Ask YC: Feedback on our startup/application

I think halo's critique is pretty much correct. You've done a good job with the site, but I just can't see it gaining any traction against ebay, craigslist, etc.. in it's current form. You've got a lot of nice features, but consider stripping the site down a bit and focusing on a specific niche or interesting concept that is easy to convey. For instance, what if the site was entirely focused on submitting things you want and submitting things you have and it automatically matched up buyers and sellers. Not saying that's a great idea, but it's one example of how you could take one of your concepts and focus on it entirely to begin with. Then as people start to use it you can expand your site and start adding in the other pieces. Anyway, that's what I would consider doing if I were in your shoes. Also, like matt1 said, usability testing and focus groups would be a good idea.

The search box (only thing I looked at, first thing everyone will try) is vulnerable to cross-site scripting; it checks clientside for non-alphanumeric characters, but if I submit the form directly through a proxy, I can get a results page with a Javascript popup on it.

It looks like I can read any message sent between users on the system. When you read messages, your backend locates the messages using a client-specified "mid" parameter. I sent a message to myself; it wound up with "mid" 51. 50, 49, 48 --- the system didn't generate errors when I tried to view them, but didn't show any content either. But when I asked for message ID 47, and clicked "forward" on the "empty" message, the message content textbox was populated. Ouch.

You may have some work to do on security before you start clearing transactions. Let me know if you'd like some advice.

Two other notes:

* Wow, signing up for an account was painful. Why do you need so much info from me just to get an account name? Also, why on earth does your PHP app care how I enter a phone number? I used dashes instead of parens, and you rejected it. Ouch ouch ouch.

* Have a copywriter --- they're cheap --- run over the whole site and fix the grammar and spelling.

It's a nice site. I'm glad you have a demo video; that's a Web 2.0 trend that's exceedingly helpful. I like being able to watch a short video to find out what a site can do without having to randomly click through to try to figure it out.

Here's the problem: you spend the first full minute of your video listing your competitors and talking about their process. I understand you're trying to build a comparison, but why don't you just show your product off and let people draw the comparison themselves? You could also put the comparison closer to the end. The longer the video is, the more people will drop off partway through, so you want them to see more about your site and less about your competitors.

Thanks for the honest feedback.

About the design, yes all points taken. Actually we are programmers and tried to do as better job at design as we could. May be we need to get professional designer and I surely hope to generate enough business to be able to afford that.

You are right, we need to reword lot of content to express the exact message. I did 4-5 rounds of user-testing from usertesting.com and redesigned, but sure there is lot of room for improvement.

I think we need to do better job at explaining that we are not auction site and we are not trying to attract users who like auctions. Rather we are trying to attract people who like the price-negotiation and also Alibaba model. We tried to explain that in the demo video, but seems like we need to do better job.

Thanks for the feedback. This is what I love about hacker news. Very good and honest feedback.

   1. The one liner  

What is your exact meaning?

I suggest forgetting about marketability, memorability, etc. of the wording, and trying to continue this conversation with a long time ebayer:

Onista is an auction-less social marketplace where people can buy and sell products."

"Huh?"

Use as many sentences as you need. Work out the meaning, then get it into a zinger. If you can't well then find another way of communicating that. Not everything fits into a one-liner. There are other ways of saying things. Start by working out what it is people need to understand before giving it a try.

  2. the terminology

Social marketplace I think that's industry jargon. Do users use the term social to describe things (social news, social networking, social bookmarking?)