4 ms·

Ask HN: Please review my intelligent gift search startup

15 points by crisen 12y ago

Hi Everyone, I'm showing my child for the first time. I've been working on intelligent gift search with my friend for about half a year. Basically you can think of askmegift.com as a 'akinator web genius for finding matched gifts' We'd love your feedback. I waited to post it here untill everyone get their christmas gifts, so you don't think we are trying to sell. if you saw anything you like or hate please let us know. Adam

velocitypsycho 12y ago
I would really like to see a list of gifts at the end instead of clicking no a bunch of times to see my options and ending up at a blank page.
mod 12y ago
You have a big age gap missing. I'm dating a twenty-two yo female and I can choose 13-16 or 27-35. Not sure if it's intentional.
- mungoman2 12y ago
  They are there, but the list is not sorted...
  - crisen 12y ago
    fixed, list is now sorted, thanks :)
- crisen 12y ago
  ohh, the 17-26 option is at the bottom. It'll be fixed in few minutes. Thanks!
  - mod 12y ago
    So be it, I just missed that. My apologies.
- mod 12y ago
  I picked the older group and proceeded, even though that might be giving her the benefit of the doubt. I wish clicking a text input auto-selected that radio button, and that one or the other was defaulted on page load. Additionally, I had to answer a "her favorite sports figure" even though I had already said she didn't like sports. The last choice, "dance / instrument / something else" should be a checkbox system, so that I can select multiples, instead of a radio where I can only pick one. Outside of that, I wasn't overly impressed with the gift idea results. They seem to be exact matches to "things i said she was interested in," plus some jewelry thrown in, which she is very uninterested in.
jjp 12y ago
As you ask quite a few questions it would be good to know how many gifts you currently think you are going to recommend. I got about half way through and started to think am I going to be wasting my time. Perhaps even an option of view suggestions now. If you don't select a name for the person you are buying the gift for many of the questions don't scan that well. Also you use he/she as the generic but one of the follow on questions is sex to which I answered and relationship to which I also answered so would have made more sense to personalise the question a little more. Some of the questions should allow multiple response answers , e.g. does person play an instrument, dance, play in drama, none/I don't know. The person I was thinking of does all 3! Not sure whether it's important but I would have thought that for some questions there is a big difference between none (or in some cases it should no) and I don't know.
- crisen 12y ago
  Idea with numer of gifts that will be recomended is a nice one. We will add it within a days :) I also save this cosmetic changes with questions to my to-do list. Thanks :)
sjcsjc 12y ago
Hi there Adam. Firstly well done on having the guts to show this to people. Doing that scares the hell out of me. I think you've picked a problem worth solving, at least for some people - me included. I'm crap at choosing gifts, and always have been. Nowadays I choose my wife's presents by asking her what she'd like ;-). If someone could actually build a system that would consistently recommend appropriate gifts I think I'd pay to use it. In my unqualified opinion, this is a hard problem, and I think you have a lot of work in front of you. But you have to start somewhere. I won't comment on the ui because that's irrelevant at this point. But you might find it useful if I go through my answers and your suggestions. I was answering about my wife who is in her 40s. The most relevant answers to your questions were a) Kasabian (favourite band), b) One hundred years of solitude (favourite book) and c) spirits (re the choice of wine/beer/spirits). The suggestions I got were below, with my comments: 1) This is all yours, an Alt J album - [Good suggestion, she already has it] 2) Velociraptor - a Kasabian album - [Again she already has this, but then they're her favourite band] 3) A summary of Love in the time of cholera [Not sure why the summary as opposed to the book. In any case she's already read it, but if she hadn't it would have been a good choice.] 4) Diary of a wimpy kid - the long haul [an odd suggestion given her age, unless I'm missing something. My son says it's a kids' book] 5) The complete book of spirits [ presumably based on the wine/beer/spirits question. I asked her about this and she wasn't keen] 6) A book about Kasabian - [ good suggestion ] 7) KATGI Heart Shape Pendant Necklace [ interesting - I asked my daughter, who thought her mum would like it. I then asked my wife, who frowned and said no ;-) ] Anyway, not sure if that's helpful. Feel free to ask me anything. BTW, an idea for you. Some of my friends are extremely good at choosing gifts. Maybe talking to people with that talent would help you work out what makes them good at it. Good luck.
dchuk 12y ago
I'm actually working on a gift recommendation app as well, so I'm in this same space with you. I went through all of your questions in the wizard (There are quite a few, you should think about asking only the essentials at first and then allowing me to answer more once I'm in the app). I filled out the wizard about my girlfriend who likes the Steelers, and you showed me a men's Seattle Seahawks shirt: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/jacwd2ulo9hdl9o/q_gxfbwg.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/jacwd2ulo9hdl9o/q_gxfb... There are ways to automate the process of gender classification, you should look into them for situations like this considering I explicitly filled in "female" and "Steelers" into your wizard.
Someone1234 12y ago
Too many questions! I've actually looked for this type of site before. Useful concept if it works. I'd like to see a list of suggestions right after question #1 that change as you answer more and more questions. That gives me the option of either continuing or not without investing a lot of energy. You could have the questions be "never ending" with that design.
- crisen 12y ago
  Thanks for feedback, we are trying to halve the number of questions, but in order to do it we have to figured out which questions are the best :)
bbcbasic 12y ago
I just had a play. I think it is a great idea. Always struggling to pick a gift. I like the phone charger suggestion. I like how you ask for feedback presumably to make the results better next time. Will it be a success? I guess it depends on how the word will be spread? Do people want to admit they used something like this to buy a gift for someone? Another idea for you - can you scan a Facebook account to gather a lot of the information you ask? Would save a lot of typing. It could also send you an email when it is someone's birthday with a recommendation of the present. A common theme in the how to start a start-up is to do things that don't scale. What if you had a phone line that you answer, people can phone and give the information and you suggest a present. What if you order it for them? You will get a lot of information about the nuances of choosing a present, which can be fed into your algorithm. In my example the person hates to read books on self development, but likes trashy novels, but on the other hand is very ambitious. It suggest all kinds of self improvement books but I had to keep saying no.
- MalcolmDiggs 12y ago
  I'll second the facebook-integration idea. I'd much prefer to be able to sign-in-with-facebook and point out which person I want to buy a gift for than have to manually enter information about them (which I probably just culled from facebook anyway). I think the great utility of your app (which I like very much by the way) is getting gift ideas for people you barely know (coworkers, distant relatives, etc). So I don't know the answers to those questions, but my social network could probably figure it out.
jtfairbank 12y ago
Great idea! Where's the privacy policy? I don't want the very specific info I enter about my dad showing up in ads he sees. It'd be helpful to have a back n forth between items, or even better show them as a list (maybe paginate and generate more ideas on each page?). I want to see the options before settling on one. What I liked best was it gave me a category that works (smartwatch) which spurred an idea for an actual gift- a Fitbit.
fapi1974 12y ago
I just used this and bought something - so that's the best feedback I can give, isn't it? Good luck with it! Also if you have a newsletter for potential investors please put me on it. Details in my profile.
- fapi1974 12y ago
  Oh wait - it was the Rachel Maddow 2012 mug, not the 2016 mug. Still - nicely done. You had me.
austinhutch 12y ago
Selected 13-16 year old age group and was asked for favorite type of alcohol.
dagw 12y ago
Either change "None/don't know" or add a "don't care/doesn't matter" option. For example I don't want to limit the selection to just "girl toys" or don't particularly care how much I spend. Also you might want to stop asking the favorite alcohol question to people buying gifts for 5 year olds
stevekemp 12y ago
There are some gender-related issues with the presentation of ideas. e.g I saw this: "Even if Sarah is a experienced drinker you can widen his knowledge by giving her this book." Note the use of both "his" and "her".

