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I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

babyli.st

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Re: I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

#101

Post by craigkerstiens »

fleaflicker wrote: post #73
bdclimber14 wrote: post #7

I love the site, although I am certainly not your market (male, don't want kids). However, a month ago someone posted an almost identical concept to HN. I think it was for wedding registries though. Overall, great concept, attractive website, and a real need. My only criticism relates to it being fairly obvious. What hacker hasn't bought a wedding/baby gift and thought "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a registry for…

It hasn't been done well. The one company that has been dong this is myregistry.com. If you've ever used that service you know it's just begging for a better-designed competitor. I was really going to implement this when I got married a few months ago but couldn't find an elegant way to confirm when a guest had purchased a gift. Sending an e-mail is OK but it's not 100% accurate. This can lead to duplicate gifts whic…

MyRegistry has done this, the big thing they haven't done it price comparison, and their design is absolutely begging for someone to do it better. We were on HN a few days ago, and hoping to do just that. We let users price compare while also integrating with traditional registries (registrystop). http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2136619

Re: I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

#102

Post by gyanguru »

Great job! Site review :- * Clean and neat! * Easy to get started Feature request :- * Would love more info about the item in line. * Who is buying what (if it is socially acceptable!) as I might team up with a friend but not with a stranger. * Baby journals et. al.

Other helpful info for you:- * Did you knew about http://www.thebump.com ? * Thebump has reading info + baby name help + videos + registry.

A question to you:- Now that you know about a site which has already solved same problem as you, would you still pursue this idea? If yes then what will be the thought process?

With every idea I start hacking with I tend to over research and find a solution and then steam goes off! I want other people's experience with this phenomenon who tend to overcome this.

Re: I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

#103

Post by araneae »

natgordon wrote: post #34
richcollins wrote: post #31

You might want more instruction on how bookmarklets work. Most people have no idea WTF a bookmarklet is.

This is the #1 thing on the TODO. So far all sign-ups (which are not many) have successfully added products, which has surprised me.

But less surprising given that a lot of your traffic is from HN :)

Re: I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

#104

Post by araneae »

fabiandesimone wrote: post #75
sanj wrote: post #63

One followon idea. If you know the approximate birthdate of the delivery, you can contact customers a year later suggesting first birthday present ideas. And second birthday ideas. And third birthday ideas. You get the idea.

Just make sure something like this does not happen: "9 – BabyCalc.com – If you were about to have a baby you could go on this site and punch in some numbers then it would email you as your baby was growing and let you know what was going on… “like 10 days until you should be able to tell the sex of your baby!” or “Babys heart beat starts today” ect.. stuff like that.. I paid to have the backend developed and the site…

There are currently successful services like that. I really don't think that's that big a deal. There are triggers for that sort of thing everywhere; clothes you bought already, other people's babies, etc.

Re: I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

#105

Post by araneae »

fabiandesimone wrote: post #75
sanj wrote: post #63

One followon idea. If you know the approximate birthdate of the delivery, you can contact customers a year later suggesting first birthday present ideas. And second birthday ideas. And third birthday ideas. You get the idea.

Just make sure something like this does not happen: "9 – BabyCalc.com – If you were about to have a baby you could go on this site and punch in some numbers then it would email you as your baby was growing and let you know what was going on… “like 10 days until you should be able to tell the sex of your baby!” or “Babys heart beat starts today” ect.. stuff like that.. I paid to have the backend developed and the site…

There are currently successful services like that. I really don't think that's that big of a deal. There are triggers for that sort of thing everywhere; clothes you bought already, other people's babies, etc.

Re: I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

#106

Post by natgordon »

prpon wrote: post #98
natgordon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a member, but not actively. I had the idea for the site and posted it ( http://forrst.com/posts/Any_designers_interested_on_collabor... but I don't think this link will work if you're not logged in) This is what I wrote: Hey, I'm a ruby on rails developer and I'm 5 months pregnant. Today I created a baby registry and it was a nightmare. I ended up using the amazon.com universal wishlist. It's a bookmarklet that l…

How does the partnership work in this case? % of revenues? % of the project/venture? What if the designer gets too busy with other projects? Sorry, I am being curious because most of us hackers are in the same boat when it comes to design.

From my POV, I waited until I was sure that the designs were what I was going to go forward with (this took about 4-5 weeks, maybe 2-3 iterations of different pages and colors). Then I proposed a % of revenue for x amount of time and it was accepted.

The project has moved slower than if I'd hired a designer (for example Lindsey is currently defending her thesis at school and is 100% focused on that). But I maybe always had the trump card by being like "We need to launch before I have a baby".

Overall I think I got lucky and I'm not sure what advice I'd give. Forrst is like HN for (hungry) designers though.

Re: I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

#108

Post by prpon »

natgordon wrote: post #106
prpon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the partnership work in this case? % of revenues? % of the project/venture? What if the designer gets too busy with other projects? Sorry, I am being curious because most of us hackers are in the same boat when it comes to design.

From my POV, I waited until I was sure that the designs were what I was going to go forward with (this took about 4-5 weeks, maybe 2-3 iterations of different pages and colors). Then I proposed a % of revenue for x amount of time and it was accepted. The project has moved slower than if I'd hired a designer (for example Lindsey is currently defending her thesis at school and is 100% focused on that). But I maybe alwa…

Thanks for the advise. I too think that partnership with a designer is a great thing. Things keep changing and you need more design help when you are iterating through ideas.

Re: I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

#109

Post by SoftwareMaven »

bdclimber14 wrote: post #7

I love the site, although I am certainly not your market (male, don't want kids). However, a month ago someone posted an almost identical concept to HN. I think it was for wedding registries though. Overall, great concept, attractive website, and a real need. My only criticism relates to it being fairly obvious. What hacker hasn't bought a wedding/baby gift and thought "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a registry for…

Alta Vista had a great search engine in the 90's. Google could have easily said "search is obvious, it's been done." Obviously this is a very extreme example, but almost every business will have some aspect that's "been done."

In fact, as an entrepreneur, you almost always want it to have been done before. It is much easier to say "Amazon wish lists specifically for expectant parents" than it is to try to define a totally new market.

Start-ups are created and thrive in those pockets of inefficiency that large corporations leave in their wake. The best entrepreneurs use that as leverage rather than shying away from it.

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