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Getting Users Is Hard

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#51

Post by ryansam »

Jugurtha wrote: post #43

Some things to think about - not necessarily true, but just a brain dump: > I'm building a mobile app to create and share social events with your friends. A social event would be going to the bar, house party, or meeting up for coffee. You can fill out a simple form (event name, description, date, time) and post to a feed for your friends to see. Your friends can notify you they're going by pressing the "attend" butt…

These are a lot of the challenges I know I'm going to have to figure out. I'm screenshotting this because it's actually a really good explanation of what I need to be working on. I just launched and I couldn't cover all these problems right away in my MVP, but I plan to cover all of them in the future. Thanks!

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#53

Post by gkoberger »

Wait. You're in Texas and are trying to get people to use an app that encourages them to meet in person, often in groups? During a pandemic where people are dying?

I always want to be supportive of anyone building anything, but seriously... stop. Put it on ice for 6-12 months. This app sucks. Technology should be used to help people. Spend your time doing something good during the pandemic, not getting them killed.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#54

Post by nullsense »

You might have a chance if you can get your group of friends to use it regularly. If you can't even get your own group of friends to use it, you can't expect much right?

Facebook events solves this basically perfectly for anyone who's network is on Facebook. The app functionality itself is just an event with location, time and comments. Nothing fancy or ground-breaking. It's the network effects that are what make it work. If you don't have that, you don't have anything.

The struggle is guaranteed, the success is not. Even when it doesn't work, trying stuff still teaches you a lot. Keep it up.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#55

Post by mattcaldwell »

ryansam wrote: post #32
pryelluw wrote: post #26

How is this better than any social network/messaging app? Why shouls I install it? Also, the timing for social apps isnt great given the ongoing pandemic. You might simply be suffering from bad timing

I live in Houston, TX. And the area I'm targeting does not have many restrictions on what you can do during the pandemic, it's almost the same as before the pandemic. But if I were to live somewhere else this would probably not be possible for me right now.

Yes, but people are still going to be reluctant to get out right now. At least that's the case where I'm at.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#56

Post by an_opabinia »

An acquaintance of mine spent almost $250,000 paying a Bulgarian contractor shop to make this exact app a few years ago.

Honestly just consider this a pretty inexpensive learning experience and just move on.

You can try to tune this out as negativity but if you make yourself vulnerable to your closest love ones and friends they'd be honest with you and tell you it's a bad idea, and you would have stopped before you started. This is the real problem, it's why people will say nice things but not sign up, it's what you gotta really deal with.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#57

Post by RL_Quine »

ryansam wrote: post #48
amerine wrote: post #3

Probably not super easy getting folks in your niche in a global pandemic, yeah?

The restrictions are very loose where I live, Houston, TX. I don't encourage using the app unless you are already going out regularly with your friends.

You’re being super unpleasant by even suggesting that the lack of legal restriction makes it a good idea. That means you have no other reason to suggest that it’s a reasonable thing to do, just that it isn’t literally breaking the law.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#58

Post by RL_Quine »

ryansam wrote: post #45
azinman2 wrote: post #37

As many people have said this is a very crowded space littered with dead apps. One of the biggest issues is that you ultimately will want some kind of “comments” section because communication is central to planning, which at that point you end up reinventing texting but as a worse interface as comments, and then people will just resort to texting. It’s not clear why this is so much better than a) texting, and b) post…

I'm am not encouraging people should go out. Just the people that already are if they want they can use my app.

That’s not a distinction.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#59

Post by avree »

ryansam wrote: post #44

I would like to comment a little bit on my competitors. Facebook and meetup.com are search based events. If you want to find something to do you have to search it. You could get invited as well but if you don't you will never know about an event unless you actively look for it. They are not the same culture ethier. I would not go on meetup.com to see if my friends are going to the bar. The same goes for Facebook. Als…

Both meetup.com and Facebook have news feeds that show me which events my contacts are attending... Maybe you should research your demo a bit more, and try to think about why Facebook or someone else in this space hasn't already built what you are trying to build (since it's not a particularly novel or new idea, honestly)

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#60

Post by RL_Quine »

gkoberger wrote: post #53

Wait. You're in Texas and are trying to get people to use an app that encourages them to meet in person, often in groups? During a pandemic where people are dying? I always want to be supportive of anyone building anything, but seriously... stop. Put it on ice for 6-12 months. This app sucks. Technology should be used to help people. Spend your time doing something good during the pandemic, not getting them killed.

Their responses in this thread make them out to be pretty uncaring. It’s not illegal to go out, I’m not suggesting people do by giving them a means to facilitate it, I’m not responsible! At some point you just have to admit you don’t care about the well-being of anybody.
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