15 points by crisen 12y ago

velocitypsycho 12y ago

I would really like to see a list of gifts at the end instead of clicking no a bunch of times to see my options and ending up at a blank page.

mod 12y ago

You have a big age gap missing. I'm dating a twenty-two yo female and I can choose 13-16 or 27-35. Not sure if it's intentional.

mungoman2 12y ago
They are there, but the list is not sorted...
- crisen 12y ago
  fixed, list is now sorted, thanks :)
crisen 12y ago
ohh, the 17-26 option is at the bottom. It'll be fixed in few minutes. Thanks!
- mod 12y ago
  So be it, I just missed that. My apologies.
mod 12y ago
I picked the older group and proceeded, even though that might be giving her the benefit of the doubt. I wish clicking a text input auto-selected that radio button, and that one or the other was defaulted on page load. Additionally, I had to answer a "her favorite sports figure" even though I had already said she didn't like sports. The last choice, "dance / instrument / something else" should be a checkbox system, so that I can select multiples, instead of a radio where I can only pick one. Outside of that, I wasn't overly impressed with the gift idea results. They seem to be exact matches to "things i said she was interested in," plus some jewelry thrown in, which she is very uninterested in.

jjp 12y ago

As you ask quite a few questions it would be good to know how many gifts you currently think you are going to recommend. I got about half way through and started to think am I going to be wasting my time. Perhaps even an option of view suggestions now. If you don't select a name for the person you are buying the gift for many of the questions don't scan that well. Also you use he/she as the generic but one of the follow on questions is sex to which I answered and relationship to which I also answered so would have made more sense to personalise the question a little more. Some of the questions should allow multiple response answers , e.g. does person play an instrument, dance, play in drama, none/I don't know. The person I was thinking of does all 3! Not sure whether it's important but I would have thought that for some questions there is a big difference between none (or in some cases it should no) and I don't know.

