

Ask HN: Review my startup - dejan
http://www.aleveo.com

======
joel_feather
You're about to give up. What faces you in the next 6 months will be toughest
period you will face in this enterprise, because you have a chicken and egg
problem. The easy part is over, and now the very difficult part will come, and
this is where you have a 90% chance of giving up.

Also, your focus is wrong. I know you won't change it, because you've spent 6
months working on this idea and I'm just some random dude, but as-is, you will
have a very hard time gaining users for your project. This is what you can
change to actually be successful:

"Companies post a process or business problem they are having. Students post
solutions. One students answer is rated as the best and the companies pay."

That is a tried and tested model that works. You will have the students
because everyone is looking for cash. I mean, think about it for a moment!
What is all that text! What is all that signup form? Make a single field with
an email address where the student can give in his email address, and he
recieves the projects from the companies strraight up. When he wants to answer
and earn $200 or so, he needs to give in his details then!

And charging companies?! You know you are aiming at the enterprise market if
you follow that model, and I sure as hell hope you know how to do enterprise
sales.

Let me give you an example of something that would work:

Student John Field comes to site. He sees the text - "Help companies optimize
and fix their business processes with your ideas - and get paid for it. Enter
your email address". He thinks, sure, why not, enters his email and forgets
about it.

Joes Bicycle Shop stumbles across this website. He thinks - ah, I need to get
cheaper bicycles from Asia down to my shop. Maybe these guys know how that
works. He posts this. John Fields recieves the posting. He sees that he can
make $90. He researches on the net, posts a reply. Bicycle shop saves several
thousand bucks, John gets his $90, you get your cut.

~~~
dejan
That's a nice way to start a conversation :) Thanks for the encouragement, I
get those a lot :)

You are absolutely right about what you say, but, I don't think you got the
point of Aleveo. We're not trying to be next Google or Yahoo Answers, or any
sort of similar service. What you describe is answer service.

Also the focus is wrong. We do not aim at making money out of students' ideas,
but to provide them with help to get in touch with companies, so that they can
have better jobs tomorrow, and there is space for profits too. I know it's
difficult to understand social oriented business, but here is one.

If we think about companies, they do not have problems, or if they did, they
wouldn't talk about. They have employees to solve their problems. But, Aleveo
provides the company with this channel for external input on their offerings,
with constructive feedback how to improve stuff, or make new.

Lets say I think of a new automotive door handle that is easier to user, looks
better, yet is cheaper to produce. What will I do as a student? Build a
company around that? Not really. But at least I will show it to someone who
will appreciate it. If lets say FIAT adopts this idea or thinks its viable,
they award the student with something either money, sponsorship, internship or
whatever they like. Moreover, the company gets to see who can is suitable to
be part of their innovation culture.

There is no innovation in tried and tested model, and for sure no
entrepreneurialism. It's not all about the money.

The major idea of Aleveo is for students to push ideas to companies. And this
is especially needed in visual things such as industrial design let's say. So,
for the student above, he could tag his idea "FIAT" and when someone from Fiat
logins, he can see ideas submitted to them. Challenges are a "pull" method on
the other hand.

Indeed, we've been doing a research on the topic for 6 months, but the
development took only one. I'll post the research as an idea, I think you'll
find it shocking what the current youth unemployment situation is doing long
term.

Thanks for the critic, I find it highly constructive, and I appreciate your
toughness.

~~~
auston
Your design is fine as it is for a first iteration - your choice of words is
not (that is, in my opinion).

"GREAT IDEAS, CHALLENGES & AWARDS

a bridge between the worlds of education and work."

I have no idea what that means for anything - tell me what you do in more of a
straight forward fashion. Those are all fairly uninformative words try
something like....

"Aleveo helps your company get fresh new ideas

-Engage youth by evaluating their fresh ideas to improve your products/offering-"

~~~
dejan
I agree, I am not satisfied with it either. However, compromises are made to
put it online. I would like to change it with more visual. Will consider this.

Thanks for the comment!

~~~
rjprins
Your previous comment was already a lot more clearer to me then the front
page. :)

------
henryl
I'm sure I have ADD or something but I can't bring myself to read so much
text.

~~~
TomOfTTB
You aren't the only one. There have been countless studies on this that say
people aren't going to read more than a paragraph or so before giving up on a
site.

My advice to dejan: Most important thing, buy a copy of a book called "Don't
make me think" by Steve Krug ([http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-
Usability/dp/032134...](http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-
Usability/dp/0321344758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244290471&sr=8-1)).
Have it shipped next day. I can't go in to all the reasons you need the book
without essentially rewriting the book here but you really, really need it.

On the startup idea itself, I don't see anything inherently wrong with it. I'm
not sure how successful the "suggest ideas" side will be only because, in my
experience, people tend to be secretive about w hat they feel are their "great
ideas". Most people that I've met have a dream of eventually executing on the
ideas themselves one day and they don't want to give away a million dollar
idea (which is generally their perceived value of it).

The company feedback idea on the other hand is a good one if you can build a
community to support it.

