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Thanks again for the great feedback. You make a lot of excellent points too. Ok, what about the new app from 37Signals, Haystack? Design issues on my site asid

Thanks again for the great feedback. You make a lot of excellent points too. Ok, what about the new app from 37Signals, Haystack? Design issues on my site aside, Haystack lets a (specific type of) business advertise for free with 1-6 images of their portfolio, and a link to their site. Thats $99 a month. I would assume you would like Haystack better because of its minimal design and focus on the company. Looks like its back to the drawing board, but I do honestly appreciate your feedback.

sebg 17y ago
If my understanding is that you want to build a website like "yelp/local business"...then I think you need to go out and talk to local businesses about how their needs aren't being met by craigslist, yelp, etc. Also from the description, it looks like you might be going after too many things. For instance - if I am a small town plumber, chances are that I am not going to have a commercial to upload. This will make me look less professional on your website and I won't like it so I won't use you. On the otherhand if you had statistics like the number of "jobs" that I have done in the last month at or under the price quoted, then this would be helpful for me as a customer. Perhaps the way to go is to make a website that lets very small local business construct advertisements that don't suck. Make it painfully easy for them to do this and they will pay money.
DanielStraight 17y ago
I do like Haystack better, but not because of minimal design, and I'm not sure what "focus on the company" means. I like Haystack better (this is very first-impression for them too because I hadn't heard of Haystack before) because it gives you right up front in a bold way exactly and only what you care about. To put myself in the users shoes, I want to hire a designer. What do I care about? Who's out there, what can they do, and how much will it cost me. Haystack answers this is 3 seconds. It also keeps the contact information simple and web-based. If I need a phone number or address, I can always email and ask. Haystack has some problems of its own, but I think as far as the profile pages go, Haystack is much better. Perhaps you could have different profile templates which are catered to various types of businesses if you don't want to go completely freeform (and it's probably a good idea not to because then it will turn into Myspace and be scarily bad). Or perhaps you could have widgets that users could add like a portfolio or like a contact info or testimonial box (instead of putting these on all profiles). Or, since templates and widgets have been done to death, perhaps you could come up with something different. Who knows. I just know that what you have right now is very phone-book-ish and not particularly compelling to the user looking to hire someone for some job.
- leftnode 17y ago
  Your contact information isn't in your profile, but you've given me some great ideas. Would you mind emailing me at vmc@leftnode.com so I could personally contact you in the future?
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]

sebg 17y ago

If my understanding is that you want to build a website like "yelp/local business"...then I think you need to go out and talk to local businesses about how their needs aren't being met by craigslist, yelp, etc. Also from the description, it looks like you might be going after too many things. For instance - if I am a small town plumber, chances are that I am not going to have a commercial to upload. This will make me look less professional on your website and I won't like it so I won't use you. On the otherhand if you had statistics like the number of "jobs" that I have done in the last month at or under the price quoted, then this would be helpful for me as a customer. Perhaps the way to go is to make a website that lets very small local business construct advertisements that don't suck. Make it painfully easy for them to do this and they will pay money.

DanielStraight 17y ago

I do like Haystack better, but not because of minimal design, and I'm not sure what "focus on the company" means. I like Haystack better (this is very first-impression for them too because I hadn't heard of Haystack before) because it gives you right up front in a bold way exactly and only what you care about. To put myself in the users shoes, I want to hire a designer. What do I care about? Who's out there, what can they do, and how much will it cost me. Haystack answers this is 3 seconds. It also keeps the contact information simple and web-based. If I need a phone number or address, I can always email and ask. Haystack has some problems of its own, but I think as far as the profile pages go, Haystack is much better. Perhaps you could have different profile templates which are catered to various types of businesses if you don't want to go completely freeform (and it's probably a good idea not to because then it will turn into Myspace and be scarily bad). Or perhaps you could have widgets that users could add like a portfolio or like a contact info or testimonial box (instead of putting these on all profiles). Or, since templates and widgets have been done to death, perhaps you could come up with something different. Who knows. I just know that what you have right now is very phone-book-ish and not particularly compelling to the user looking to hire someone for some job.

leftnode 17y ago
Your contact information isn't in your profile, but you've given me some great ideas. Would you mind emailing me at vmc@leftnode.com so I could personally contact you in the future?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]