crisen 12y ago
Idea with numer of gifts that will be recomended is a nice one. We will add it within a days :) I also save this cosmetic changes with questions to my to-do list. Thanks :)

sjcsjc 12y ago

Hi there Adam. Firstly well done on having the guts to show this to people. Doing that scares the hell out of me. I think you've picked a problem worth solving, at least for some people - me included. I'm crap at choosing gifts, and always have been. Nowadays I choose my wife's presents by asking her what she'd like ;-). If someone could actually build a system that would consistently recommend appropriate gifts I think I'd pay to use it. In my unqualified opinion, this is a hard problem, and I think you have a lot of work in front of you. But you have to start somewhere. I won't comment on the ui because that's irrelevant at this point. But you might find it useful if I go through my answers and your suggestions. I was answering about my wife who is in her 40s. The most relevant answers to your questions were a) Kasabian (favourite band), b) One hundred years of solitude (favourite book) and c) spirits (re the choice of wine/beer/spirits). The suggestions I got were below, with my comments: 1) This is all yours, an Alt J album - [Good suggestion, she already has it] 2) Velociraptor - a Kasabian album - [Again she already has this, but then they're her favourite band] 3) A summary of Love in the time of cholera [Not sure why the summary as opposed to the book. In any case she's already read it, but if she hadn't it would have been a good choice.] 4) Diary of a wimpy kid - the long haul [an odd suggestion given her age, unless I'm missing something. My son says it's a kids' book] 5) The complete book of spirits [ presumably based on the wine/beer/spirits question. I asked her about this and she wasn't keen] 6) A book about Kasabian - [ good suggestion ] 7) KATGI Heart Shape Pendant Necklace [ interesting - I asked my daughter, who thought her mum would like it. I then asked my wife, who frowned and said no ;-) ] Anyway, not sure if that's helpful. Feel free to ask me anything. BTW, an idea for you. Some of my friends are extremely good at choosing gifts. Maybe talking to people with that talent would help you work out what makes them good at it. Good luck.

dchuk 12y ago

I'm actually working on a gift recommendation app as well, so I'm in this same space with you. I went through all of your questions in the wizard (There are quite a few, you should think about asking only the essentials at first and then allowing me to answer more once I'm in the app). I filled out the wizard about my girlfriend who likes the Steelers, and you showed me a men's Seattle Seahawks shirt: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/jacwd2ulo9hdl9o/q_gxfbwg.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/jacwd2ulo9hdl9o/q_gxfb... There are ways to automate the process of gender classification, you should look into them for situations like this considering I explicitly filled in "female" and "Steelers" into your wizard.

Someone1234 12y ago

Too many questions! I've actually looked for this type of site before. Useful concept if it works. I'd like to see a list of suggestions right after question #1 that change as you answer more and more questions. That gives me the option of either continuing or not without investing a lot of energy. You could have the questions be "never ending" with that design.

crisen 12y ago
Thanks for feedback, we are trying to halve the number of questions, but in order to do it we have to figured out which questions are the best :)

bbcbasic 12y ago

I just had a play. I think it is a great idea. Always struggling to pick a gift. I like the phone charger suggestion. I like how you ask for feedback presumably to make the results better next time. Will it be a success? I guess it depends on how the word will be spread? Do people want to admit they used something like this to buy a gift for someone? Another idea for you - can you scan a Facebook account to gather a lot of the information you ask? Would save a lot of typing. It could also send you an email when it is someone's birthday with a recommendation of the present. A common theme in the how to start a start-up is to do things that don't scale. What if you had a phone line that you answer, people can phone and give the information and you suggest a present. What if you order it for them? You will get a lot of information about the nuances of choosing a present, which can be fed into your algorithm. In my example the person hates to read books on self development, but likes trashy novels, but on the other hand is very ambitious. It suggest all kinds of self improvement books but I had to keep saying no.

MalcolmDiggs 12y ago
I'll second the facebook-integration idea. I'd much prefer to be able to sign-in-with-facebook and point out which person I want to buy a gift for than have to manually enter information about them (which I probably just culled from facebook anyway). I think the great utility of your app (which I like very much by the way) is getting gift ideas for people you barely know (coworkers, distant relatives, etc). So I don't know the answers to those questions, but my social network could probably figure it out.

jtfairbank 12y ago

Great idea! Where's the privacy policy? I don't want the very specific info I enter about my dad showing up in ads he sees. It'd be helpful to have a back n forth between items, or even better show them as a list (maybe paginate and generate more ideas on each page?). I want to see the options before settling on one. What I liked best was it gave me a category that works (smartwatch) which spurred an idea for an actual gift- a Fitbit.

fapi1974 12y ago

I just used this and bought something - so that's the best feedback I can give, isn't it? Good luck with it! Also if you have a newsletter for potential investors please put me on it. Details in my profile.

fapi1974 12y ago
Oh wait - it was the Rachel Maddow 2012 mug, not the 2016 mug. Still - nicely done. You had me.

austinhutch 12y ago

Selected 13-16 year old age group and was asked for favorite type of alcohol.

dagw 12y ago

Either change "None/don't know" or add a "don't care/doesn't matter" option. For example I don't want to limit the selection to just "girl toys" or don't particularly care how much I spend. Also you might want to stop asking the favorite alcohol question to people buying gifts for 5 year olds

stevekemp 12y ago

There are some gender-related issues with the presentation of ideas. e.g I saw this: "Even if Sarah is a experienced drinker you can widen his knowledge by giving her this book." Note the use of both "his" and "her".