7 ms·

Ask YC: Feedback for our new startup

26 points by tyohn 18y ago

The site is bidboxr.com We're getting ready to launch and since I've enjoyed so many of the articles posted here I thought it would be great to get some feedback from the YC community. Bidboxr.com is a unique blend of online advertising and online auctions. Instead of simply providing a site where sellers list items and bidders bid on those items, we've created an interactive ad banner that bring auctions to the bidders. One of our major goals when we created bidboxr.com was to provide online entrepreneurs/startups with a profitable source of revenue. Think of it like Google's adwords/adsense model, but we're using interactive auctions instead of static ads. The auctions are relevant to the content of the page, so it's designed to draw users who are interested in that particular content. Imagine reading a blog post about a digital camera and looking at an ad on the side of the page showing an image of the exact same camera on sale and closing in 10 minutes for $50 with a big 'BID NOW' button beneath it. If you're interested in running an ad on your site simply sign up, add a few lines of code and when someone bids from your site you earn money. I've started to do a few "pre-launch" marketing tests to see which method would bring in the most users - so we've already started to see some sellers listing items. If you have anything you'd like to list or know anyone who might want to list some items - I'll remove all listing fees from anyone that list anything over the next few days. Thanx!

vaksel 18y ago
it doesn't seem like you guys know that eBay has an affiliate program that pretty much does what you are doing
- tyohn 18y ago
  You're right I didn't know eBay had interactive ad banners that you can place bids from... Could you point me to the link - thanks.
  - vaksel 18y ago
    not interactive, but bidding is only a click away. The interactive part isn't really a plus. How does a person know that the interactive banner is yours, and not some scammer phishing for information?
    - tyohn 18y ago
      That's a valid point but I don't agree that the interactive part isn't a plus. I agree and realize that some people will be afraid to use our banners because of phishing - but some won't... I hope :)
jacquesm 18y ago
So, if I get it right you've crossed 'adwords/adsense' with 'ebay' ? Interesting! I'm quite curious how high the effective CPM is of your usage of screen real estate vs other advertising networks. Since the items are 'relevant' it could be quite high, but initially you might be left with more inventory than you can sell. Shipping seems to be USA only, you may want to limit your 'ads' to the region that the seller is willing to ship to.
- tyohn 18y ago
  We are just getting ready to launch so I'm not sure what the "effective CPM" will be vs other ad networks but I hope it will be high:) That's a good point about shipping. thanx
  - jacquesm 18y ago
    you're welcome. Another idea, not sure if it is feasible: Get your users to place an ad tag on their own pages with their own items that they have for sale. That would build you a ton of backlinks in no time at all. And possibly they'll leave the tag up even when they have no items for sale.
    - scumola 18y ago
      That's actually a great idea. We're working on a way to have users request a certain category of ads on their ads that they post on their site, but having them post their own products is a great idea.
    - sh1mmer 18y ago
      Right that would go down like hot cakes with the Etsy crowd.
scumola 18y ago
Yea, I'm a co-founder for the site. It's an "auction ads" site that is self-contained (doesn't use ebay auctions or other auction data). We've got multiple sizes for ads (like adsense) and we're using a highly-cached architecture to serve up the auction ads (typical for ad-serving sites). We use linux servers, memcache for avoiding DB calls, apache, php, mysql, ... The normal stuff. :) We also crawl websites on demand for finding context-sensitive auctions to serve-up similar to adwords. Most of the crawling and text analysis stuff is done in perl.
andrewljohnson 18y ago
Founders really need to stop using misspellings for the name of their companies. Number 1, people are going to have a harder times finding your site. This is somewhat mitigated by Google's technology around suggesting seatch terms, but not totally. Number 2, you will have to spend five minutes explaining your name to every potential investor, customer, and even your friends, just so they know what your proper name is. That doesn't leave any time for what you should be delivering - your elevator pitch. Number 3, it suggests you aren't very creative. Saying that all the good domain names are taken just isn't true. I've bought a number of good domain names in the past couple of years, none of which have been misspellings. Use real words people.
- scumola 18y ago
  We have bought some other domains that we've mapped to the site, but of all of the ones we bought, bidboxr.com seems to be the most popular by informal surveys. others that map to the site are: powrads.com, compelature.com, bidboxr.net, bidboxr.org
  - andrewljohnson 18y ago
