5 ms·

Ask HN: Re-review my startup - ProspectVista.com

16 points by leftnode 17y ago

Hello HN, About a month ago, I asked for reviews of my startup - ProspectVista.com. I got some good feedback, but didn't get much exposure because it wasn't upvoted much. I've done a tremendous amount of work to it in that month, and I'm asking again for more suggestions. The idea behind Prospect Vista is that businesses can create a public profile, upload video commercials, connect with other businesses, and advertise for free. Businesses can create marketplace ads to describe specials they are having or to advertise their products or services. Consumers, after creating a profile, can create Requests for Proposal's for businesses to find. For example, if a consumer needed a plumber or a home inspector, they would create a request for all plumbers in the system. Businesses that have associated with the plumbing industry will be able to respond to the request, and from there, the consumer will select the plumber that matches their request the best. All functions to use the site effectively are free to use. Businesses can optionally pay $10 a month/$100 a year to upgrade their account. The upgrade: * Gives them 10 videos of 50mb each rather than 2 videos of 20mb (videos can be swapped out at any time). * Detailed demogrpahic statistics on their account (what other industries are viewing their account, genders, total views, and we're adding more). * Requests for Proposal delivered directly to their email, rather than having to manually search for them. * A public forum to promote themselves and talk with their customers. * Are allowed to create an unlimited number of Marketplace Ads, whereas free accounts can create 1 per week.. Because I'm interested in getting good feed back, I've created two dummy accounts for HN readers. If you want to sign in as a business: username: hn_business@prospectvista.com password: hnbusiness If you want to sign in as a consumer: username: hn_consumer@prospectvista.com password: hnconsumer Here's an example of my simple profile - http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/4 And a profile with a much better video - http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/87 http://www.prospectvista.com Thanks!

