If your traffic is 20 visits per day, why on Earth would you need to spend money on "better servers"?
To answer your question directly, I don't think enough beer consumers care about that stuff.
Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
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Re: Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
#12I have been working on Had That Beer, www.hadthatbeer.com/signup?c=earlyaccess to check it out, for about 8 months now. I am the sole developer, designer, admin etc. I know the pain of all the manual data entry that has to be done for beers and by the time you are done a new batch of something else has been brewed and you are out of date. I would go through select geographic areas, get as many beers in as you can and…
Thanks. I just signed up and I'll give it a try. You might want to check out the Open Beer Database: http://openbeerdb.com/ - I just got ahold of the guy yesterday and we are discussing exchanging databases, it might be worth it for you to check it out too.
If I ever do decide to give up I'll get in touch with you, but I've gotten some great feedback (even a direct email from someone) and it sounds like it's worth pursuing.
I really like the graphic design on your web site - very simple - something I know I need to work on. I like the idea of a really simple rating system, that's what I've done too. I think most beer drinkers see the big sites like beeradvocate as too snobby (I know I do).
Thanks again for the feedback.
Re: Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
#13If your traffic is 20 visits per day, why on Earth would you need to spend money on "better servers"? To answer your question directly, I don't think enough beer consumers care about that stuff.
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Re: Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
#14If your traffic is 20 visits per day, why on Earth would you need to spend money on "better servers"? To answer your question directly, I don't think enough beer consumers care about that stuff.
Thanks for being honest. Obviously I don't need better servers right now, but someday maybe.
I disagree though - the stats show that beer sales from the huge companies are declining, while craft brewing is seeing a huge explosion (in the US anyway). I think it is a rapidly growing audience. It'll never be the size of Facebook's potential audience, but I do see tons of opportunity in the craft brewing industry, and many craft beer drinkers closely align with the high tech, early adopter startup crowd.
Re: Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
#15A little late in the conversation. I think if it is something you are passionate about, you should stick with it. Maybe you can find a partner that can do UX/Graphic design or whichever skills you need but lack.
I strongly agree with all the advice around mobile. I would even consider trying to use mobile to crowdsource some of the data entry. Maybe incorporating some game mechanics will help here. For inspiration, maybe you could make the "beer" version of Spotify, Forkly, or DishOnIt.
Consider creating an API around your beer database and promote that some, could be win/win as it sounds like a pain point for more than just yourself.
Additionally, you should try and get in touch with the users that use it every day and the ones that abandoned it. Try to determine why they stay/left, this could really help you focus on the important aspects.
Lastly, go learn about Dave McClure's AARR metrics, get them in place so you can experiment more with the Acquisition and Activation funnels. I am guessing if you had a lot more users, you would be much happier.
Hope this helps a little.
Re: Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
#16Check out taphunter.com. They do something similar and, from what I understand, are getting pretty good traction here in San Diego.
It's at least one data point that users might want what you're building.
Re: Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
#17I think it does have value, but a few things that struck me as "must dos": - make it better for mobile, since that's likely the platform I'll use in a strange city. Maybe this is part of the graphic design piece that you were talking about. - make it easier to see ALL the breweries/beers near me. I would think that would be the main page instead of one at a time (I hate refreshing the page) If this project was droppe…
Thanks for the feedback. Mobile is a work in progress. Actually I had a working mobile version but it was not very good so I disabled it. What do you mean, make it easy to see all the breweries near me? It should automatically show you all the breweries in a certain range. Do you mean that you had to increase the range, and didn't like the refresh - and that instead of refreshing I should do it via ajax? Users can ac…
Meant Foodspotting instead of Spotify.
Re: Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
#18If your traffic is 20 visits per day, why on Earth would you need to spend money on "better servers"? To answer your question directly, I don't think enough beer consumers care about that stuff.
Thanks for being honest. Obviously I don't need better servers right now, but someday maybe. I disagree though - the stats show that beer sales from the huge companies are declining, while craft brewing is seeing a huge explosion (in the US anyway). I think it is a rapidly growing audience. It'll never be the size of Facebook's potential audience, but I do see tons of opportunity in the craft brewing industry, and ma…
I'm pretty sure an 8$/month VPS will be sufficient for a very long time.
Re: Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
#19Seems, I'm too late. Aside, Technicalities..
My suggestion is, Why don't you create some content like beer reviews, Preferably videos.
Gary Veynerchuck had been hugely successful, by his wine reviews. Good news for you is, he doesn't deal with beers.
I'd suggest two things: 1. Beer Reviews 2. Interviews with Beer brewers (who doesn't want to give interviews)
You can host videos on youtube, and embed them on your website. That way you won't have to pay for video hosting.
In my opinion, humans judge a lot by seeing other humans, than seeing text, statistics or beer pictures. If you can throw in some charm, fun and honesty, you can make it big. Just my two cents.
Re: Ask HN: Is my project worth pursuing?
#20I think it does have value, but a few things that struck me as "must dos": - make it better for mobile, since that's likely the platform I'll use in a strange city. Maybe this is part of the graphic design piece that you were talking about. - make it easier to see ALL the breweries/beers near me. I would think that would be the main page instead of one at a time (I hate refreshing the page) If this project was droppe…
Thanks for the feedback. Mobile is a work in progress. Actually I had a working mobile version but it was not very good so I disabled it. What do you mean, make it easy to see all the breweries near me? It should automatically show you all the breweries in a certain range. Do you mean that you had to increase the range, and didn't like the refresh - and that instead of refreshing I should do it via ajax? Users can ac…
Sorry for getting back to you so late. What I meant by making it easy to see the breweries near me is, instead of showing me a map with arrows on it, it would be more useful (for me at least), to give me a list of breweries/beers within a certain, reasonable radius (like 50 or 100 miles).
The "Featured Beer" is a prominent on your page, which is great as it highlights a specific beer or brewery, but I think it makes more sense to list ALL beers brewed near me, and have the location of the brewery available on a subsequent page if I'm interested, like the page of the specific brewery (which you already do).
Another thought: sort all the beers in my area by how high their ratings are. Maybe you could be the Yelp of craft beers?
Just my thoughts. I understand the hesitance to buy ads with no clear monetization strategy.