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Stop building apps no one wants

launchsky.com

71–80 of 143 posts

Re: Stop building apps no one wants

#71

Just to bounce ideas/brainstorm. The issue is why would people come to this site to click 'I'd use this' or 'I support this'. (Ideas will flow in no problem, they're a dime a dozen.) So we need to provide feedbackers with incentive. 1. Reward them? Oops…nothing to stop them going around and supporting them everything and game the reward system. 2. Reward them based on their choices (and limit their votes)? Nope…these…

I would disagree about needing incentives/rewards to get people voting. You are the counterargument to your own comment. You just commented on this idea here on HN, for free, with no incentive and no reward. People like us often love to see new ideas, and comment on them and join in a discussion with the founders. "This is great", "I don't think this will work", "this would be better if...", "what are you planning to do about..."

LaunchSky is "Hacker News for Ideas Not News"

I've dreamed of having something like this before, and I would love to see LaunchSky do it. I think I would go there often enough to see other people's ideas and provide my own.

I think this is best aimed at the same people that like Hacker News, NOT the general Facebook population.

Re: Stop building apps no one wants

#72
I hate that you have to sign up before browsing the site. I'd be much more interested in signing up if I can browse with free will.

I'm assuming you can only vote if you sign up? If so, the target sign up market for LaunchSky are devs/entrepreneurs/etc which are usually not the target market of the apps that are using the service.

Re: Stop building apps no one wants

#73
“Make sure decisions are fact-based, not faith based.” - Steve Blank

If you're trying to get a lot of user opinions in the US from normal people who buy stuff, that phrase at the top of the site is not going to go over so well if its also displayed on the public comment page.

Re: Stop building apps no one wants

#74
post #68

Stop building movies NO ONE wants to see, books NO ONE wants to read, etc, etc. Nothing will stop this from happening ... especially when the cost of build/deploy In regards to the site ... Asking someone "yeah, I'd use that", vs getting them to download and use (ignoring pay, but that's also key :)) is totally different

"especially when the cost of build/deploy you REALLY think so? I agree with your first few points, but I disagree on that last (quoted) bit entirely.

Building/deploying something of real quality (and potential viability) can be very costly.

The point of the app is to make that "cost of comprehensive research" negligible in comparison to what it is today. Either you pay a ton to do it right or train yourself forever on how to do it cheap (which is a cost of time). We want to lessen that burden exponentially.

Re: Stop building apps no one wants

#75
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to be Steve Jobs to be a successful visionary. It's all about what is the vision, and how you can implement that vision. Committees take shortcuts, and will approve a lesser quality product because there is no direct ownership. When its you personally responsible, you take more pride in your product. This site will be great for the leeches and bottom feeders, but I would bet everything I have that ther…

I'll personally take that bet with you. Vlad (at) DarwinApps.com for details.

Great response Vlad. If someone is going to bet "everything they have" against you succeeding, take it.

Re: Stop building apps no one wants

#76
post #18

But not necessarily what you have in mind can be conveyed properly in words. Its better to get a prototype instead of pitching the idea.

Prototypes can be costly. Prototypes no one wants can be costly AND devastating.

If you're spending a lot of money on a MVP, and you're devastated when it fails, maybe you aren't cut out for this line of work. There needs to be a happy medium between devoting your life to a product nobody wants and throwing a million ideas at the wall. There's a minimum commitment level somewhere above "Just ask people", that's where you create a reasonable functional prototype and start soliciting feedback.

Re: Stop building apps no one wants

#77
Strange, this is almost like what I thought pvsh should be (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4867883) -- you're connecting people who want things with people who are making them. Except instead of letting people generate ideas for entrepreneurs to jump on, you're asking entrepreneurs to lift their skirt before they're ready for the dance. Also, you don't have the monetization I'd expect (or at least you're not talking about it yet).

Edit: I just realized that "If you sign up now, you’ll get to submit your first idea free" implies you're monetizing the entrepreneurs who use the site -- so all content is paid content.

Re: Stop building apps no one wants

#78

I hate that you have to sign up before browsing the site. I'd be much more interested in signing up if I can browse with free will. I'm assuming you can only vote if you sign up? If so, the target sign up market for LaunchSky are devs/entrepreneurs/etc which are usually not the target market of the apps that are using the service.

Is there a site to browse? It looks like it's just a demo to me ("We’ll be launching LaunchSky early 2013").

(Did not try signing up because I totally agree with you.)

Re: Stop building apps no one wants

#79
post #77

Strange, this is almost like what I thought pvsh should be ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4867883 ) -- you're connecting people who want things with people who are making them. Except instead of letting people generate ideas for entrepreneurs to jump on, you're asking entrepreneurs to lift their skirt before they're ready for the dance. Also, you don't have the monetization I'd expect (or at least you're not t…

The monetization isn't finalized yet -- we're getting feedback now (mostly with this post).

Our hunch is to charge a minimal amount for each idea submission; something significantly less than the money/time/effort for a splash page / domain / launchrock / ads. The early adopters would never pay; we instead need to figure out a clear way to incentivize them to come to each idea, the dashboard of ideas in general, and back again.

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