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Ask HN: We ripped off Crush Notifier, now we need advice.
I liked the idea of Crush Notifier, but as a grown man out of elementary school, I wanted a little bit more. So my brother and I stole Dan’s idea and came up with the “Friends-with-Benefits” Facebook app (http://friends-with-benefits.me).
Currently the game play is similar to Crush Notifier’s:
1. Each user picks the friends they want as “Friends with Benefits”
2. If their friends pick them back, we will send them both a notification email so that they can take their relationship to the next level; otherwise, the picks are kept secret.
We give our users 2 free “Picks”, and if they want more Picks, they can purchase them using Facebook Credits equivalent to US$1.00/Pick. But we are trying to come up with another way of approaching this:
Instead of charging for each Pick they use, we will let them pick an unlimited number of friends. When a match occurs, they can choose to pay US$5.00 if they want us to reveal the match. Our goal is to attract more users to use our app with the free Picks while also optimizing our revenues.
Please let us know what you guys think, any positive and/or negative comments are much appreciated.
- ffumarola 16y agoQuick note: The logo makes me think of the health industry, not finding a FWB. I think your second model would encourage more engagement and help you get through the problem of "Why should I pay $1 per pick if this app hasn't reached critical mass?" If people can pick a bunch of their friends, and everyone can do it free, you'll reach critical mass easier.
- jonathanchiu 16y agoYeah that makes sense too. I guess it's hard to grow when I limit my users too much. About the logo, I kind of agree with you. We're not designers, we just thought the plus sign kind of conveys friends + something extra. It took us a few minutes to do and it looks alright so we just let it go.
- Dnguyen 16y agoDo you think FB will let you run with this? How do you handle underage users? I think you'll have a lot of hurdles to overcome.
- jonathanchiu 16y agoWe did see many 'friends with benefits' groups on facebook, so we didn't think facebook would care too much about it.
- mikerhoads 16y agoIf you go with your first model, you are creating more a lottery. The second model ties payment to the more valuable reward of an actual match. It might not happen that often but if you go with this model, you are betting that your app will work and provide value to your users. This is an actual service and the route I believe you should take.
- mikerhoads 16y agoAlso, people might dig it if you could filter out family members from the list of people to pick from.
- jonathanchiu 16y agoYeah, the second method does seem to make more sense. But I don't think filtering out a few family members matter much when you have hundreds of friends. What do you feel about $5 for a match though?
- mikerhoads 16y agoFrom a guy's perspective, alerting them to a match means "We've got a near guarantee of repeated sex with someone you find attractive". Most guys would pay more than 5 bucks for that but $5 is a fair starting number.
- jonathanchiu 16y agoCan't agree more.