4 ms·

Ask HN: Review my startup, reasons2.com

8 points by pretotyper 14y ago

http://www.reasons2.com We'd appreciate your feedback on the concept and on it's ease of adoption. Thanks a ton.

verelo 14y ago
I don't get the revenue potential immediately, what model do you thinking will work?
- pretotyper 14y ago
  Thanks verelo for making the time to check it out. Without going into too much detail yet, there are options. Would you have any feedback on the user adoption part? Cheers.
superqd 14y ago
So, are you supposed to create a topic, and explain why it's worth pursuing, or are you supposed to create a topic and other people are supposed to give you reasons why it should be done? I can't quite tell. You may need to seed it with people who are good at motivating others. Most of the motivations I read for many of the topics seemed somewhat, um, non-compelling.
- pretotyper 14y ago
  You post something that you want to do but are on the fence about and solicit reasons why you should do it. You can add reasons of your own too, but having others contribute may give you added perspective, humor, you name it. Agreed in needs to be seeded with users for more compelling content. What would you say is the biggest barrier to signing up?
  - superqd 14y ago
    Well, there isn't a barrier to signing up, it's just that there isn't a compelling reason to sign up. I perused a number of topics, and none of the reasons (the name of the site) were interesting, funny or motivating. Without insightful or meaningful reasons for the existing topics, it just doesn't draw me in to be a member. Since the site it supposed to provide reasons to do something, and the current reasons don't strike me as persuasive, then it seems the site doesn't quite serve its intended purpose. Therefore I wouldn't feel like it would be useful to sign up. I don't feel like I'd be missing out on anything. If the topics had reasons for doing things that were insightful or uncommonly interesting, such that I found them at least interesting points to consider, then I'd feel like I'd be missing out if I didn't join. But since the answers to most topics were rather trite or banal, etc, then I didn't feel I learned anything new. For something like this it would seem paramount that the reasons provided (or at least, the top reasons) were original and very likely not the commonly provided or well known reasons for doing that particular thing. Maybe you guys should rank or measure originality (or motivational quality) of answers. Or solicit the help of bloggers or other folks who are good at thinking of "why".
    - pretotyper 14y ago
      Got it. So as I understand it, based on your feedback, thus far its a content issue. If the content were there the concept could possibly hold. It's a matter of finding the early adopters who are willing to see beyond what's currently there and help build out the content/community. Thanks for your feedback.
      - superqd 14y ago
        You are welcome.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 14y ago
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JacobAldridge 14y ago
I like the community feel of this, and the focus on reasons "to do" something rather than not. Like any community site, there's challenges getting the group to a point where it has traction. There's also the 'will this actually help?' question in my mind. Specifically, if someone is thinking about doing something (like writing a book) hard enough to post it here, then they probably have enough good reasons to go for it. There's just something stopping them - fear of time, not knowing how etc. Perhaps threads would evolve from Why into How - knowing Why to do something is essential, but not knowing How kills a lot of great ideas as well.
- pretotyper 14y ago
  Thanks JacobAldridge. Linking the how is something we want to consider for sure. I'm particularly interested in the getting traction part. Finding the early adopters who will try something new and who will contribute even if the site is still in a pretotype or MVP state. Any suggestions/comments/best practices you recommend for user seeding and adoption? Cheers.
brendanchua 14y ago
I can see the potential here. I guess the barrier to signups would be how useful is the site for visitors. Is the site useful in functionality? (the way quora.com is) Or more of a fun way to read light-hearted content? (the way 9gag is). To get the first 1,000 users, it might be useful to target a niche segment, rather than a catch-all segment. Also, this site seems similar to quora.com. People ask questions on quora, whereas you are soliciting reasons. Yes, I can see how there is a slight differentiation here. So it might be useful to actuall really make it more explicit, probably through sample posts, what kind of content are you trying to capture here that makes you different from asking a question on quora.com. Probably the content can be more compelling. Asking questions like "why I should exercise?" may not really interest the average visitor. I probably already expect more than half the answers there. More compelling content could be questions like "why are people allowed to carry guns in the states?". And then users can try to frame these questions in the reasons2-esque style: "Reasons for allowing guns in the states". Such content sounds a lot more compelling, and might motivate users to sign up and participate in such a 'forum' of sorts. There certainly is potential. But the differentiation from websites like quora has to be deliberate here. That's my two cents, hope it helped.
- pretotyper 14y ago
  Thank you for the feedback brendanchua. There are a few key differentiators in my mind but I agree it isn't clearly communicated to the end user yet. As for the content, I thought that among what's posted so far there would be something that peaked someone's interest, enough to sign up. obviously a bad assumption and I'll rework that part. All comments have been very helpful. Appreciate everyone making the time.

