HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
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HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
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Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
#2You're focusing too much on what your users aren't doing. Find out what they are doing and retarget the app based on that.
Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
#3First off, have you measured the time it takes to load your site? It seems awfully slow to me (maybe it's the HN posting that's slowing it down) and could be a reason people are not spending more time on the site.
Before you change your vision, have you considered reducing the friction to use the site? Having to email photos and put in the name of the restaurant is cumbersome compared to opening a phone app and taking a picture that automatically gets posted to the site with your location from the phone's gps.
What sets this site apart from the other food photo based sites?
Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
#4Man, I saw you guys present at the Quantified Self Meetup in NY (either late last year or early this year) and I thought, man these guys have a great idea, and are waaaay ahead of my "track your daily activities" project. Sorry it didn't take off!
Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
#5What is the objective of the pivot? Cash? Users? Pictures? Something else?
Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
#6The idea was born based on the observation that most people can’t remember what they had for lunch two days ago. However, stopping to take a photo (and optionally sharing it publicly) adds both accountability and an element of fun.
A bunch of my friends will occasionally post pictures of their meals on facebook -- either because they're eating out somewhere particularly awesome or because they've cooked something themselves which they want everybody to see. I can't imagine anyone wanting to photograph everything they eat just for the sake of keeping track of it, though.
Definitely need an iPhone/Android/whatever app. Email is too much effort.
Also, a facebook app. Once food photos start showing up in my newsfeed with "Posted from eat.ly" under them, I might start checking it out.
I'd de-emphasise the "health" and "calorie counting" side of things and play up the "food porn" side of things. I don't want everybody to know about the boring healthy salad I had for lunch today, but I do for some reason want everybody to know about the delicious foie gras risotto I had at l'Atelier de Joel Robuchon the other night (as proven by the fact that I just found a way to brag about it in this very comment. nom nom nom)
Maybe provide a way to rate things by delicious-looking-ness? (You might want to think of a better word than delicious-looking-ness.) People could compete to have the most delicious-looking food on the entire site (like hotornot but without quite as much potential for ego shattering).
Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
#7Why wouldn't you have an iPhone app? It would make sending the pictures much easier. It's a small revenue stream, but it is one.
Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
#8Why wouldn't you have an iPhone app? It would make sending the pictures much easier. It's a small revenue stream, but it is one.
Also, why not pivot into the diet/accountability market? It seems a bit skeezy, but people might pay for it.
Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
#9As many others have said, iPhone app definitely. This will make the site more casual.
For the "pivot" i'd perhaps suggest trying to get people to document recipes with multiple pictures, this lets you target the more hard core user. Theres an excellent blog that i love reading that gives a good example of what im describing: http://smittenkitchen.com/
Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly
#10You're focusing too much on what your users aren't doing. Find out what they are doing and retarget the app based on that.
Precisely. If you could so easily change your users' behavior to suit your needs you would simply get them to pay you money for sitting at home playing Halo:Reach. People pay money to companies that either solve their problems or entertain them.