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Ask YC: Please review my first startup, Soshiku

soshiku.com

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Re: Ask YC: Please review my first startup, Soshiku

#41

Post by auston »

breck wrote: post #23

Very good design. You are obviously very talented. However, I don't think your site solves the problem better than a pen and a piece of paper. I'm going to paraphrase a quote I read once: "the web is your hammer, and everything looks like a nail." Every problem is not best solved via the web. I think this may be one of those cases. But I could be wrong. Either way, great looking site and good luck.

Except - if you are working on a project and Soshiku has a Facebook app you can just add your classmates to it and have communication be central and clear.

Unlike the real world where you often call one person and that person calls another person in the group and so on. Where there is no central repository for sharing links/resources for the school assignment.

Soshiku has a great design and fills a sizable need in my opinion, getting schoolwork done. I for one, probably would have used it in high school.

Re: Ask YC: Please review my first startup, Soshiku

#42

Post by rnesh »

As a college student, I thank you.

However, one thing I would personally change is a small usability issue I noticed on the Courses page. I would like to be able to add a course, and not have to navigate back to Home to be able to add a new assignment. I think it would just really clarify things a bit better.

Re: Ask YC: Please review my first startup, Soshiku

#43

Post by railsjedi »

Good looking app. Stands out as distinct and memorable.

The name is a bit obscure and hard to remember. Might hurt word of mouth (which could be a big deal on campuses).

I'd recommend getting rid of the adwords. Highly doubtful that they'll make you much money, and its a big distraction.

An alternative monetization approach would be to search for keywords on peoples pages and have a sidebar that recommends books (on amazon affiliates) based on the keywords on their notebooks. Call it a book recommender. Fairly easy to parse out keywords and query recommendation on amazon, and you could even run this as a cron job nightly. Here's a good libary: http://www.caliban.org/ruby/ruby-aws/

Nice move focusing on email, sms, and facebook integration. This is the key features that will keep people using your app. More than any fancy html management interface. May be worth looking at iPhone/mobile interface and meebo support for chatting with partners.

Just a few random thoughts. Hope they are helpful.

Re: Ask YC: Please review my first startup, Soshiku

#44

Post by shawndrost »

breck wrote: post #40
LogicHoleFlaw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pen and paper won't text me when I have an assignment coming due...

Your right. But it's very easy to carry around a to/do list, piece of paper in your pocket and keep an eye on things. Never failed me. The drop rate of SMS's is 2% or so on the other hand(not to mention dead batteries, lack of coverage, silent ringers, etc.). I've also seen many businessmen at the top of their fields using paper: a very simple, reliable and effective method. I'm not saying this is a bad idea. It's de…

Failed me all the time; I would've used this in a second.

Re: Ask YC: Please review my first startup, Soshiku

#45

Post by greyman »

mihasya wrote: post #36

Is everything a startup now? Every time someone makes an application, it's a fucking startup... The design is nice, but it looks like a secret love affair with 37signals products. I guess some might say that's a plus... I'll also echo the comment that I'm not sure this is particularly useful/needed.

In my opinion, it can be called startup because if it will really take off, it will basically require constant maintenance, because the users will always bug with something. In that sense it's a business/startup.

Re: Ask YC: Please review my first startup, Soshiku

#46

Post by asmosoinio »

The layout fails on Google Chrome. It shows the "Simple Assignment Tracking" etc. chapters each on separate vertical space, and "Partner Up" goes below "Sign up" and "Take the Tour"-buttons.

Yes, I blame Chrome and not your site.

Update: I find the images on http://soshiku.com/tour a bit too big -- the page is really big right now (i.e. lots of pixels). Lots to scroll even on a 1920x1200 resolution.

An me nagging about such small detail proves that you overall design works for me!

Re: Ask YC: Please review my first startup, Soshiku

#48

Post by steveplace »

bazookaaa wrote: post #33
aneesh wrote: post #27

If you'd have said "review my app", I would've said it's awesome. Great job. But the moment you call it a startup, I have to ask how you make money. So, how do you plan to make money? Students are poor, and cheap, and I'm not sure ads would fit it even if you had the traffic.

You're right, I should have used "web app" instead. There are ads (which doesn't hurt to have), but I'm thinking of other means of monetization. Thanks for the feedback.

You could sell study guides based off what homework they are saving.

Re: Ask YC: Please review my first startup, Soshiku

#49

Post by orib »

bazookaaa wrote: post #33
aneesh wrote: post #27

If you'd have said "review my app", I would've said it's awesome. Great job. But the moment you call it a startup, I have to ask how you make money. So, how do you plan to make money? Students are poor, and cheap, and I'm not sure ads would fit it even if you had the traffic.

You're right, I should have used "web app" instead. There are ads (which doesn't hurt to have), but I'm thinking of other means of monetization. Thanks for the feedback.

A suggestion and a possible monetization idea - don't sell to students. Make schools your target. They buy a copy of your app and put it on their servers. Make it possible for teachers to push out assignments to it.

It also makes the thing actually useful for me -- I don't want to have to remember to add the assignments to it myself. I already know what my assignments are and I don't have time to type them into yet another place.

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