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Ask HN: Social Network for a Specific Country?

2 points by cannibalXxx 3y ago

do you think it's a good business model to create a website for a specific country?

JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
Only if they have both a different alphabet and a different design culture. See for example Chinese websites, apart from the obvious different alphabet even the top websites are completely different than Western ones in terms of design. You'd be fighting an uphill battle that can only be won with a mix of intangibles, patriotism and personal attacks against the character and validity of competitors which would let you hit because why the hell would Zuck or Musk care about some founder insulting them from Burma or Myanmar or Ethiopia . You'd be running a much smaller operation compared to legacy social media but you'd be the King of that operation, both in terms of decision and equity ownership and speaking about that your exit (several years down the line) could be selling to the largest domestic ISP. But I don't think it can be done if you yourself don't know the alphabet, culture and design culture of Myanmar, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Namibia, Tanzania etc. Be ready to immerse yourself and go there, because you gotta go there if you want to do it.
DerekBickerton 3y ago
Maybe not an app, but I would suggest some PHP forum software. You can quickly spin these up on most hosting sites. Scaling it could be a problem, and you may need to sustain and grow the platform with donations, or just force users to pay a set amount each month to use it. I was going to suggest AD-supported income, but I never liked that model, and most users just block ADs anyway.
PaulHoule 3y ago
In e-commerce it is definitely possible for a national champion to come out on top https://restofworld.org/2023/exporter-amazon-mercadolibre/ https://restofworld.org/2023/exporter-amazon-mercadolibre/ Social media has different problems, one of which is the "two sided market" problem which hits it twice because users increase the value for other users and because of the user-advertiser connection. Another one is in funding and investment: frankly, European investors are "too smart for that shit", that is, Twitter and Facebook both IPOed before they had a business plan that made sense. There was a narrow time window that Silicon Valley investors would fund businesses like that but since then, even they won't.
syndicatedjelly 3y ago
Imo any business model that has the phrase "social network" in it is totally out-of-date in the year 2023. Figure out a different value proposition

2 points by cannibalXxx 3y ago

do you think it's a good business model to create a website for a specific country?

Only if they have both a different alphabet and a different design culture. See for example Chinese websites, apart from the obvious different alphabet even the top websites are completely different than Western ones in terms of design. You'd be fighting an uphill battle that can only be won with a mix of intangibles, patriotism and personal attacks against the character and validity of competitors which would let you hit because why the hell would Zuck or Musk care about some founder insulting them from Burma or Myanmar or Ethiopia . You'd be running a much smaller operation compared to legacy social media but you'd be the King of that operation, both in terms of decision and equity ownership and speaking about that your exit (several years down the line) could be selling to the largest domestic ISP. But I don't think it can be done if you yourself don't know the alphabet, culture and design culture of Myanmar, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Namibia, Tanzania etc. Be ready to immerse yourself and go there, because you gotta go there if you want to do it.

DerekBickerton 3y ago

Maybe not an app, but I would suggest some PHP forum software. You can quickly spin these up on most hosting sites. Scaling it could be a problem, and you may need to sustain and grow the platform with donations, or just force users to pay a set amount each month to use it. I was going to suggest AD-supported income, but I never liked that model, and most users just block ADs anyway.

PaulHoule 3y ago

In e-commerce it is definitely possible for a national champion to come out on top https://restofworld.org/2023/exporter-amazon-mercadolibre/ https://restofworld.org/2023/exporter-amazon-mercadolibre/ Social media has different problems, one of which is the "two sided market" problem which hits it twice because users increase the value for other users and because of the user-advertiser connection. Another one is in funding and investment: frankly, European investors are "too smart for that shit", that is, Twitter and Facebook both IPOed before they had a business plan that made sense. There was a narrow time window that Silicon Valley investors would fund businesses like that but since then, even they won't.

syndicatedjelly 3y ago

Imo any business model that has the phrase "social network" in it is totally out-of-date in the year 2023. Figure out a different value proposition