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We are 2 Italians, in Treasure Island, and we are launching CoffeeStrap.
- simonebrunozzi 14y agoIt seems like a simple but nice idea. Good luck! I just signed up :)
- calinet6 14y agoI can't find a link from your Blog to your Product—it should be the most prominent thing on the page. Most common mistake around, no worries :) Otherwise, looks cool.
- mahesh_rm 14y agoOuch! :) Thank you, a second click on the header logo [Coffeestrap /blog] when on blog main page will bring you to www.coffeestrap.com, but we probably need to make it more intuitive!
- nailer 14y agoI've read the page but still don't understand what this is.
- mahesh_rm 14y agoHi, we match you for one-to-one Coffees with people speaking different languages, on the basis of your age, gender, and location. Not random languages, but the languages you want to actually want or need to learn, practice, or not forget.
- nailer 14y agoI think a lot of the communication problems come from your name. coffee is the short name of a programming language. And bootstrap programs are things used to start something. It sounds like a programming thing, even though it isn't.
- nailer 14y agoSome help with your English (my mother's an English teacher, I've been a professional writer, and I live in the UK): "We help you learn foreign languages by setting up one-to-one meetings with native speakers of languages you'd like to learn."
- cocoflunchy 14y agoThis is a perfect description.
- brianchu 14y agoI would shorten that to just: "We help you learn foreign languages by setting up one-to-one meetings with native speakers." I'd also strongly consider testing a question-answer type headline. Something like: "Want to practice a foreign language?" Second line: "We'll set up face-to-face meetings with native speakers."
- calinet6 14y agoI think all that's needed is a simple one-line explanation in the right place. Also a better name. Yep.
- julian37 14y agoWhy not explain it just like this on your landing page? I got the general idea (after finding the landing page) fairly quickly but can't hurt to spell it out I think. Nice idea by the way, I guess it's a lot like Verbling except in the real world rather than on video chat.
- huhsamovar 14y agoYep.
- arcticfox 14y agoHopefully you guys can get enough people to sign up to reach usefulness! I signed up. Seattle. :) FYI - Facebook login didn't work for me. Let me know if you can't repro it and I'll send details.
- alemhnan 14y agoReally thank you! I'm on you error right now! Trying to figuring out now what went wrong!
- ThePowerOfPouet 14y agoPlease fix the French translation: "Joindre à la communauté" -> "Rejoindre la communauté".
- alemhnan 14y agoThank you! I'm going to do that right now!
- FreshCode 14y agoI thought this would be CoffeeScripted scripts for Bootstrap. I also struggled to get to the home page. Some testimonials would go a long way.
- dinkumthinkum 14y agoOK, cool. A few questions. What in the world is this? What would I do with this? How do I do whatever it is I can do with this? I feel like this sounds like it could be something that sounds cool but I'm completely lost at this point. Something about cultures, or something, right?
- mahesh_rm 14y agoHi, it boils down in fact to something very simple: we message you matching you up for real world coffees with other CoffeeStrappers who are compatible with you on the basis of your spoken and practice languages, your location, your gender, your age, and your interests, when you both are available. The rest of the infrastructure is only accessory, and its function is to making this match possible, accurate, and safe.
- thebigkick 14y agoI admire you guys hanging your balls out there. With that said I'd say you should really look into a content specialist. So far you have a language based company/service that is having trouble communicating the general concept. Wish the best.
- dalanmiller 14y agoThe gender symbols are very confusing, I've never seen the ones provided before to represent gender? Aren't these the universal gender symbols? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_symbol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_symbol
- dalanmiller 14y agoAhhh looked at the HTML and inferred from there but it should be a little more obvious?
- shuzchen 14y agoIf there's a feature you know isn't working ("apply with twitter"), why have it up there in the first place? At least, please have it so that clicking on it leaves my form fields intact. I know I spent only 20 seconds filling it out but that was annoying.
- alemhnan 14y agoDho. Sorry about that. We built CoffeeStrap in 4 weeks and we do not have tested extensively everything. Totally our mistake!
- danso 14y agoSo did anyone else think this referred to something involving CoffeeScript and Twitter Bootstrap?
- sideproject 14y agoYES! then I was like... huh?
- ARama 14y agoThat's what I thought it was going to be when I saw the title.
- adambenayoun 14y agoDefinitely - although the idea itself is a nice surprise.
