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Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

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Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

#1

Post by hinoglu »

I've been in the "build->launch->move to next project" loop for some time.

My projects are mostly based on features that are missing or misimplemented in the existing products. Some of the finished projects gone live, tried to sell some, some are rotting in the attic.

I lack visual design skills, but yet trying to do my best to provide a usable UI for the products. One of my motives in building a product against my lack of visual skills is knowing that "they started as crap too". For example reddit was just a very simple listing full with porn links, stumbleupon was just a "what is this" page for a few years, twitter was and still is damn slow, broken and overbloated and there are many more.. Other than reddit, others was most probably the first at doing what they do. There were no similar products, but they got it up and running and people easily adopted.

When i ask about feedbacks about my products, mostly i get "i didn't understand which problem you are solving". I even deployed a localized copy of cnprog as a forum on women's issues, to see if it was me doing it wrong in designing. I got the following feedback several times: "it's too complicated, there's no order, no title in threads, other forums(phpbb style) are better ". WTF? These people are on facebook 24/7, uploading gazillions of photos, messaging their friends each second. They know what tagging is, and still a stackoverflow clone is too complicated?

Anyway, what i wonder is, what happened to people that got it the first time when they saw reddit, stumbleupon and said "yeah i'll use it". Were internet users back in late 90's , ealy 2000's much more sophisticated people? What has changed since then, and people became website gourmets to say that "you should tell what this site is about on the first page. i don't understand that your site is a listing site by just looking at the listing on the goddamn first page. that's why i decided that i won't use it at the very first second i stumbled onto your site"? Sigh..

Have "they" gone forever, and will never come back again?

Edit: Thanks for all the fantastic comments, i didn't expect to get many insightful ideas and suggestions. There are some points i guess i need to make myself clear:

- WTF -> these people can use the applications i can not even cope with, how can they find a 2-3 step forum complex ? details: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1838852

- I've tried opening jobs on amazon, asking communities for feedbacks, paying google ads, using stumbleupon ads, posting to startup listings. lastly using feedbackroulette :) by the way fr is just great.

- details about a few of the stuff i've done http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1838805

Re: Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

#2

Post by patio11 »

My projects are mostly based on features that are missing or misimplemented in the existing products.

This is your first problem. First, features do not sell software. If there were a Ten Commandments of customer acquisition in the Internet age that would be #2 right after "Google is your god, you shall have no others." People use software and use websites because of the benefit that you credibly propose to bring to their lives through use of the software. Ironically, your users are even telling you this, which is fantastic because most of the time they don't have accurate insight into why your site doesn't do it for them. (Incidentally, "I don't know what problem you're solving" really means "I don't know what problem THAT I ACTUALLY HAVE will get better instantly if I sign up for this.")

StackOverflow is incredibly more complicated than Facebook is. You need an accurate mental model of how the game works in order to play it. (Seeing answers is easier, of course.) There is a reason Joel and company try to seed new Stack Overflow sites with people who have used one of the pre-existing ones. (That also helps solve the chicken and egg problem, which I suspect your sites are likely suffering from in a severe fashion.)

Early adopters are a quirky bunch. One of their problems is that other people are cooler than they are because those people have technology that they haven't used yet. Another of their problems is that the software they previously liked is now lame because even their mother uses it. Most people do not have these problems.

Talk to people. Find out what their pains, fears, frustrations are. This is not hard -- most people love to talk about what they hate about their life, jobs, etc. Identify problems which are tractable with software. Develop the smallest possible thing that shows the vision of a solution. See if it 'clicks' with people. If it clicks, you know you have a viable idea for a product. If not, development is generally expensive guessing.

P.S. Translation from user into English: "It's too complicated" => "I am insufficiently invested in this to do the work that it looks like it is going to take to extract the unknown amount of value I may get out." There are a number of solutions: simplification, hiding the complexity, easing the users into the complexity, and demonstrating higher value. Your user can play effing bridge, she is clearly capable of understanding complex systems when the spirit moves her.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

#3

Post by kilian »

First off, your user is not you. ;) Something that's instantaneously understandable, and clearly better to you (tagging) isn't necessarily so for others (apart from "multiple categories per item", I still don't get why everyone loves tags).

Obviously you can get quality feedback. Iterate on that. If it's not clear what problem you are solving, you just tell them. There's no shame in writing "This is a listings page, add a listing HERE" in 80px black bold Arial on top of the page, if it makes people use it ;)

As long as people can find you on search engines, they will come. But from there on, you have to guide them to use your service instead of expecting them to do all the work.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

#5

Post by PhrosTT »

maybe you're discounting the importance of luck...

somehow society just decides your thing is cool. like when there's 5 equal products and one is successful for no particular reason.

i always think about how weird bars are. you can 2 equal bars but 1 is packed every night... even with zero distinguishing differences. society just says 'oh that bar usually has people, let's go there'.

the problem may not be the product but figuring out how to convince people it's the cool _______ to use.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

#6

Post by terryjsmith »

kilian wrote: post #3

First off, your user is not you. ;) Something that's instantaneously understandable, and clearly better to you (tagging) isn't necessarily so for others (apart from "multiple categories per item", I still don't get why everyone loves tags). Obviously you can get quality feedback. Iterate on that. If it's not clear what problem you are solving, you just tell them . There's no shame in writing "This is a listings page,…

This. The most important part of any project I've been involved with has been showing it to other people. You can see how they are going to try to use the product and what you might be missing. Even more so, I've had people I show it to come up with better tag lines and branding than I ever could have myself.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

#8

Post by adrianoconnor »

Me too. I blogged about it the other day, in a fashion: http://www.adrianoconnor.net/2010/10/the-bad-news-about-your...

I believe there are two highly valuable skills you need to run a successful business: 1. The ability to create amazing products (either yourself or through motivating others) and 2. Ability to get your message out and get people interested.

I fail badly at #2. I guess I need to find a partner who is naturally magnetic and can sell dreams to people. The thing is, once you're over that hump you'll get momentum -- you can ask for feedback, you can engage with those people, and, hopefully, they'll hep you spread the word. Alternatively, you can throw ad-dollars at it and work on the conversion rate, but advertising is mostly owned by people with lots of money so you'll drown before you manage to even start swimming.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

#9

Post by sammyo »

On this point: "it's too complicated, there's no order"

An important element of useablility that is often ignored and misunderstood is familarity. In many ways it just does not matter that MSWindows or Facebook is clunky, or violates important useability or is just wrong or broken. When the environment hits a critial mass of familarity the only way to co-exist with an entrenched community is compatibility. As galling as it is to use a windows file picker look & feel, it's what folks are familar. Changing the visual paradigms does happen (review the history of the web) but fairly quicky a new normalicy (see web pulldown bars) gets established. Show some examples and/or look for a design partner.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, "they" didn't come...

#10

Post by sjs382 »

I built http://isshort.com because I wanted to promote healthy link shortening, and created an API so that Twitter clients can use it. I promoted it on reddit, HN, techstartu.ps, Quora (in response to a question) and by emailing the people who were an inspiration for it (simon wilson, the people responsible for rev=canonical and rel=shortlink).

I've been completely unable to gain traction for isshort.com, with 43 visits to the site in about 5 days.

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