Please review my startup: BuzzLabs • Hacker News Board

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#11

Post by ernestipark » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 9:07 PM UTC

I like the idea. The front page gets you going right away. The three screenshot links on the bottom should have information that's more easily viewable before they are clicked, or maybe some title above them. For instance, Blog Activity, Official Reviews... something along those lines. Also, it takes too long for the overlay to pop up. It has to be a lot snappier. I'm not sure about this suggestion, but possibly a button or link somewhere to "find out more", however the tagline is very effective and succinct. Lastly, I would say, if you haven't already, to buy findmybiz.com, findmybizz.com and findmybuzz.biz. Could be useful for mistyped URLs.

I haven't actually tried out the report yet, but those're my initial thoughts on just the basic site. Hope that helps! Good luck.

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#12

Post by kevinr » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 9:15 PM UTC

I bounced off findmybuzz immediately because you asked for an e-mail address before I had any idea what I was going to get in return. The screenshots help, but not enough -- I want to put in some business I care about, get sample results back, and then give you my e-mail address if I want to subscribe. Basically, show me your value proposition before you ask me to give you something of value in return.

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#13

Post by komlenic » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 9:20 PM UTC

jasontan wrote: post #5

komlenic wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks interesting, trying it out now (waiting for the report). Just some quick thoughts: On the "please enjoy our animated story of social media love" page, the animation is choppy and rather hard to follow... I lost interest in it very quickly. More to the point: it's not exactly clear that the user can navigate away from this page (the animation may imply to some users that something is still happening). The flow f…

Thanks for trying it out. Can you clarify on the choppy animation -- was it slow to load, or the animation speed itself wasn't smooth? Great point on sending the user on to something else.

Sure: the animation speed itself wasn't very smooth... probably more of an opinion, but the feeling was like "yeah yeah, this is going to require too much effort to watch/grok". It was a tl;dr moment, right when you had me ripe to learn more or be directed elsewhere.

And the circular tick marks above the house just scream "something's loading" as they are just too similar visually to every throbber/ajax wait symbol users are used to seeing. Hope that helps!

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#14

Post by seanfchan » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 9:33 PM UTC

Just looked at the site. It seems very functional and the fonts are large enough to clearly direct the user on what to do next.

Other than the previous suggestions, one aspect I didn't like was the hover message on the 3 pictures at the bottom. They are a bit too long, and I quickly lost interest in reading them. They should be short and to the point so the user know what to expect before viewing the content of the picture.

I feel the user today always want instant satisfaction and reading a large hover over message is not expected and not wanted.

Otherwise everything looks great, requested a report.

Best of luck to you and your team.

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#15

Post by Maro » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 9:37 PM UTC

I had a similar startup project which failed because for most businesses there is not enough information available for a service like this to make sense, definitely not enough for them to pay for it. This was not in the US though. Best of luck to you!

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#16

Post by ngilmore031 » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 9:42 PM UTC

Looks like a great idea. I think a lot of small local business will like it.

I agree with the others who say the screenshots are a little too small (fonts).

Also, while I think it's great that you are trying to capture emails right on the home page, it might be good if the focus shifted a little bit to the product and a little less to the sign up form. I would maybe recommend putting more weight of the design into the product (what problem does it solve for me) as opposed to "give me your email". More screenshots, etc.. would be good and still keep a nice signup form on the home page.

Again, great idea and good work!

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#17

Post by doublez » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 9:59 PM UTC

* A sample report would be nifty - I had to pretend to be a business I'm not to get it

* An obvious feedback form with a callout would help. There are numerous start-ups providing these, or you can roll your own

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#18

Post by bitsm » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 10:00 PM UTC

jasontan wrote: post #2

Hi Hacker News, Always been a lurker, love what I learn on here. Would appreciate your thoughts (good, bad, ugly) on a startup I've been working on. The company is BuzzLabs, a six-person Seattle startup. We've received strategic seed funding from a large player in the local business space. The goal is to save business owners (think restaurants, hotels, spas) the hassle of checking dozens of sites to find out what peo…

Have you checked out Postling? Sounds like they're a competitor.

Great start -- small biz definitely needs good tools like these.

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#19

Post by jasontan » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 10:22 PM UTC

doublez wrote: post #17

* A sample report would be nifty - I had to pretend to be a business I'm not to get it * An obvious feedback form with a callout would help. There are numerous start-ups providing these, or you can roll your own

we actually did have a sample report (http://www.findmybuzz.com/demo) through last week, but then thought the screenshots would be more accessible. based on the feedback here, we'll find a way to bring the sample back.

there's a UserVoice "feedback" button on the left side of the screen -- was that not obvious?

thanks for the feedback!

Re: Please review my startup: BuzzLabs

#20

Post by jasontan » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 10:24 PM UTC

bitsm wrote: post #18

jasontan wrote: post #2

Hi Hacker News, Always been a lurker, love what I learn on here. Would appreciate your thoughts (good, bad, ugly) on a startup I've been working on. The company is BuzzLabs, a six-person Seattle startup. We've received strategic seed funding from a large player in the local business space. The goal is to save business owners (think restaurants, hotels, spas) the hassle of checking dozens of sites to find out what peo…

Have you checked out Postling? Sounds like they're a competitor. Great start -- small biz definitely needs good tools like these.

haha, we actually met Postling's CEO at an event in LA. I believe that we're complementary services -- they're more focused on the "publishing" whereas we're focused on the "listening".