~~~
dejan
:) Thanks TomOfTTB

I've read that book, and I agree that it's not so clear, as in the other
comment.

No excuses...but take a month of time, and what you can build in that time
span, alone. There is two of us, but I am the only developer/designer :) Would
I spend another month hiding it while tweaking. No.

We need to go bravely public as soon as possible and change stuff on the fly.

This is so true, that revealing ideas is so difficult. I see it everyday, yet
people do this within companies too. It's a million dollar idea. Well, unless
you do something about it, its worth nada. And Aleveo aims at those ideas that
you see around you and have no intentions on acting upon. How many times a day
we say hmm, that can be done this way. Do we act on it... rarely.

With students it's even more different. When they graduate, they have nothing
in their CVs. At least, they can have their ideas. And thats is what we want
to show to the world.

Can't find the article now, but I think it was either Seth Godin or on Signal
vs. Noise on value of ideas. Basically, they set it straight forward:

bad idea -$1 poor idea $0 good idea $1 great idea $10

no execution 0 poor execution 1000 good execution 100.000 outstanding
execution 1.000.000

great idea with some good execution might be worth $10 x 100.000, but without
execution it's just a 0. Moreover, no one ever pursues other's ideas, as they
say, everyone thinks your idea is stupid except you.

Thanks for the input, highly appreciated.

------
dejan
It's innovation/ideas crowdsourcing for companies, based on students' input.
It aims at involving students in practical tasks of companies eg: marketing
campaigns, new products, product improvements, business conducts, new markets
etc.

I agree it's a lot of text. In fact, it's all stripped out, bare bones. It'll
get replaced soon by visual clues. We decided to publish it asap and work on
it while building the community around campuses worldwide. It's more offline
than online in that manner.

@mitko, thnx, good point, I'll look into it.

~~~
eelco
There's a Dutch start-up doing much of the same. They have challenges from
companies and pay students that win. It's very 'local' and a not a really nice
website, but they've been fairly successful in setting up the platform so far.
It's called <http://www.battleofconcepts.nl/>

~~~
dejan
It's interesting that there are a few Dutch start-ups doing such things. The
other one is ReDesignMe.com. Italians have similar thing for advertising
bootb.com.

Aleveo is meant to be a global complementary service to innovating, customer
feedback and recruiting aiming at providing students with better
opportunities, and that is the direction we're keeping.

Moreove, Aleveo is hand managed and filtered by hand, for public ideas.
Garbage input doesn't get through, and human filter serves both, the author
and the one reading it. Yet, by having the ideas public, all benefit from the
conversation.

Best ideas will be awarded either by companies or directly by Aleveo each
month with three awards 1500, 1000 and 500€, no matter where they come from.

Thanks for the comment and info!

------
ckinnan
It is a very cool idea. The tough part is getting the balance right to where
quality students will want to contribute (you may need to offer cash rewards)
and businesses get value without risking their own IP (what if we have the
same idea internally as someone offers on the site?). I do think there is a
market for a service between MechTurk style base feedback and full-on
usability consultants.

When I was in b-school we did a big project for free for a Fortune 100 company
and got class credit for it. Maybe you should reach out to a specific
university (or professor) in your area and set up a formal program. I think it
would be a lot more attractive if the site was "in partnership with University
XX" and you could expand it accordingly. Students might even be able to earn
credit. Would help with marketing as well.

For businesses, the monthly service doesn't make much sense. I'd be more
interested in paying for a one-time crowd review/ challenge and then come back
again six months later or so. Maybe paying for a review cycle based on
semester?

~~~
dejan
First, thanks for a valuable comment.

I know it's currently not obvious, but the challenges are the ones that will
offer cash awards. However, we didn't want to limit to only those, as for
students even a recognition matters, as it helps them with their future
career.

On the other hand, we set up the fee for companies so that we can provide
independent awards to good ideas each month - 1500, 1000 and 500€, as a
permanent incentive, yet with a monthly topic that matters to all. However, we
are having the issue we are struggling with getting support, from the
universities, governments, and companies. Unlike innovationexchange.com and
others, to students 500, and even 100€ means a lot, but the official
recognition is priceless. If considered on a global scale, how valuable for
one student in India might be a recommendation letter, or honorable mention of
let's say Proctor and Gamble, or BMW? It might change the whole life of one,
yet the company received a value as it is issuing such.

An idea is a sign there is something that is not satisfied, and companies
should listen carefully, as young are the current or future customers,
employees and leaders.

We are two MSc. students at the Politecnico di Milano, and we hold the
official support of the university, but that is so slow. It is exactly why we
are doing this. With any idea at universities, it is so difficult to get any
help. We are suggesting Aleveo as part of the Management of Innovation course,
so that might be a start. We also imagined Aleveo as a form of an internship.

Well, we're online since two days ago, so we're hoping for a lot to change
now, including the design (or lack of it).

We're still unsure about the service fee hence not charging yet, but what you
suggest indeed makes sense. Recurring fee might not be the right choice.

Thanks again!

------
huhtenberg
WhaT is uP wITh t _h_ e ex _ceS_ SIvE TEXt d _Ecor_ aTi _ON_? It _is v_ irt
_Ual_ l _y uN_ Re _aDa_ ble. E _a_ se oFf on NLP.

