financial health against..." and the associated links goes below this. You might want to test whether the "recently asked" section on the home page is a good or bad thing for user signups

toast76 16y ago

I think it's not overly clear what the site actually does. There's a lot to read and none of it really jumps out at me to explain why this site is of benefit to me. The biggest problem, as has already been mentioned, is that it looks like a spammer's site. I know you say you're not a designer, that's ok, I'm not either. But when dealing with financial stuff you MUST look professional. I'm pushing my own barrow here a bit, but try a service like http://fivesecondtest.com http://fivesecondtest.com or (for fairness) something like http://conceptfeedback.com http://conceptfeedback.com If you want, shoot me an email at support@usabilityhub.com and I'll get you set up with a free 5st premium account so you can get some test results quickly.

hariis 16y ago
Thanks for the feedback and offer. Sending you an email now.

jeroen 16y ago

I tried it out and got stuck at Gross Monthly Income. It is limited to "Minimum: $2,500 Maximum: $8,000". So what do I do when I don't fit in there? Other seemingly arbitrary limitations: - Net income : Net Income should be less than Gross Income. - Liquid assets : Currently we support between $1000 and $1,000,000 only.

hasenj 16y ago

It's not clear at all what the site does. The text field under "I want to" is too small, what am I supposed to do with it? I mean what kind of stuff can I type in there? It seems like I should tell you a lot more than just three words. I mean, it says "provide us your financial numbers", how am I supposed to provide you them in that tiny box? Out of curiosity I tried to type "buy a house", and then it took me to a new page. Now in that new page, the "I want to" box is larger, and it says under it "Example: Buy a TV, Visit Europe, Go on a Cruise". Too late to give an example at this point. Also it's not clear who will be advising me, will a real human look at my situation and give me advice, or will it be left up to a machine? It seems to me that the calculation is simple enough that I can do it on my own, the hard part of such a decision is not the number crunching, it's about what else do I want. Sure I can buy a house with a mortgage of say 1000/mo, but how would that affect my life? What if I actually want to travel around the world? Should I still buy a house? How will the machine know?

hariis 16y ago
Thanks for a great feedback on your thought process while filling out the fields. Will certainly look into that. When you have 2 things in mind, you can break it down into 2 questions, for ex: first check your affordability for the house. If you get approved, the report tells you your status at that point. Based on that, ask another question about your Travel. If you sign up, the app will remember your financial details from the first question. No need to type them again. Let me know what you think. Once again, thanks for your excellent feedback.

zachallaun 16y ago

It seems that a general consensus from feedback thus far is: 1) It is difficult to tell what the site does, and 2) Once that's figured out, few people stay because the site doesn't seem to solve a problem they actually have. You mentioned iteration; What do you mean by it, specifically? Have you made substantive changes in functionality? Or have you simply added "most requested features"? The difference here is important, as it may be the difference between finding a problem that needs solving and adding resources to a solution searching for a problem. My recommendation (for what that's worth) is to engage in a bit of customer development, the initial goal of which is to find who has the problem that you feel like you're solving. Hasenj noted that the calculations seem very simple (given, many contributors here are programmers and/or math nerds). That said, you do not know how many of your actual customers may be thinking the same thing. However, if you can find (and by find, I mean specifically target, talk to and learn from) a group of people who consistently benefit from your service, you are in a much better position to move ahead. Effectively, this group will act as your cheering squad, providing feedback upon which you can grow and word-of-mouth upon which you can ultimately scale. I consider this to be much more important than the design (although that is important as well). While better design may attract people to stay longer and/or use your service for the first time, it will not help with retention unless you're solving a problem that people legitimately have. Design doesn't provide an accurate indicator of scale-potential; Function does. You may have known all of what I just told you. Hell, you may have already done it all. If, however, it was new to you, I would suggest checking out Steve Blank's book The Four Steps to the Epiphany, found here: http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/0976470705/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290478480&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/09... Best of luck!

hariis 16y ago
Thanks for summarizing. I kinda knew about the customer development part, however, we are not able to get users to see past the design and into asking the question and seeing the Report at which point the value of the tool can be determined. We have only iterated the design, believe it or not. This tool closely mimics the popular TV show 'Can I afford it?' by Suze Orman, and so we know there are quite a few people who can benefit from these evaluations that we do. The value is in remembering to do all the checks at once. The challenge is to find these folks who can benefit. Any ideas to reach such customers welcome. Today's feedback has been quite beneficial, hopefully we can get past the design hump. Thanks to everyone.