- mahesh_rm 14y agoIt is amazing, we were not expecting such an extraordinary response! Thank you to everybody is writing us with feedback, suggestions, and encouraging words, we are going to answer shortly to all of you! Sorry for the confusion with coffeescript and twitter bootstrap as well: we though it would be a nice name for a tool allowing you to bootstrap your language in front of a coffee. I think this misunderstanding is probably going to be very HN specific, though! :) We also apologize for our English inaccuracies, we are getting better everyday, but I guess we need to eat some dogfood and go out ASAP for some coffeestraps..
- kvirani 14y agoIt seems like a cool idea. I can see it turning into a dating service... The language barriers can make things sexier ;)
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- adambenayoun 14y agoHow about being a bit more supportive and air this concern in a more supportive manner? It's not like it's rocket science to figure out what is their main url, right?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- adambenayoun 14y agoWell, it's not hard to add a link but can easily get overlooked when developing a product with tons of priorities. Since it's always exponentially harder to develop a product than writing a review about that product, when I write something I usually try to be constructive and add some value (especially when I'm negative). You should try it.
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- ymn_ayk 14y agoGoogle login didn't work for me. The page says that I've logged but nothing happens. No Turkish? Good luck
- alemhnan 14y agoWonderful suggestion the Turkish one. As soon as the wave of HN fade we are going to deploy the fixes and add the new language. For the Google login, the login process has still some problems here and there. After the login we don't have, yet, a page explaining what to expect next. That why nothing happens. We are already working on that, next deploy we will hopefully be ok.
- grannyg00se 14y agoWhat the hell are those gender symbols? I chose the one that looked like it didn't have fallopian tubes. Also anticipated a male-first bias and that confirmed the selection. But wow, how about something more common?
- bradleyjoyce 14y agoI absolutely love this idea. As I've traveled to different places I've learned how amazing it is to people able to speak to people in their own, native language. It breaks down barriers between cultures, ideologies and preconceived notions and makes us all just humans. As an American, it pains me that so many people in the US don't or aren't able to travel to foreign countries and don't make the effort to learn other languages. For me, it's been a life-changing experience.
- mahesh_rm 14y agoHi Bradley, this has been true for us as well, and this is exactly the spirit through which we are building CoffeeStrap!
- bdittmer 14y agoThis is not related to your business at all, but what is it like living (and working?) on Treasure Island? Are there restaurants, bars, etc? It seems like such a weird place being a former military base. Admittedly the only time I've been is for the yearly music festival.
- alemhnan 14y agoIt's actually a wonderful place. Nice and calm. There is one grocery store, one small pub (or as you want to call it) and an avenue centre. A lot of lawns. Whenever you want the busy mood of the city in 15-25 minutes you are the Transbay terminal by bus (24/7).
- jfb 14y agoIt always seemed to me to be cold as hell, with a view worth a billion dollars once or twice a quarter -- how does that correlate with your experience?
- mahesh_rm 14y agoWe think it is just a calm great spot if you are full inside the development of your product and, like us, you do not need too many amenities, but rather to focus and take a nice walk/run along seaside from time to time. And San Francisco is literally 10 minutes bus, running 24/7. I wouldn't say it is the right place to settle down, but it's in our opinion an environment totally suitable for lean product bootstrap.
- hnriot 14y agoIt's a bunch if low income housing with a hideous commute anywhere getting onto the bay bridge in either direction is a time consuming venture. There's practically no infrastructure on the island. Hence being inexpensive to live there. Great place to get in with the red mafia though, if that's your thing.
- ekoontz 14y ago
- pestaa 14y agoNice service, no love for Hungarians. Can you please add it?
- alemhnan 14y agoSure thing! In a bit it will be there!
- ehamberg 14y agoLove the idea, but I miss Indonesian in the list of languages. :-) Oh, and other have pointed out already: the gender symbols make very little sense.
- TheRubyist 14y agoYour site contains ridiculous TL;DR; "Legal" section but i cannot easily find "change your languages" options, there is a "reset password" link but it directs into webpage that doesn't contain any styles. Picking languages or gender is very unintuitive. I really love your idea, i would like to see this page going viral, but in current state it's hard to pass friend a link without wasting few minutes for explaining what it's actually about.
- thebigkick 14y agoThe entire concept and execution seems a little underdeveloped. The language on the front page is confusing and the website's navigation is different on at least three different pages.