8 points by pretotyper 14y ago

http://www.reasons2.com We'd appreciate your feedback on the concept and on it's ease of adoption. Thanks a ton.

verelo 14y ago

I don't get the revenue potential immediately, what model do you thinking will work?

pretotyper 14y ago
Thanks verelo for making the time to check it out. Without going into too much detail yet, there are options. Would you have any feedback on the user adoption part? Cheers.

superqd 14y ago

So, are you supposed to create a topic, and explain why it's worth pursuing, or are you supposed to create a topic and other people are supposed to give you reasons why it should be done? I can't quite tell. You may need to seed it with people who are good at motivating others. Most of the motivations I read for many of the topics seemed somewhat, um, non-compelling.

pretotyper 14y ago
You post something that you want to do but are on the fence about and solicit reasons why you should do it. You can add reasons of your own too, but having others contribute may give you added perspective, humor, you name it. Agreed in needs to be seeded with users for more compelling content. What would you say is the biggest barrier to signing up?
- superqd 14y ago
  Well, there isn't a barrier to signing up, it's just that there isn't a compelling reason to sign up. I perused a number of topics, and none of the reasons (the name of the site) were interesting, funny or motivating. Without insightful or meaningful reasons for the existing topics, it just doesn't draw me in to be a member. Since the site it supposed to provide reasons to do something, and the current reasons don't strike me as persuasive, then it seems the site doesn't quite serve its intended purpose. Therefore I wouldn't feel like it would be useful to sign up. I don't feel like I'd be missing out on anything. If the topics had reasons for doing things that were insightful or uncommonly interesting, such that I found them at least interesting points to consider, then I'd feel like I'd be missing out if I didn't join. But since the answers to most topics were rather trite or banal, etc, then I didn't feel I learned anything new. For something like this it would seem paramount that the reasons provided (or at least, the top reasons) were original and very likely not the commonly provided or well known reasons for doing that particular thing. Maybe you guys should rank or measure originality (or motivational quality) of answers. Or solicit the help of bloggers or other folks who are good at thinking of "why".
  - pretotyper 14y ago
    Got it. So as I understand it, based on your feedback, thus far its a content issue. If the content were there the concept could possibly hold. It's a matter of finding the early adopters who are willing to see beyond what's currently there and help build out the content/community. Thanks for your feedback.
    - superqd 14y ago
      You are welcome.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

JacobAldridge 14y ago

I like the community feel of this, and the focus on reasons "to do" something rather than not. Like any community site, there's challenges getting the group to a point where it has traction. There's also the 'will this actually help?' question in my mind. Specifically, if someone is thinking about doing something (like writing a book) hard enough to post it here, then they probably have enough good reasons to go for it. There's just something stopping them - fear of time, not knowing how etc. Perhaps threads would evolve from Why into How - knowing Why to do something is essential, but not knowing How kills a lot of great ideas as well.

pretotyper 14y ago
Thanks JacobAldridge. Linking the how is something we want to consider for sure. I'm particularly interested in the getting traction part. Finding the early adopters who will try something new and who will contribute even if the site is still in a pretotype or MVP state. Any suggestions/comments/best practices you recommend for user seeding and adoption? Cheers.

brendanchua 14y ago

I can see the potential here. I guess the barrier to signups would be how useful is the site for visitors. Is the site useful in functionality? (the way quora.com is) Or more of a fun way to read light-hearted content? (the way 9gag is). To get the first 1,000 users, it might be useful to target a niche segment, rather than a catch-all segment. Also, this site seems similar to quora.com. People ask questions on quora, whereas you are soliciting reasons. Yes, I can see how there is a slight differentiation here. So it might be useful to actuall really make it more explicit, probably through sample posts, what kind of content are you trying to capture here that makes you different from asking a question on quora.com. Probably the content can be more compelling. Asking questions like "why I should exercise?" may not really interest the average visitor. I probably already expect more than half the answers there. More compelling content could be questions like "why are people allowed to carry guns in the states?". And then users can try to frame these questions in the reasons2-esque style: "Reasons for allowing guns in the states". Such content sounds a lot more compelling, and might motivate users to sign up and participate in such a 'forum' of sorts. There certainly is potential. But the differentiation from websites like quora has to be deliberate here. That's my two cents, hope it helped.

pretotyper 14y ago
Thank you for the feedback brendanchua. There are a few key differentiators in my mind but I agree it isn't clearly communicated to the end user yet. As for the content, I thought that among what's posted so far there would be something that peaked someone's interest, enough to sign up. obviously a bad assumption and I'll rework that part. All comments have been very helpful. Appreciate everyone making the time.