~~~
dejan
You are damn right. Didn't really think about it, must be an awful habit of
mine.

Sorry about that, hope you didn't heart your eyes =) will be changed,
especially soon when we're able to afford a designer.

------
jasonkester
You've got 5 seconds to get your point across before your user clicks the back
button. If you're lucky, after that 5 second scan, that user might click on
the first handy link to see if it leads to any information. I gave your site
the benefit of the doubt and scanned for 30 seconds and clicked 3 links. I
never found anything that caught my eye enough to actually read on that
homepage, and clicking links put me on two forms and a pricing chart. Now I'm
back here with no idea of what you do.

There needs to be a 5 word chunk of text in 36 point font explaining what you
do. Next, maybe a few big bullets explaining why this will help me solve a
problem I actually have, and a call to action that I can click on to start
solving it. At the most, you can put 7 distinct things on that homepage for my
attention to land on. Choose them with care, because the average visitor to
your site is going to be even more indifferent than me.

~~~
dejan
Good points, and am aware of them. We decided to go with any home page, we
could do in few days, just to publish, and work on that on the fly. I am
seeing a complete visual/informational change in the next weeks, hopefully
with some help.

Thank you for your insightful comment. Highly appreciated.

------
fauigerzigerk
I like the challenges part because many "scratch your own itch" startup ideas
are narrowly focused on very few social or entertainment areas that younger
startup founders are familiar with. Startups often lack real problems to solve
in my view.

You should try to get companies to sign up and describe the really tough
problems they have. Not the every day cruft that they might like to offload
onto students. I think you should avoid the kind of mood that dominates sites
like elance or mechanical turk or all the Q&A sites. It's so horribly
depressing there.

The challenges should be BIG. That doesn't mean the ideas/solutions have to be
big. Big challenges to incentivise small experimental approaches. That's what
I would love to see.

Good luck.

~~~
dejan
Thanks for the heads up. I couldn't agree more on the narrow focus of
startups. We got online few days ago, and already have lined up very famous
names. It should be seen these days.

We didn't get support from anyone and still don't, so that should explain the
barebones. But there is a lot to be changed, especially about the mood, this
should be most of all fun. And challenges will be awesome, I promise. =)

Thanks again! Cheers!

------
GeneralMaximus
I skimmed the text for a moment, didn't get what the service was about, and
left. And I'm a HN reader who is actually _interested_ in stuff like this.

Think about the reactions Facebook/Twitter-using students with 10 second
attention spans are going to have.

~~~
dejan
I agree. It will be fixed. We can't get it right the first time. =) At least
not with the time and 'no money at all' constraints we face. So far, Aleveo
has been a true story of perseverance and entrepreneurism. It can only get
better.

Thanks for the honest comment.

------
Tichy
It says something about challenges, but then when you read the FAQ it says
something about ideas. Which one is it?

Searching for challenges produces 0 results, so it doesn't help with
understanding what it is all about eiter.

~~~
dejan
Sorry for the confusion, there still are not any opened challenges or jobs. We
are negotiation with some companies to open some these days.

Challenge is a en entity to which you attach your idea, by tagging it with the
tag that challenge defined.

~~~
Tichy
I am not trying to complain, just trying to help.

~~~
dejan
Yes, that's how it got understood. =) Thanks for the feedback, I think it
needs a lot of revisions so that it's all a bit clearer.

------
mitko
Hm, you have to register, and then go looking for the small NewIdea button. I
wish it was easier.

------
trapper
Can you explain it in one sentence?

~~~
khandekars
Looks like github+topcoder for ideas.

------
sho
Ooh! I like the font. Helvetica Neue, very daring. And moz-border-radius! Love
the layout and typography, although there's maybe a little too much bold text,
starts to feel patronising.

Not sure about the whole "ideas from young people" thing; I have learnt over
time that the experience of actually trying to implement ideas radically
changes ones' perspective on them and their viability. That's one of the
reasons I like programmers so much, really - it's one of the few groups of
people with direct everyday experience of actually implementing ideas, and so
have a very realistic view of what is actually a good/useful/viable idea and
what is not. My non-programmer friends seem to lack any such perspective, and
I assume most students are in the same boat.

But whatever; looks good and I agree with you on the file saving idea.

~~~
dejan
Thanks. I got that for the bold text several times. It's amazing the disparity
between using and coding.

Experience plays a great role in implementing, while a lot of times it is the
one that sets the boundaries to imagination. This makes young minds very
viable to imagination, but surely need the experience to go further. Aleveo
should connect them, and give feedback on those ideas, by enriching them with
others' experiences.

Only then can we judge if these students have viable ideas. So, soon we'll
find out :)

Thanks for the comment!

