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I am happy to announce to relaunch of 7courses.com! I launched almost exactly a year ago, as a sort of weekend project http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2087

I am happy to announce to relaunch of 7courses.com! I launched almost exactly a year ago, as a sort of weekend project http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2087598 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2087598 I've sort of let it stagnate, and gotten a few users, mentioned on smashing magizine, but nothing major. However, I use the app quite a lot, and was getting tired of some small bugs, so decided to recode and relaunch. The app is 100% JavaScript, node js backend and thick js frontend (jammy.js, model.js, etc). It is a mobile web app, looks great on iPad and iPhone too. I got enough feedback that I decided to charge for it, but for a day the first 100 signups will get a month free! The price is very tentative, and I'm open to any and all suggestions. Also, if you would like to give accounts away on a blog etc, contact me, I'd be happy to set something up. Any and all feedback is welcome, thanks a ton!

alexchamberlain 15y ago
I'm not convinced charging is the correct way of monetising this. Could you not target advertising instead?
- jbrennan 15y ago
  I'm glad to see some people have the balls to actually charge for a service instead of peppering me with ads. You get what you pay for. If I were looking to use a service like this, I'd be much happier investing in my time in one I pay for rather than a free one.
  - alexchamberlain 15y ago
    I agree with you about peppering me with ads, but subtle text ads promoting equipment sales would be more appropriate. Do Amazon still do affiliate links at 6% or something? You could easily beat $10 a month and I'd get it for free.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    >You get what you pay for. GMail cost me $0, and it's probably the best webmail service/interface out there right now. >If I were looking to use a service like this, I'd be much happier investing in my time in one I pay for rather than a free one. Why would the amount of cash you throw at something impact how you invest your time in it? I love Evernote, but me throwing a few bucks a year at it isn't going to change how I already use it.
    - jbrennan 15y ago
      > GMail cost me $0, and it's probably the best webmail service/interface out there right now. Yes, you get a good product, but you also get ads. Your information isn't really entirely private. Some people are totally fine with that, and that's OK. But if you don't want a service to do that, usually that means you pay them money. Nothing is free. > Why would the amount of cash you throw at something impact how you invest your time in it? I love Evernote, but me throwing a few bucks a year at it isn't going to change how I already use it. I mean that in the sense in order to really use a product like this, I've got to spend time putting recipes into it. The very basic (and not perfect) theory is: if this site is making money from me directly, it's less likely to shut down or want to sell out. I take comfort in that but I know there are counter-examples.
- RyanMcGreal 15y ago
  Just yesterday I was looking up an online recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I had found earlier. I had my netbook in the kitchen with the recipe up on it, and something immediately struck me. It's an Acer Aspire One with a small widescreen 1024x600 display, and the mouse touchpad is a bit temperamental. Now, the recipe was on an ad-supported site, and the recipe itself was in a narrow column in the centre of the page with the recipe sections (title, description, ingredient list, directions) stacked vertically on top of each other. The menu was on the left, and the banner ads were on the right. The entire recipe was pretty small and would easily have fit easily on one screen, but because of the boilerplate and ads, I repeatedly had to scroll up and down to switch between the ingredients and direction. Again, because scrolling is a bit awkward on the Acer touchpad, I was particularly conscious of it. I found myself thinking: I should develop my own online collection of recipes and display them with the ingredients on the left and the directions on the right.
there 15y ago
i have no use for this, but if a customer stops paying the monthly fee do they suddenly lose all of their recipes? is there an export function?
- templaedhel 15y ago
  You can download your recipes as a pdf at any time.
  - perssontm 15y ago
    You should really offer an xml or similar export as well. If you're confident about your service, users will stay. But asking user to pay to enter data in, without a convenient and reasonable way out is a bit harsh. Really nice and clean layout though, and good demo. I would love to see and easy way to take a photo for each, perhaps through a mobilapp or just give each recipe(or user) an email adress where they can send a photo and then connect it to a recipe. What would be the path into this, I mean lots of people have existing trays of torn papers and stuff with this on. A selling point for me would be how to easily get rid of it. Perhaps a crowd-sourced ocr, if I scan it and make it public, anyone can retype it into the interface for me? Others would probably be intrigued to find great stuff within the mess of scans, and hopefully want to type it in for real.
    - thefreshteapot 15y ago
      "offer xml or similar export". Lets pretend my Mummy/Mum/Mom signs up for this service, a realistic target audience, given an "isomething" from their geek son. Firstly, I would have to explain to her what "xml" is then she would ask. Cant I print it with a nice little graphic or, does it come in another colour. To the creator: Do you cook yourself? Do you keep pushing little features in or trying new things as you think of little ideas? Will it work without internet? Can I take a picture of a complicated part in the recipe? Can you make it easy for me to post "how I mix bread dough" to youtube? I love my daughter, I want to send her a recipe. Will you tell me when she reads it. I have all these cut out recipes, could you do something magic (ocr) and save me typing. I too think this is a great market, there is clearly space for an innovative well made, well thought out product. You only have to look at ravelry to see how "nongeeks" flock to something they can use to enhance their real world.
DannyPage 15y ago
How do I go back from the recipe in the demo to the list of recipes? Doesn't seem obvious to me. Also, I like that you put it at $10/month. It might not stay there, but at least you created a price and can move from that price with a good idea of where to go to next that's a better market fit.

