Ask HN: Review My Startup: Skinnyo - Weight loss challenge community • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Skinnyo - Weight loss challenge community

#31

Post by space-monkey » Mon, Jan 17, 2011, 2:16 AM UTC

tommoor wrote: post #9

bertil wrote: post #7

A simple business model that would be coherent with your current users would be let them mention what they do to loose weight, identify commercial elements (not just weight-loss powder, but also say, iTunes apps, or a organic walnut producer) to sell mentions, or better coupons to groups that pledge to follow a similar regimen. That way, you can have not only friends, but stranger who use the same technique to help y…

I really like the idea of pledging gifts... it isn't something that has come up in our brainstorms so far either. I wonder how many people would need to pledge to build up enough for something the size of a holiday? Although a much smaller gift might not provide enough of a motivation... Would the business model here to take a percentage of the pledges?

You could let the user designate a charity and get friends to pledge donations if the user meets their goal. A smaller charitable gift may go a longer way psychologically for some folks, and it may be easier for them to get their friends to pledge as well.

Then, when you go to eat the bowl of ice-cream or skip your workout, you think: do I really want to screw the panda bears/starving children/cancer sufferers?

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Skinnyo - Weight loss challenge community

#32

Post by ja27 » Tue, Jan 18, 2011, 12:57 PM UTC

petervandijck wrote: post #18

ja27 wrote: post #14

At a glance, I like it. Hard to compete with Traineo and SparkPeople though. Maybe if you carved off different niches of weight loss with sub-micro sites, with things like "losing the baby weight" or "people over 400 pounds" etc. You might want to jump on the Tim Ferriss "Four Hour Body" bandwagon and milk related topics like the kettlebell swing. I had a related idea that I doubt I'll develop. Sort of a cross betwee…

I second the superniche idea. And I like the betting idea, it's evil enough to be viral. And I'm a little scared to ask what "milk related topics like the kettlebell swing" means ;) -> edit: some Googling http://www.google.com/images?q=kettlebell+swing + some imagination and I figured it out.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=kettlebell+swing,+kettlebell,...

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Skinnyo - Weight loss challenge community

#33

Post by andydev » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 10:57 PM UTC

tommoor wrote: post #16

StavrosK wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it's very nice. Who did it?

I did all of the design and code on this.

It looks great, looks very simple to use too. Might get work involved on it.

Re: Ask HN: Review My Startup: Skinnyo - Weight loss challenge community

#34

Post by andreasklinger » Sun, Jan 23, 2011, 5:03 PM UTC

tommoor wrote: post #25

andreasklinger wrote: post #20

You are on something. I really like it. Read "4 hour body" by Tim Ferriss and build a lot of the site around the buzz of this book. Communicate stronger in "Fat loss" and less "Weight loss" Also introduce "TI" (total inches - sum of body measures) Also introduce Bodyfat % and auto calculate the actual fatloss.

Thanks, We have had a lot of people request the ability to add in other measurements than weight. It is one of the most requested items. The problem is keeping it simple as it would seem like a mistake to move too much in the direction of dailyburn et al. People like that it is simple.

I agree about simplicity.

But you have a missunderstanding. You do should not have a page about weight loss. It should be about fatloss. % Fat is minimum.