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Ask HN: Could HN make it as a business?

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Re: Ask HN: Could HN make it as a business?

#11

Post by oziumjinx »

Turn the "Seeking feedback on my startup" into a premium service. Startups submit their site and mini-pitch/boilerplate. Users go visit the site but the site could be framed with a dinky toolbar at the top that is used for usability/feedback review. Mocking up their website, writing notes, giving feedback, etc. All that data is aggregated into a nice dashboard that the startup can review. They could even filter by a users karma to ween out the crap if someone isnt giving constructive criticism. They could also vote on who gives them the best feedback, which would add to that users karma (redeemable for prizes or services from other startups).

So, the startup pays some amount, lets say, $500 for the feedback service. HN guarantees that they will receive 100 pieces of feedback using this tool (which of course would be using node.js, closure, haskel, [insert any trending technology here]). Once the 100 pieces of feedback are received, the 'sponsored link' gets removed and another goes in its place. The startup could also request feedback only from users with certain karma levels (which would cost more money).

HN shows a maximum of 1 sponsored review link at the top of the site, or mixed in somewhere, at a time. I dont think it would be too tough to get 100 feedback notes in a single day (with 60k users that love checking out new startups).

Let's say only one is shown each day, thats $15,000 per month in revenue for that service. That'll buy a lot of ramen.

Re: Ask HN: Could HN make it as a business?

#12

Post by sabj »

The question is how "much" monetization, right...? I think because it's a very tightly targeted group, there is a fair amount of room - whether for some of the more innovative offerings below, or just B2B things for startups - but it seems like scalability would be a difficulty, in terms of 'growing' the business. (Plus, the business aspects in that sense could corrode some of the real motivations for HN).

HN _does_ serve a business purpose and I think it provides Y Combinator with -great- ROI : )

Re: Ask HN: Could HN make it as a business?

#14

Post by lhorie »

pringle wrote: post #9
lhorie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, you mean, look at HN as a Digg/Reddit/Slashdot look-alike? The "aggregator site model" is pretty simple to describe, really: screw quality, get moar users, ads, profit. It clearly works as a business model, but whether that plays to the strengths of HN is a completely different matter.

I guess what sets HN apart is the premium it places on quality rather than growth/traffic. And that it caters to a specific niche rather than a bunch of disparate, mainstream topics. So the question is if it could still do well given those differences.

If your revenue comes from ads, then almost by definition, small community == small revenue.

Imho, leveraging pg's experience in start-ups and the community here seems like a better way of exploring monetization options.

Look at it this way: of the following ways of monetizing, one could argue that the more niche-specific, the more potential the model has:

- ads (target: just about everyone)

- sell a book/magazine about running a startup (target: people interested in start-ups)

- fund start-ups that came about partially thanks to HN (target: people doing start-ups)

Re: Ask HN: Could HN make it as a business?

#15

Post by Zev »

pringle wrote: post #9
lhorie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, you mean, look at HN as a Digg/Reddit/Slashdot look-alike? The "aggregator site model" is pretty simple to describe, really: screw quality, get moar users, ads, profit. It clearly works as a business model, but whether that plays to the strengths of HN is a completely different matter.

I guess what sets HN apart is the premium it places on quality rather than growth/traffic. And that it caters to a specific niche rather than a bunch of disparate, mainstream topics. So the question is if it could still do well given those differences.

And that it caters to a specific niche.. and ..but I meant this more in terms of taking YC.. go against one another.
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