leftnode 17y ago
Clickable links: http://www.prospectvista.com http://www.prospectvista.com http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/4 http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/4 http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/87 http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/87
- sebg 17y ago
  Right off of the bat there is too much stuff to look at in the front page. I think get rid of the sign up page on the first page and put a bit button link to it and spend more time explaining why people should care and what problem you are solving for them.
DanielStraight 17y ago
I reviewed before, and I'm afraid I can't say much different now. My review before was that I thought the profiles were not at all compelling, so I signed in with the business account to see if I could do better. I can't. There isn't enough flexibility, and there's way too much focus on stuff no one cares about. I said it before, and I'll say it again: No one cares what your address is, what your primary, second, and third industries are, or what your office hours are. Most people don't care what your phone number is either since this is a website and they probably expect to use the web to contact a business on it. There are also quite a few design issues. Sometimes bold blue text is clickable, sometimes it isn't. Something things listed in the left column are clickable menus, sometimes they aren't. I find it all very confusing. I thought for sure on the home page, I'd be able to click on "Find what you need" to go to some sort of search page, but I can't. The search box at the top gives no clue of what you should search for, and if you search for something that gets no results (or results you don't like), there's no indication of what you should do to improve your results. If search isn't your thing, oh well. There's no way to browse on the site, only search. In my opinion, the ability to search without the ability to browse works for exactly one website, and I think you know which one that is. You mention plumbers as an example, but until you reach a huge critical mass, searching for a plumber on your site will not be practical. Craigslist is one of the only websites in the world where it's practical to search for local businesses, and Craigslist is huge. You are tiny. It is not practical to search for a local business that only lists 10 businesses in your entire country. What are the chances of actually finding one? One in a billion? Worse? I think you would do much better to focus on business that don't have a "service area" (conveniently eliminating even more from the site that no one cares about). Freelance tech people would be a good target audience as far as businesses go. Software companies are also good. And then you need to give people a chance to actually show themselves on their profiles rather than a bunch of information that, I want to reiterate again, no one cares about. For comparison, this is what a good profile for a designer looks like: http://www.ganato.com/index.php http://www.ganato.com/index.php It is simply not possible to make something that compelling on your site. On your site, it would look like: Location: Santiago, Chile Service area: Worldwide Name: Lidia Gana Primary industry: Web design Secondary industry: Interface design Then there would be a comment area that contains a few good testimonials, perhaps the only thing compelling that could be worked into the profile, a list of business contacts that no one would care about, a discussion board that would not have a enough critical mass for anyone to care about, and a fans section that no one would care about. Finally, there would be one single solitary chance for the designer to show what she can do: the video, but given that the attention span of users is very short and that there was nothing in the profile to compel them to care, many probably won't bother watching the video, especially if it's longer than say, 30 seconds. With 30 seconds, the designer could show only a ridiculously tiny portion of what's on her website. She certainly wouldn't have a whole page that exudes her design skill. She certainly wouldn't have a section where she gives away free stuff to show off her talent. Think of it like this: eHarmony commercials complain that other dating sites give you just a picture and a paragraph and how useless that is. Your website gives businesses and customers just a picture and a paragraph.
hkuo 17y ago
Honestly, I really really feel for you. It's very clear you've put a ton of hard work into this. I think it's great that DanielStraight spent a lot of time to provide feedback. I honestly don't have as much time to give you the proper technical or user experience type of feedback that you need. I will, however, give you some more overarching feedback. I just don't believe you have enough experience at this point in time to really understand the problem with your product. It's hard to resist trying to "go for it" to make riches on an internet service. But given time and learning, anyone can get that experience. If you can find work in the Advertising industry, that would be the ideal learning place. It's the only industry that marries strategy, branding, interactive, marketing, user experience, and visual design, plus PR to boot, as the lines between what is PR and advertising is becoming non-existent. As a matter of fact, there are blurred lines between all mentioned above. But the greatest thing for you to learn about is how for a web service, the user's experience is essentially your brand. I cannot teach this to you. It's something that will probably take you a while to learn how to implement.
hkuo 17y ago
One extra note, not a good idea to use the word "vista" in your product, as it recalls the obvious Windows Vista which everyone pretty much ties to "failure".
solidlaw 17y ago
This is a good website. It appears that this service does what redbeacon does, in matching requests to businesses, except your website is also a social network in addition to free advertisements for companies. I think the value propisition is good and if you can get enough people to upload a commercial it could be a very resourceful website. This is certainly attainable in that there are thousands of videos uploaded to youtube per day, some of which are for people who are uploading business "commercials". I can see that prospectvista.com allows much more control for branding than youtube. Youtube obviously provides more immediate coverage since everyone knows about youtube, but if a company is trying to brand itself on youtube the next link could be a kid lighting his fart on fire. I could see why companies would opt for prospectvista.com where they can have more control over their profile and what is shown on it. I logged in via the password you supplied and the "request center" looks to be a very solid deal. So, in essence I see this as a website for companies to advertise on, brand their emails with a link to their own commercial, as well as get business leads from the request center. All in all, I like it. I can see some of the points from the reviewers, but again, as a whole I think your website is good and if you can get traction on people using it, it could be big.

16 points by leftnode 17y ago

leftnode 17y ago

Clickable links: http://www.prospectvista.com http://www.prospectvista.com http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/4 http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/4 http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/87 http://www.prospectvista.com/profile/view/87

sebg 17y ago
Right off of the bat there is too much stuff to look at in the front page. I think get rid of the sign up page on the first page and put a bit button link to it and spend more time explaining why people should care and what problem you are solving for them.

