Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: HeyFromTheFuture – Advice people wish they had at your age

heyfromthefuture.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 174 posts

Re: Show HN: HeyFromTheFuture – Advice people wish they had at your age

#11

Post by ryry »

kareemm wrote: post #9

Some feedback: 1. Registration form is too long. Lower the barrier to entry. Maybe only ask for email and username? Or just email with a default username? 2. Try lazy registration so the flow is: - click advice - enter advice - hit submit - get asked to login/register

Hey thanks for the feedback. The registration form is a pain, I implemented SSO/oAuth with Google a few days ago in the hopes that more people would register.

Email and username is a good call, thanks. I had never thought about that kind of flow before, but that's interesting, encourage people to submit advice, then ask for registration. Think I might do that. Thanks!

Re: Show HN: HeyFromTheFuture – Advice people wish they had at your age

#12

Post by Arubis »

Conceptually, this is really appealing, though I agree with sibling comments that offering some grouping would ease browsing.

What I’m finding interesting is the metacommentary on what your userbase (which I’m presuming is mostly HN at the moment) looks like. The advice for teens and twenty somethings is wide-ranging and pretty good. Almost everything for folks in their thirties is pithy and reads like it was written by someone younger. (My own bias: haven’t checked past age 40). So, presumably, there’s not as many people commenting retrospectively on their 30’s.

Would be neat to track the delta between a subitter’s actual age and how old they’re willing to advise.

Re: Show HN: HeyFromTheFuture – Advice people wish they had at your age

#13

Post by ryry »

kareemm wrote: post #8

Amazing. I started this 10+ years ago, called WishIKnew. It was a project to learn Rails. I learned Rails, but never launched it. Glad to see it's real - with curation, I think it could be hugely valuable. I'm 42 and wonder what people who were 50 or 60 would tell me they wished they knew at 42 as I don't have a lot of folks those ages in my life.

Thanks! I wanted to name it something similar but all the good domains were taken, so instead I settled for a veiled The Office reference.

Trying to get contributions from older generations is tough, but would likely provide the best advice. I need to find a few media sources to submit to that target this age group.

Re: Show HN: HeyFromTheFuture – Advice people wish they had at your age

#14

Post by ryry »

patatino wrote: post #5
ryry wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey thanks for the feedback - really appreciate it. I struggled with the idea of creating a page for every age. I eventually settled on the idea that people could take the platform anywhere they wanted to, whether it was passing generic advice along, or sending themselves a very specific message at a specific time in their life. That being said, it's kind of cool to see the ages that mean the most to people. I like y…

yes sure, go ahead

Thanks!

Re: Show HN: HeyFromTheFuture – Advice people wish they had at your age

#15

Post by ryry »

bflesch wrote: post #7
ryry wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey thanks for the feedback - really appreciate it. I struggled with the idea of creating a page for every age. I eventually settled on the idea that people could take the platform anywhere they wanted to, whether it was passing generic advice along, or sending themselves a very specific message at a specific time in their life. That being said, it's kind of cool to see the ages that mean the most to people. I like y…

Maybe instead of having one sub-page for each age group, why not transform the landing page into a chronological list of the five highest-voted entries for every age group, so we can seamlessly scroll from 20 to 21 to 22 etc. This allow for a much nicer reading experience with less clicks :o)

That's not a bad idea, thanks for the advice!

Re: Show HN: HeyFromTheFuture – Advice people wish they had at your age

#16

Post by SyneRyder »

andy_adams wrote: post #6

I think age groups would be better than individual years. Is there any advice that applies at 13 but not 14? I do love the idea of collecting wisdom. The hard part is getting the 14 year olds to believe it!

> Is there any advice that applies at 13 but not 14?

I can think of some advice that is specific to an age. If you're going to apply for an overseas working holiday visa, you want that last chance reminder at age 28 or 29... because once you hit 30 you're no longer eligible.

But I agree in general about age ranges. I like the idea of the user choosing their exact age, but it'd be better if the person giving the advice could choose the range of ages their advice applies to.

I think it might also need some filtering / curation. The current advice at age 64 to "start saving for retirement" is, uhm, probably a bit too late at that point. I think they made a typo in the age fields somewhere.

Re: Show HN: HeyFromTheFuture – Advice people wish they had at your age

#17

Post by ryry »

andy_adams wrote: post #6

I think age groups would be better than individual years. Is there any advice that applies at 13 but not 14? I do love the idea of collecting wisdom. The hard part is getting the 14 year olds to believe it!

Groups are a good idea, but my concern is how do I decide what ages fit in each group, could the categorization be different for different cultures

Bang on about the 14 year olds believing it. I rejected any notion that I didn't know everything at that age.

Re: Show HN: HeyFromTheFuture – Advice people wish they had at your age

#20

Post by captainbland »

Hoo boy that's a lot of over-privileged suggestions right there. "hi, millennial who is working full time to make rent, now is the time to start your business!", "Why not take your family around the world?"

It's a nice idea and the site works pretty well on mobile, but it sort of grinds my gears.

Post reply on HN