    Can't you just come up with some two word combination? None of these names stick with me, and none strike me as easy to remember, and moreover, none give me an idea of what your company does. I used to get paid to think up these names. Here's an exercise you can do. Think up words that apply to your company, and write them down. For example: money, profit, ads, auctions, etc. And also, you don't need to just stick with words that physically describe your company (though I think these are best). You can also look for words that describe your value proposition, and why you are better than your competitors. Then, go over the list and see if you like any of the combinations. Also, just start free associating with words on the list and words off the list. Another thing you can do is come up with imagery that you think might be good for an ad campaign or in the design of your site. With this sort of approach, you end up with names like monster.com. Don't be afraid to use the dictionary, thesaurus, and to do hundreds of searches on Godaddy.com or similar. Also, don't be afraid to seek out a friend who is good with words, or who tends to say funny or memorable things. I've long since ceased to work in creative at an ad agency, but my friends and colleagues ask me to come up with names for them these days. And one final thought - it's not that important what your name is, as long as it's not confusing (which misspellings all are).
eatenbyagrue 18y ago
This is a great idea, and has the potential to take off very quickly. One thing you might want to do is seed your site with a bunch of merchandise. Find an interested party with some cheap stuff to unload (like woot.com) and offer to help them move inventory. You need to get scale first, and you need lots of sources before you'll get lots of products. At then end of the day you are selling affiliate revenue to website owners, so I would focus your message on that, and attempt to stuff the product pipeline with some choice partnerships, until you get enough affiliate sites to drive product.
- vaksel 18y ago
  I wouldn't...it would make them think: why should I split affiliate revenue with these guys?
- tyohn 18y ago
  I'm glad you like it. Thank you for the idea! We already have a few site using our banners but its going to be a challenge getting products, affiliates and bidders :)
pbrown 18y ago
One thing I noticed that I think is really cool is that the first bid starts the auction clock. Not sure if the other "big boys" do that, because I don't use them, but great idea nonetheless. Something else I noticed though is that in the satisfaction guarantee, you mention that you, Bidboxr, will refund the purchase price if it's not what they expected. I see that lasting about two weeks before you run out of money. If you really want to set yourselves apart with a satisfaction guarantee, you may want to look at some sort of escrow service instead. Just my two cents.
- cubicle67 18y ago
  Agreed. This looks like it has the potential to be seriously gamed.
- tyohn 18y ago
  If you read the satisfaction guarantee you'll see it says "If you see the Satisfaction Guarantee link on an item". We control which items have the satisfaction guarantee - so we will reserve the satisfaction guarantee for sellers that have earned a good reputation with us.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    That's clever. eBay never tried this? (I've never bought anything there).
vaksel 18y ago
your math is wrong: "We charge the seller a final sale fee of $3.12 which makes $1.56 available to the "active advertiser pool". If 5 people bid on the item from your site and 3 people bid from a different site. You earn 62.5% of the $3.12." So there is only 1.56 available, but I earn $1.95?
- vaksel 18y ago
  actually it doesn't seem like anyone proofread the actual site, since there are a ton of other errors all over the place "By signing up for a fee account"
  - tyohn 18y ago
    I'm sure there are more errors. I've been working on finding them - but you are right I am the writer, coder and proof reader - and I'm not great at writing - won't mention my dyslexia :)
- tyohn 18y ago
  I'll up date that! I guess I need to practice math. Thanks for catching that...
okeumeni 18y ago
So many broken images from your badcheese.dyndns.org it's hard for me to move around.
pedalpete 18y ago
great idea, but I didn't get it the second I got to the site. Why say "Auctions Just Got a Lot More Exciting!"? Why not say "An entire auction in an ad box"! or something like that? 2nd, if you want people to put the boxes on their page, i'd suggest investing in design. Of both your site and the boxes. You have to get peoples trust, and the poor design could sink you.
- tyohn 18y ago
  Thanks for the input. Great idea about "An entire auction in an ad box" - I like it. And the banners are being re-designed by professionals they should be done very soon :)
bemmu 18y ago
Why wouldn't I just feature eBay auctions on my apps and get paid that way? I don't remember if it was directly from eBay, or from some other startup, but there was a way to copy & paste an iframe to your page that would target auctions based on keywords that you give, and you could get a percentage of sales.

