Very nice design, a needed niche without a real competitor
but... I think paying 16$ for stackoverflow trends is way too much to be realistic, I won't pay for it.
I can get this information for free. and even more including HN trends, google trends and indeed job search trends, all this for fee, or with a few minutes googling.
Ask HN: Review my startup: Hackerfly.com
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Hackerfly.com
#22Hi there, Overall site looks professional, I have few questions for you to answer 1. Nowadays platforms are very unrealistic about their offering to developers for example recent twitter announcement? since you took lot of information from stackoverflow how do you cope in future? 2. Do you think really some one buy this? since if its a big corporation they will read all magic quadrant from gartner if its a medium or…
Hi vkkan
Thanks for your constructive criticism & questions. They're always welcome.
My answers below:
1. SO data is available under the CC license. I don't expect this to change in the future. Regarding other data sources, I plan to use API or will need special agreements in hand with data providers.
2. You never know this until you try to sell. This is what I'm trying to figure out right now. If there's a good reason to believe that nobody wants to pay for this, I will proceed with plan "B" and will make the tool freely available and will need to find a different business model.
3. I would target the tool primarily at marketers, evangelists, companies building developer-focused products (books, courses, conferences, it vendors). I wasn't thinking about outsourcing shops to be honest.
Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Hackerfly.com
#23Great idea! Love it!
What is your target market?
I think it might be a good idea to try changing the message a little because I don't think technology savvy people are the one which are willing to pay. I have in mind recruiting, CIOs in big corporations, sales, etc. And in that case you can raise the price :)
Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Hackerfly.com
#24Terrific website design, congratulations on the launch! I'm really just going to repeat and perhaps clarify sentiments of two other commenters below:
First, what you are offering as a product is simply too abstract for somebody to click "Purchase" without seeing an example/demo of some kind. I suggest releasing slightly out of data reports (maybe from three months ago, followed up with a quick note on how accurate it turned out to be) as free, one click PDF downloads from the home page.
Second, even with a demo I suspect you will see little traction. I think your only real hope of revenue is to continue to release data for free, get a lot of attention/users and then introduce a pricing tier. Keep it relatively modest and communicate early on that if traction picks up you will need to charge sooner or later and you should be fine.
Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Hackerfly.com
#25It's not really clear what your product-market fit is, who are you targeting ?
I'd feel that individual teams wouldn't care about this data (they'll use subjective calls to pick technology about how it fits their business and not popularity).
If you're going for the much higher level (i.e CIO) who are deciding on new tech to adopt then you'll be competing against the like of Gartner's Magic Quadrant and need to tailor your product much more for that market.
Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Hackerfly.com
#26Hi there, Overall site looks professional, I have few questions for you to answer 1. Nowadays platforms are very unrealistic about their offering to developers for example recent twitter announcement? since you took lot of information from stackoverflow how do you cope in future? 2. Do you think really some one buy this? since if its a big corporation they will read all magic quadrant from gartner if its a medium or…
Hi vkkan Thanks for your constructive criticism & questions. They're always welcome. My answers below: 1. SO data is available under the CC license. I don't expect this to change in the future. Regarding other data sources, I plan to use API or will need special agreements in hand with data providers. 2. You never know this until you try to sell. This is what I'm trying to figure out right now. If there's a good reas…
Nice to hear your answers, but until you find out product/market fit no one can predict which way to go.
Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Hackerfly.com
#27Great idea! Love it! What is your target market? I think it might be a good idea to try changing the message a little because I don't think technology savvy people are the one which are willing to pay. I have in mind recruiting, CIOs in big corporations, sales, etc. And in that case you can raise the price :)
Hi tlogan! Thanks for your feedback.
Regarding the target market, I've replied in one of the comments earlier:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4407545
And yes, the initial idea was not to sell the tool to tech-savvy people but rather to people who need to understand software developers and need some data and statistics to support their decisions. You can think of it as DYI IT industry analysis and an alternative to industry analyst firms.
Re: Ask HN: Review my startup: Hackerfly.com
#28It's not really clear what your product-market fit is, who are you targeting ? I'd feel that individual teams wouldn't care about this data (they'll use subjective calls to pick technology about how it fits their business and not popularity). If you're going for the much higher level (i.e CIO) who are deciding on new tech to adopt then you'll be competing against the like of Gartner's Magic Quadrant and need to tailo…
Hi ig1, thanks for your remarks!
Yes, I'm rather going for the higher level (like CIO, sales, marketing, etc.). I know Gartner, Forrester, IDC will be a competition. But my idea is to target the tool at companies which don't want to hire rather pricey industry analyst firms but still need to have some insights into what's going on in the industry.
What do you mean specifically by saying: "tailor the product much more for that market"?
Thanks!