Ask HN: Review my startup

If you haven't researched this company already .... http://www.rateitall.com/

Had a friend interning there this summer. The business model is essentially exactly what you guys are going after. I think it's a pretty smart model actually, but you'll have to work out how your product stands out from theirs.

On a side note, I think the "if you have a brain that is" comment is too condescending for me. I think HN users will understand that humor but you are going after commonfolk! Or maybe I'm just reading into it too much ..eh!

We have looked at rateitall.com and it seems like they are doing some things really well. My feeling is that they're much more product/service focused than MakeFive is at this time, but that may change. We have talked about the notion of encouraging users to post their thoughts on some of these topics as well. At this time though, it seems that the dialogue on MakeFive is often more centered on pop-culture and such.

I think one big differentiator on MakeFive (at least I hope) is design and the general experience. We're really putting a lot of effort into making the site as intuitive and responsive as possible. In fact, after going live with the most recent rebuild a week ago, we're already reworking some of the primary pages to make them easier to use.

Your comment about the "if you have a brain" is certainly one we've considered carefully as well. Some likely won't understand or appreciate our particular sense of humor, but, we sort of think it's good to have a little fun with the whole thing. That being said, your point is well taken. :-)

Thanks for your feedback!

Top N lists get submitted to digg and reddit all the time. The comments for those are always filled with people hating on top N lists, but they wouldn't get to the front page without people enjoying them. I think a site like this could go far in terms of popularity. But the lists I always found MOST interesting had a lot of text supporting each item. I'd make sure that this is possible for people to really get what they want out of a top N list, more than needing to click on an item to get a description.

Also, maybe something about the ordering of the lists. All the lists I've seen so far go 1,2,3,4,5, and then runners up. What about 5,4,3,2,1? Kind of builds up the suspense. :) I might just not have looked enough about this one, though.

Agreed. I think it's something to do with the definitive seeming nature of lists, coupled with the need to keep them succinct that's appealing to many. (That being said, I'm of the generation that was excited to watch the top 20 countdown on MTV in the eighties.) We too would like to see more content on the pages, in part to add to how much readers can get from a topic; additionally, it would be great to get the density up for SEO.

The challenge for us is to find a way to collect this content, while appreciating the fact that many users don't want to do much more than click a single button. (I still appreciate what the folks at “Hot or Not” did by reducing the entire site to a one click navigation system.)

As such, our first approach was to reduce the barriers to entry, by cutting things out. In fact, our first iterations of the site had relatively exhaustive voting and content options. We found that most people avoided voting altogether as a result, or skipped adding the content. As such, we kept removing things and refining them until we found that people felt it was easy to click on something. (It seems that once the user now partakes in even a single list, they find that it relatively easy and as such start to get involved in others.)

We're now looking at how to include extended content, and our approach is to center this on the individual. They can list their thoughts on selections, and then maintain an area for themselves alone. As such, they can make relatively personal explanations for their selections, while still being able to include the community in their list. (We're hoping to roll this out early next week.)

We're looking at retooling our points system in tandem with this roll-out. In our minds, it would seem appropriate to reward those who add more content and thoughtful reviews of things. In the meanwhile, this leads us to eventually adding local components that would allow for more in-depth reviews of restaurants and the like.

So much to do!

I like those. I wish we could get him on MakeFive as a celebrity list maker. :-)