

Ask HN: Review our public beta for DoLeaf.com - MicahWedemeyer

Direct Link: http://doleaf.com<p>Hey HN,<p>My site, DoLeaf, just launched into public beta, and I'd love some feedback.<p>DoLeaf is a marketplace for gardeners where you can find and buy plants from specialty nurseries and independent garden centers. We help them set up storefronts and handle all the backend tech-junk, leaving the nursery owners to do what they do best: grow plants!<p>So, it's not really a techy site, but I love plants and web development, so it's a good mix for me.<p>Come check it out, perhaps buy a plant from our one-and-only (for now) seller, and post any ideas you can think of about how we can make it better (besides getting more plants, of course).<p>Cheers!
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icey
A more robust search would be welcome. I live in the desert southwest, so most
of those plants wouldn't survive here. I assume someone living in Maine would
have similar problems.

It would be nice to be able to search by all the categories you have listed on
each plant (growth rate, growing zone, sun preference).

I would also really like the ability to search for sellers nearer to me. If I
can get something from in state I'd prefer that than having a plant shipped to
me from across the country.

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codeodor
I agree with the locality part. I'm just starting to plan for landscaping my
yard, and I'd love to be able to put in my area so I could browse plants that
grow well here.

I know next to nothing about this stuff, except that to have someone else do
it is expensive, so it would be great to have a site to make DIY easy, along
with the option to go ahead and order my plants without having to visit the
nursery (of which, there are strangely very many within 2 miles of me).

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MicahWedemeyer
There are strangely many all over the country. Once I started looking, I
noticed them everywhere whenever I drove outside the city.

As to DIY, one thing that worked well for me was printing out a photo of the
area and bringing it to a local nursery. They helped us put together a nice
little layout, which we of course bought right there. Then, a day of digging
and you're done!

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justlearning
Nice, Clean app. So the feedback.

Help link doesn't work

The info overlay on the photos are excellent. But I would prefer it to be more
visual than the black-white - eg: Full Sun - Yellow Bright sun, indoor - a
green house?, for the growth- something that stands out - may be a creeper(of
course colored)... you get the idea.

Just a thought(for my eyes), I felt that the grey menu on the left seemed bit
bland, given that you have green and white as your colors. just curious - is
this a rails app? what db?

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MicahWedemeyer
Thanks for the tip on the help link. I forgot about that one.

We experimented with color overlays, but decided to go with b&w because the
color ones were very distracting, especially when displayed all over the page.
I'm not really the designer, just the backend coder, so I leave most of that
stuff up to the rest of the team.

We also have some ideas for the left menu, as far as nice little things on
mouse over, but yeah, it looks bland to me as well.

Good feedback, thanks :)

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bdmac97
Looks like a pretty clean, well designed app. I personally like the big
footer.

I would like to invite you to add your app to my site, launchly. Launchly is
all about getting feedback and attention for new web apps. We track all
aspects of your launch to help you see how you are doing and decide what
changes to make.

I am currently running a free promo code for HN users so there is no risk for
you.

Promo Code: HN_LAUNCH Link: <http://www.launchly.com>

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
Sure, I'll give it a try. Thanks :)

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tyohn
As I was looking over the site I was thinking - I know you're just getting
started but there is a real lack of plants. And then I got to thinking why
can't I sell my plants on DoLeaf? Just my two cents - but what about making a
"sell your plants" section?

edit: I found your "Sell With Us" link. But I guess I was thinking more of -
any could sell a plant - that might help you get a larger selection. But I
guess there are issues with that model.

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MicahWedemeyer
We're going with professional growers only. The any-seller model seems like
there would be too many issues with quality. Plus, there are live-plant
shipping laws that someone could easily run afowl of without knowing.

We're working on recruiting more sellers, so if you know of anyone who might
be interested, send them our way.

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ScottWhigham
I like the look and feel. I was confused. I went to buy Lungswort
(<http://doleaf.com/listings/11-lungswort>) and it costs $6. What do I get for
$6? Clearly too expensive to be seeds so it's a plant. Do I need my own pots?
How will it be shipped?

Those were a bunch of questions in my mind

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MicahWedemeyer
Hmm, that's actually bug. The lungswort shouldn't even be showing up. That's
one of our test plants and shouldn't be displayed.

Thanks for the note, I'll make sure it's removed.

Most of the plants actually describe how they're shipped and what you'll
receive. In most cases, it will be either a small bare root (for trees and
other "woody" plants) or a small pot.

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greenagain
I think it'd be sweet to have some kind of wishlist feature. Not like the
Amazon wishlist where you link to items that are for sale, but where buyers
can declare what they are looking for with the hopes that sellers will fulfill
it. Nothing fancy, just maybe something that sellers could access when working
on submitting their inventory.

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HalcyonMuse
I agree. I didn't see Chrysalidocarpus lutescens (Areca Palm), Sansevieria
trifasciata (Mother-in-law's Tongue), or Epipremnum aureum (Money Plant) but
I'd love to be notified when I can buy them.

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
Hmm, good to know. We are hoping to capitalize on special, hard-to-find plants
that you won't find at Home Depot or Lowes, so having a wish list definitely
might help.

Also, the nurseries don't necessarily list their entire stock, so if they saw
a wish list with something they sell but hadn't listed, it might provide a
strong incentive to get it up there.

I'll talk it over with the team. Thanks :)

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samg
Great idea.

I'd work on the left hand navigation some more. Coming to your site without
the background you give here, I don't know what "categories" means.
Additionally, it's disappointing to click around and have some categories
without any plants. I'd just drop these from the navigation until you have
plants that fit within them.

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
Yeah, I hate empty categories too. We want them there to give an idea of how
we plan to organize things, but maybe that's jumping the gun. Maybe build the
inventory first, then decide how to organize it.

Thanks!

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fossguy
Link:<http://doleaf.com>

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dylanz
Where do you get your Saguaro cacti!? You know about everyone running out into
the desert, poaching them, and pretty much leaving the desert lifeless?
Everyone wants them for their McMansion's in San Diego, and especially the
central coast.

On a side note, do you have any Lophophora Williamsii for sale?

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dylanz
Oh, and on your call to action, I like the site!

Is there a legend in regard to those icons in the items pictures? Like, the
icons of the roots, are there different variations if they were taproots vs
runners? You may want to make mouse-overs on each profile picture of the item.

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joshu
Don't plants and areas have "climate zones"? You should be able to search for
that.

<http://www.garden.org/zipzone/>

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MicahWedemeyer
Yeah, we're working on the USDA zone stuff. If you mouse over the temperature
overlay icons, you'll see that they correspond to the USDA zone.

We want to get some nice Google-maps integration with the USDA zones, perhaps
a cool overlay, but the maps aren't encoded into a digital data format yet.
The last map was made in the mid 90s, I believe, and they're just getting
around to updating it. The new, fully data-driven one is due any day now.

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vaksel
your footer is HUGE