26 points by tyohn 18y ago

vaksel 18y ago

it doesn't seem like you guys know that eBay has an affiliate program that pretty much does what you are doing

tyohn 18y ago
You're right I didn't know eBay had interactive ad banners that you can place bids from... Could you point me to the link - thanks.
- vaksel 18y ago
  not interactive, but bidding is only a click away. The interactive part isn't really a plus. How does a person know that the interactive banner is yours, and not some scammer phishing for information?
  - tyohn 18y ago
    That's a valid point but I don't agree that the interactive part isn't a plus. I agree and realize that some people will be afraid to use our banners because of phishing - but some won't... I hope :)

jacquesm 18y ago

So, if I get it right you've crossed 'adwords/adsense' with 'ebay' ? Interesting! I'm quite curious how high the effective CPM is of your usage of screen real estate vs other advertising networks. Since the items are 'relevant' it could be quite high, but initially you might be left with more inventory than you can sell. Shipping seems to be USA only, you may want to limit your 'ads' to the region that the seller is willing to ship to.

tyohn 18y ago
We are just getting ready to launch so I'm not sure what the "effective CPM" will be vs other ad networks but I hope it will be high:) That's a good point about shipping. thanx
- jacquesm 18y ago
  you're welcome. Another idea, not sure if it is feasible: Get your users to place an ad tag on their own pages with their own items that they have for sale. That would build you a ton of backlinks in no time at all. And possibly they'll leave the tag up even when they have no items for sale.
  - scumola 18y ago
    That's actually a great idea. We're working on a way to have users request a certain category of ads on their ads that they post on their site, but having them post their own products is a great idea.
  - sh1mmer 18y ago
    Right that would go down like hot cakes with the Etsy crowd.

scumola 18y ago

Yea, I'm a co-founder for the site. It's an "auction ads" site that is self-contained (doesn't use ebay auctions or other auction data). We've got multiple sizes for ads (like adsense) and we're using a highly-cached architecture to serve up the auction ads (typical for ad-serving sites). We use linux servers, memcache for avoiding DB calls, apache, php, mysql, ... The normal stuff. :) We also crawl websites on demand for finding context-sensitive auctions to serve-up similar to adwords. Most of the crawling and text analysis stuff is done in perl.

andrewljohnson 18y ago

Founders really need to stop using misspellings for the name of their companies. Number 1, people are going to have a harder times finding your site. This is somewhat mitigated by Google's technology around suggesting seatch terms, but not totally. Number 2, you will have to spend five minutes explaining your name to every potential investor, customer, and even your friends, just so they know what your proper name is. That doesn't leave any time for what you should be delivering - your elevator pitch. Number 3, it suggests you aren't very creative. Saying that all the good domain names are taken just isn't true. I've bought a number of good domain names in the past couple of years, none of which have been misspellings. Use real words people.

