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Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

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Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#21

Post by arethuza »

sandeep45 wrote: post #19
arethuza wrote: post #13

I actually think this is a pretty good idea. However, could there be some way of having these "proposed" features turned off by default and giving users an option to turn them on? Otherwise, as people have commented, it might cause frustration as people try to use features that aren't implemented yet. Could you have a view for end users so you can see all proposed new features? Sort of crowd-sourced product marketing…

Arethuza: Thanks for your feedback. We have a rules engine, which can be used to really fine tune when and how the feature experiments are shown. For example, you can setup so 1. feature experiments are only shown to a customer who has logged in at at least X times. 2. You can control so they don't see an experiment after it has been seen once by them. 3. You could say that if they have seen 1 feature experiment, the…

No problem.

BTW One question that I think anyone considering an investment would ask is: "Do you use your own product to collect data on features for your product?". :-)

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#22

Post by RyanZAG »

JRFuentes7 wrote: post #16
6thSigma wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were you, I'd get rid of the "right person, the right question at the right time" bit in the application and include "we have shown the feedback overlay more than 1K times and have gotten a 60% feedback rate."

Cool. Can you go a bit deeper and tell us why? As in, why is that more compelling to you?

I'd think it would be because "right person, right time" would be what everyone else would be saying, while "1K times and have gotten a 60% feedback rate" are hard numbers with 60% being extremely high for this type of thing. If you're pitching to someone who understands how high 60% is, it has more impact than the story.

I think for a general investor or layman, the story would be more compelling because it lays out why it is high (and that it is high for the industry). YC would be in the more technical group and would already know this, so just giving them the 60% is more likely to get their attention.

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#23

Post by sandeep45 »

austenallred wrote: post #18

You asked me to give it to you straight. Seems like a cool little widget, but I doubt the market for it would be big enough to be worth your time. It's a small enough of a problem that most people won't notice it, and if they do they could easily solve it themselves. People won't be looking for a solution, and it's not cool enough that people would share it just because. As for your questions, your responses are way…

Austenallred: Thanks for giving to me straight.

I think this seems like an "easy" thing to build in-house, but we believe getting this right will take a ton of time, which companies could put towards doing what they do best.

Here is what we have: 1. The rules engine, to track visitors and fine control who see's feature experiments and how often. 2. An analytics suite, to capture all data and show it in a form which is digestible and allows a PM to take action 3. Making overlays work cross browser and device. 4. Solution which requires absolutely no-code to get feedback on existing features. A gui where PM's can visually find features on their website, tap on them and configure them to ask for feedback.

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#24

Post by JRFuentes7 »

JRFuentes7 wrote: post #17

Ummm... looks like we maxed out the number of concurrent viewers (max: 50) who can see the Google Doc. We're going to move the application to our blog.

Here's the link on our blog in case the Google Doc doesn't work: http://startupsthehardway.tumblr.com/post/63091956854/featur...

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#25

Post by sjtgraham »

I'm not sure about the "hacked system" answer, I don't think it demonstrates a novel insight used to identify something exploitable. It's obvious that pure graft and time will let you sell a lot of raffle tickets, but would you still have won if your competitors deployed an equal amount of effort in the same way? Did you win because of a unique insight that yielded a competitive advantage, or did you win because your competitors didn't care enough? That's not clear.

That said, I do think it demonstrates some ability to hustle. Here, what you're really doing is getting HN to write, or rather optimise your YC application. You're exploiting the vanity of HN, i.e. everyone wants to look smart by providing an ingenious comment. You synthesise the best into your application, and make off like a bandit. That would be a pretty novel hack in itself. :)

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#26

Post by austenallred »

sandeep45 wrote: post #23
austenallred wrote: post #18

You asked me to give it to you straight. Seems like a cool little widget, but I doubt the market for it would be big enough to be worth your time. It's a small enough of a problem that most people won't notice it, and if they do they could easily solve it themselves. People won't be looking for a solution, and it's not cool enough that people would share it just because. As for your questions, your responses are way…

Austenallred: Thanks for giving to me straight. I think this seems like an "easy" thing to build in-house, but we believe getting this right will take a ton of time, which companies could put towards doing what they do best. Here is what we have: 1. The rules engine, to track visitors and fine control who see's feature experiments and how often. 2. An analytics suite, to capture all data and show it in a form which i…

I'm not questioning that it's hard to build as much as I am that people will go out of their way to get it. But best of luck to you, prove me wrong!

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#27

Post by sandeep45 »

arethuza wrote: post #21
sandeep45 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arethuza: Thanks for your feedback. We have a rules engine, which can be used to really fine tune when and how the feature experiments are shown. For example, you can setup so 1. feature experiments are only shown to a customer who has logged in at at least X times. 2. You can control so they don't see an experiment after it has been seen once by them. 3. You could say that if they have seen 1 feature experiment, the…

No problem. BTW One question that I think anyone considering an investment would ask is: "Do you use your own product to collect data on features for your product?". :-)

Arethuza: Absolutely. I have been "kicking" every feature my co-founder has brought to me, before I build them. Recently he told me build a feature which shows a google map, with customer thumbs up displayed by locations for a feature. Before building this thing, i "kicked" it by putting a mocked maps image with a button on top saying "enable report". Within days it was clear that this feature was not a top priority.

Also I use FK to monitor our existing features and ask feedback on them. I love that now i don't have to write 4 lines of code to monitor 1 line of code. FeatureKicker's no-change solution to monitor and get feedback on existing features rocks.

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#28

Post by sandeep45 »

RyanZAG wrote: post #22
JRFuentes7 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Can you go a bit deeper and tell us why? As in, why is that more compelling to you?

I'd think it would be because "right person, right time" would be what everyone else would be saying, while "1K times and have gotten a 60% feedback rate" are hard numbers with 60% being extremely high for this type of thing. If you're pitching to someone who understands how high 60% is, it has more impact than the story. I think for a general investor or layman, the story would be more compelling because it lays out…

Thanks for the explanation. I like how you put it :)

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#29

Post by sandeep45 »

sjtgraham wrote: post #25

I'm not sure about the "hacked system" answer, I don't think it demonstrates a novel insight used to identify something exploitable. It's obvious that pure graft and time will let you sell a lot of raffle tickets, but would you still have won if your competitors deployed an equal amount of effort in the same way? Did you win because of a unique insight that yielded a competitive advantage, or did you win because your…

Thats great feedback. Thank you :)

Re: Ask HN: This is our YC W2014 application. Can you give me feedback?

#30

Post by sandeep45 »

6thSigma wrote: post #20
JRFuentes7 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Can you go a bit deeper and tell us why? As in, why is that more compelling to you?

One is marketing speak showing why you think users would want to give feedback and the other is actual metrics showing a pretty high success rate of getting real feedback.

Got it. Thank You
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