DanielStraight 17y ago

I reviewed before, and I'm afraid I can't say much different now. My review before was that I thought the profiles were not at all compelling, so I signed in with the business account to see if I could do better. I can't. There isn't enough flexibility, and there's way too much focus on stuff no one cares about. I said it before, and I'll say it again: No one cares what your address is, what your primary, second, and third industries are, or what your office hours are. Most people don't care what your phone number is either since this is a website and they probably expect to use the web to contact a business on it. There are also quite a few design issues. Sometimes bold blue text is clickable, sometimes it isn't. Something things listed in the left column are clickable menus, sometimes they aren't. I find it all very confusing. I thought for sure on the home page, I'd be able to click on "Find what you need" to go to some sort of search page, but I can't. The search box at the top gives no clue of what you should search for, and if you search for something that gets no results (or results you don't like), there's no indication of what you should do to improve your results. If search isn't your thing, oh well. There's no way to browse on the site, only search. In my opinion, the ability to search without the ability to browse works for exactly one website, and I think you know which one that is. You mention plumbers as an example, but until you reach a huge critical mass, searching for a plumber on your site will not be practical. Craigslist is one of the only websites in the world where it's practical to search for local businesses, and Craigslist is huge. You are tiny. It is not practical to search for a local business that only lists 10 businesses in your entire country. What are the chances of actually finding one? One in a billion? Worse? I think you would do much better to focus on business that don't have a "service area" (conveniently eliminating even more from the site that no one cares about). Freelance tech people would be a good target audience as far as businesses go. Software companies are also good. And then you need to give people a chance to actually show themselves on their profiles rather than a bunch of information that, I want to reiterate again, no one cares about. For comparison, this is what a good profile for a designer looks like: http://www.ganato.com/index.php http://www.ganato.com/index.php It is simply not possible to make something that compelling on your site. On your site, it would look like: Location: Santiago, Chile Service area: Worldwide Name: Lidia Gana Primary industry: Web design Secondary industry: Interface design Then there would be a comment area that contains a few good testimonials, perhaps the only thing compelling that could be worked into the profile, a list of business contacts that no one would care about, a discussion board that would not have a enough critical mass for anyone to care about, and a fans section that no one would care about. Finally, there would be one single solitary chance for the designer to show what she can do: the video, but given that the attention span of users is very short and that there was nothing in the profile to compel them to care, many probably won't bother watching the video, especially if it's longer than say, 30 seconds. With 30 seconds, the designer could show only a ridiculously tiny portion of what's on her website. She certainly wouldn't have a whole page that exudes her design skill. She certainly wouldn't have a section where she gives away free stuff to show off her talent. Think of it like this: eHarmony commercials complain that other dating sites give you just a picture and a paragraph and how useless that is. Your website gives businesses and customers just a picture and a paragraph.

hkuo 17y ago

Honestly, I really really feel for you. It's very clear you've put a ton of hard work into this. I think it's great that DanielStraight spent a lot of time to provide feedback. I honestly don't have as much time to give you the proper technical or user experience type of feedback that you need. I will, however, give you some more overarching feedback. I just don't believe you have enough experience at this point in time to really understand the problem with your product. It's hard to resist trying to "go for it" to make riches on an internet service. But given time and learning, anyone can get that experience. If you can find work in the Advertising industry, that would be the ideal learning place. It's the only industry that marries strategy, branding, interactive, marketing, user experience, and visual design, plus PR to boot, as the lines between what is PR and advertising is becoming non-existent. As a matter of fact, there are blurred lines between all mentioned above. But the greatest thing for you to learn about is how for a web service, the user's experience is essentially your brand. I cannot teach this to you. It's something that will probably take you a while to learn how to implement.

hkuo 17y ago

One extra note, not a good idea to use the word "vista" in your product, as it recalls the obvious Windows Vista which everyone pretty much ties to "failure".

solidlaw 17y ago

This is a good website. It appears that this service does what redbeacon does, in matching requests to businesses, except your website is also a social network in addition to free advertisements for companies. I think the value propisition is good and if you can get enough people to upload a commercial it could be a very resourceful website. This is certainly attainable in that there are thousands of videos uploaded to youtube per day, some of which are for people who are uploading business "commercials". I can see that prospectvista.com allows much more control for branding than youtube. Youtube obviously provides more immediate coverage since everyone knows about youtube, but if a company is trying to brand itself on youtube the next link could be a kid lighting his fart on fire. I could see why companies would opt for prospectvista.com where they can have more control over their profile and what is shown on it. I logged in via the password you supplied and the "request center" looks to be a very solid deal. So, in essence I see this as a website for companies to advertise on, brand their emails with a link to their own commercial, as well as get business leads from the request center. All in all, I like it. I can see some of the points from the reviewers, but again, as a whole I think your website is good and if you can get traction on people using it, it could be big.