scumola 18y ago
We have bought some other domains that we've mapped to the site, but of all of the ones we bought, bidboxr.com seems to be the most popular by informal surveys. others that map to the site are: powrads.com, compelature.com, bidboxr.net, bidboxr.org
- andrewljohnson 18y ago
  Can't you just come up with some two word combination? None of these names stick with me, and none strike me as easy to remember, and moreover, none give me an idea of what your company does. I used to get paid to think up these names. Here's an exercise you can do. Think up words that apply to your company, and write them down. For example: money, profit, ads, auctions, etc. And also, you don't need to just stick with words that physically describe your company (though I think these are best). You can also look for words that describe your value proposition, and why you are better than your competitors. Then, go over the list and see if you like any of the combinations. Also, just start free associating with words on the list and words off the list. Another thing you can do is come up with imagery that you think might be good for an ad campaign or in the design of your site. With this sort of approach, you end up with names like monster.com. Don't be afraid to use the dictionary, thesaurus, and to do hundreds of searches on Godaddy.com or similar. Also, don't be afraid to seek out a friend who is good with words, or who tends to say funny or memorable things. I've long since ceased to work in creative at an ad agency, but my friends and colleagues ask me to come up with names for them these days. And one final thought - it's not that important what your name is, as long as it's not confusing (which misspellings all are).

eatenbyagrue 18y ago

This is a great idea, and has the potential to take off very quickly. One thing you might want to do is seed your site with a bunch of merchandise. Find an interested party with some cheap stuff to unload (like woot.com) and offer to help them move inventory. You need to get scale first, and you need lots of sources before you'll get lots of products. At then end of the day you are selling affiliate revenue to website owners, so I would focus your message on that, and attempt to stuff the product pipeline with some choice partnerships, until you get enough affiliate sites to drive product.

vaksel 18y ago
I wouldn't...it would make them think: why should I split affiliate revenue with these guys?
tyohn 18y ago
I'm glad you like it. Thank you for the idea! We already have a few site using our banners but its going to be a challenge getting products, affiliates and bidders :)

pbrown 18y ago

One thing I noticed that I think is really cool is that the first bid starts the auction clock. Not sure if the other "big boys" do that, because I don't use them, but great idea nonetheless. Something else I noticed though is that in the satisfaction guarantee, you mention that you, Bidboxr, will refund the purchase price if it's not what they expected. I see that lasting about two weeks before you run out of money. If you really want to set yourselves apart with a satisfaction guarantee, you may want to look at some sort of escrow service instead. Just my two cents.

cubicle67 18y ago
Agreed. This looks like it has the potential to be seriously gamed.
tyohn 18y ago
If you read the satisfaction guarantee you'll see it says "If you see the Satisfaction Guarantee link on an item". We control which items have the satisfaction guarantee - so we will reserve the satisfaction guarantee for sellers that have earned a good reputation with us.
- tptacek 18y ago
  That's clever. eBay never tried this? (I've never bought anything there).

vaksel 18y ago

your math is wrong: "We charge the seller a final sale fee of $3.12 which makes $1.56 available to the "active advertiser pool". If 5 people bid on the item from your site and 3 people bid from a different site. You earn 62.5% of the $3.12." So there is only 1.56 available, but I earn $1.95?

vaksel 18y ago
actually it doesn't seem like anyone proofread the actual site, since there are a ton of other errors all over the place "By signing up for a fee account"
- tyohn 18y ago
  I'm sure there are more errors. I've been working on finding them - but you are right I am the writer, coder and proof reader - and I'm not great at writing - won't mention my dyslexia :)
tyohn 18y ago
I'll up date that! I guess I need to practice math. Thanks for catching that...

okeumeni 18y ago

So many broken images from your badcheese.dyndns.org it's hard for me to move around.

pedalpete 18y ago

great idea, but I didn't get it the second I got to the site. Why say "Auctions Just Got a Lot More Exciting!"? Why not say "An entire auction in an ad box"! or something like that? 2nd, if you want people to put the boxes on their page, i'd suggest investing in design. Of both your site and the boxes. You have to get peoples trust, and the poor design could sink you.

tyohn 18y ago
Thanks for the input. Great idea about "An entire auction in an ad box" - I like it. And the banners are being re-designed by professionals they should be done very soon :)

bemmu 18y ago

Why wouldn't I just feature eBay auctions on my apps and get paid that way? I don't remember if it was directly from eBay, or from some other startup, but there was a way to copy & paste an iframe to your page that would target auctions based on keywords that you give, and you could get a percentage of sales.