alexchamberlain 15y ago

I'm not convinced charging is the correct way of monetising this. Could you not target advertising instead?

jbrennan 15y ago
I'm glad to see some people have the balls to actually charge for a service instead of peppering me with ads. You get what you pay for. If I were looking to use a service like this, I'd be much happier investing in my time in one I pay for rather than a free one.
- alexchamberlain 15y ago
  I agree with you about peppering me with ads, but subtle text ads promoting equipment sales would be more appropriate. Do Amazon still do affiliate links at 6% or something? You could easily beat $10 a month and I'd get it for free.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  >You get what you pay for. GMail cost me $0, and it's probably the best webmail service/interface out there right now. >If I were looking to use a service like this, I'd be much happier investing in my time in one I pay for rather than a free one. Why would the amount of cash you throw at something impact how you invest your time in it? I love Evernote, but me throwing a few bucks a year at it isn't going to change how I already use it.
  - jbrennan 15y ago
    > GMail cost me $0, and it's probably the best webmail service/interface out there right now. Yes, you get a good product, but you also get ads. Your information isn't really entirely private. Some people are totally fine with that, and that's OK. But if you don't want a service to do that, usually that means you pay them money. Nothing is free. > Why would the amount of cash you throw at something impact how you invest your time in it? I love Evernote, but me throwing a few bucks a year at it isn't going to change how I already use it. I mean that in the sense in order to really use a product like this, I've got to spend time putting recipes into it. The very basic (and not perfect) theory is: if this site is making money from me directly, it's less likely to shut down or want to sell out. I take comfort in that but I know there are counter-examples.
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
Just yesterday I was looking up an online recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I had found earlier. I had my netbook in the kitchen with the recipe up on it, and something immediately struck me. It's an Acer Aspire One with a small widescreen 1024x600 display, and the mouse touchpad is a bit temperamental. Now, the recipe was on an ad-supported site, and the recipe itself was in a narrow column in the centre of the page with the recipe sections (title, description, ingredient list, directions) stacked vertically on top of each other. The menu was on the left, and the banner ads were on the right. The entire recipe was pretty small and would easily have fit easily on one screen, but because of the boilerplate and ads, I repeatedly had to scroll up and down to switch between the ingredients and direction. Again, because scrolling is a bit awkward on the Acer touchpad, I was particularly conscious of it. I found myself thinking: I should develop my own online collection of recipes and display them with the ingredients on the left and the directions on the right.

there 15y ago

i have no use for this, but if a customer stops paying the monthly fee do they suddenly lose all of their recipes? is there an export function?

templaedhel 15y ago
You can download your recipes as a pdf at any time.
- perssontm 15y ago
  You should really offer an xml or similar export as well. If you're confident about your service, users will stay. But asking user to pay to enter data in, without a convenient and reasonable way out is a bit harsh. Really nice and clean layout though, and good demo. I would love to see and easy way to take a photo for each, perhaps through a mobilapp or just give each recipe(or user) an email adress where they can send a photo and then connect it to a recipe. What would be the path into this, I mean lots of people have existing trays of torn papers and stuff with this on. A selling point for me would be how to easily get rid of it. Perhaps a crowd-sourced ocr, if I scan it and make it public, anyone can retype it into the interface for me? Others would probably be intrigued to find great stuff within the mess of scans, and hopefully want to type it in for real.
  - thefreshteapot 15y ago
    "offer xml or similar export". Lets pretend my Mummy/Mum/Mom signs up for this service, a realistic target audience, given an "isomething" from their geek son. Firstly, I would have to explain to her what "xml" is then she would ask. Cant I print it with a nice little graphic or, does it come in another colour. To the creator: Do you cook yourself? Do you keep pushing little features in or trying new things as you think of little ideas? Will it work without internet? Can I take a picture of a complicated part in the recipe? Can you make it easy for me to post "how I mix bread dough" to youtube? I love my daughter, I want to send her a recipe. Will you tell me when she reads it. I have all these cut out recipes, could you do something magic (ocr) and save me typing. I too think this is a great market, there is clearly space for an innovative well made, well thought out product. You only have to look at ravelry to see how "nongeeks" flock to something they can use to enhance their real world.

DannyPage 15y ago

How do I go back from the recipe in the demo to the list of recipes? Doesn't seem obvious to me. Also, I like that you put it at $10/month. It might not stay there, but at least you created a price and can move from that price with a good idea of where to go to next that's a better market fit.