Ask HN: Roast My Startup

I don't think it's difficult to understand.

It's some sort of ubiquitous note-taking/searching bot.

I like it.

The biggest obstacle for me to use something like this is the potential of losing all my notes if the company goes bust, so it would be nice to know there's a download/export option.

You need a clearer pitch.

When I read your pitch lines I don't understand what you're talking about (maybe a little tongue-in-cheek)

>>Never forget anything important again - well ok, this sounds good. So this is something that will improve my memory?

Get unlimited external memory with instant recall - external memory? so I guess what you told me above wasn't what I thought. So now there's this external thing where I save things? I guess like a notebook? but if I forgot about it how do I recall it? So now I see something important that I would have forgotten but I can put it somewhere else and instantly recall it...how?

>>As simple as texting a friend. - I don't understand how this is relevant. So there was something I thought would be important so i put it somewhere (and I'll remember I put it there) but then also it'll be like texting a friend?

It does seem like this could be cool but I'm not sure I understand it other than a notes taking app.

Sure, maybe the better way to phrase the question is: How is OP evaluating if there is actually a large enough paying market for this product to make a business out of it? Evernote showed there was not enough of a market for it to justify increased investment, so OP either needs to identity that there is more of a market for their version of productivity app or they need to have realistic expectations about operating a niche business (if enough of a market for such a business exists for this at all).

It's not meant to be harsh, rather just realistic, productivity apps are a dime a dozen (there's literally hundreds of submissions like this over the years on HN). OP needs to know what makes their submission different.

Thanks coderintherye, all very good points.

If I'm not mistaken Evernote had tens of millions of users.

I'd assume a note-taking app with a better UX has the potential to have at least the same ballpark. I think Evernote's mistake was raising too much money and not differentiating the product from competition...

That said, I really have no idea about conversion and monetization of such an app, because I couldn't find anything comparable.

Compared to Evernote, Remindful doesn't require you to manage your notes, can store complete documents and articles and answer questions about any part of the content.

Moreover, it would be able to actually remind you about important dates and things.

So far people I've spoken to said they need something like this, but at the moment the MVP is not quite ready to be able to charge for it...

Nice work getting this out there!

>> I'm guessing this is in the category of "Productivity Apps", the closest competitors seems to be apps like Evernote

This is the part that stood out to me most. You seem unsure of your competitors and so you'll have limited understanding of your market and target customers. I'd start by validating the user's problem and then ensuring the product does that.

As a heavy Notion user, I'd also be curious how I can leverage what I've already built there.