Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
1–10 of 56 posts
Re: Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
#2I've been working on it as a side project for the past 5 months. Tell me what you think!
Re: Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
#3Looks really useful. Question: What process do you use to ensure translation quality? I noticed I can sign up as a translator without any barriers.. are you only going to rely on feedback? What if someone gets angry that their translation was poor?
Re: Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
#4first, 2 bad things:
1. if you "add to cart" nothing, it does something weird.
2. I don't like the "in only 5 months".
then, a good things: 1. Website is pretty clean, I like that.
Re: Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
#5Design: Clearly "inspired" by Basecamp. It's fine for proving the concept, but will have to change once you've ganed some traction.
I'm not sure if the language dropdown is supposed to work. It doesn't work for me on the iPhone. You shouldn't care about this at all, just a note.
The design polish is a huge plus. It looks nice all around, something I don't often see with projects like this. I think it could use a touch of UI polish, but it honestly doesn't matter at this phase.
Product: Seems OK. Your core issue is solving the chicken/egg problem. You need to convince freelancers to join without jobs and you need to convince people with jobs to join without translators. In that light, features like forums seem like massive scope creep. Forums don't get you any closer to getting traction. That should be your sole goal at this point.
Marketing: The value prop isn't super clear to me. You're not effectively answering the question "Why do I need this?" and "Why do I need you, over the other guy?"
Overall decent job. Keep up the hard work.
Re: Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
#6Looks really useful. Question: What process do you use to ensure translation quality? I noticed I can sign up as a translator without any barriers.. are you only going to rely on feedback? What if someone gets angry that their translation was poor?
For now, anyone can get either get a refund with a click of a button, or repost the job to be worked on by another translator. Eventually, I'll be adding some safety checks to see that it isn't being abused.
Re: Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
#7Design: Clearly "inspired" by Basecamp. It's fine for proving the concept, but will have to change once you've ganed some traction. I'm not sure if the language dropdown is supposed to work. It doesn't work for me on the iPhone. You shouldn't care about this at all, just a note. The design polish is a huge plus. It looks nice all around, something I don't often see with projects like this. I think it could use a touc…
Yes, I have to admit the front page design is very inspired by the 37signals website. I've been experimenting with adwords with no conversions, so I wanted to try some other ideas. You're right though, I will absolutely be changing it later :)
Thanks for the feedback
Re: Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
#8Good job. I like the space and your site brings real value to everyone coming to the table.
URL is solid.
I know it's early on, but I'd like to see some examples or sample translations somewhere. And when you can get some press and testimonials it will make the site feel more trusted.
I'd also consider adding some type of image(s) on the homepage. It's missing a human element and at the end of the day it will be someone translating this stuff so I'd recommend adding translator user photos on the frontpage.
Re: Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
#9Design: Clearly "inspired" by Basecamp. It's fine for proving the concept, but will have to change once you've ganed some traction. I'm not sure if the language dropdown is supposed to work. It doesn't work for me on the iPhone. You shouldn't care about this at all, just a note. The design polish is a huge plus. It looks nice all around, something I don't often see with projects like this. I think it could use a touc…
Yes, I have to admit the front page design is very inspired by the 37signals website. I've been experimenting with adwords with no conversions, so I wanted to try some other ideas. You're right though, I will absolutely be changing it later :) Thanks for the feedback
I'd look at what JustAnswers.com is doing. They seem like a good fit in terms of what you're trying to accomplish with building a marketplace for translation.
Re: Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months
#10I signed up, which I think qualifies as a vote of confidence. How much action are you getting? There don't seem to be any open jobs at the moment. How are you going to grow your network? No one seems to have gotten any feedback yet.
It's a small thing, but on the language selection menu it'd be nice if I could skip to a language by typing.
From the FAQ A: Your text is sent to a pool of translators, one of which [/whom] may choose to accept the job.