

IPhone App Helps You Discover Upcoming Movies (YCS11) - joetyson
http://mashable.com/2011/09/01/cantwait/

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fauigerzigerk
I'm worried about the apparent disconnect between my brain and the world of
web startups or maybe even simply the world. I think YC numbers are proof
enough that startups like this can become popular and commercial successes.

Yet as someone who likes movies and watches a lot of them it's completely
beyond me how something like this could ever be more than a minor feature of
some movie site, one that is trivial to copy for anyone in the space with the
advantage of an existing user base.

I have no reason whatsoever to trash this startup, quite the contrary, I'm in
a completely different space and I wish only the best to any and all fellow
startup founders. I'm just honestly puzzled, fully aware that it's probably me
who is going to be wrong again.

I'm just wondering if anyone else is struggling to convince themselves to take
something as simple as this and run with it in a crowded market. Even if I had
the slightest interest in solving this problem, I just couldn't bring myself
to believe in it and that might be why I will very likely never strike it
rich.

~~~
ericflo
Hmm. On the one hand I really want to spell out the steps we plan to take to
turn what it is into a huge, huge business. On the other hand, I don't want to
give away our strategy to potential competitors and partners.

What I will say is that people like watching trailers--our downloads and usage
numbers prove that, as well as trailers.apple.com and other trailer websites
which are very successful. However, nobody else does trailers on mobile as
well as we do, and if they do better in some area we will iterate past them
soon. Over the period of a few months to a year, we're going to have a
respectable number of users using this simple app.

Additionally, we've built out our user experience so that virtually everyone
rates the trailers that they see, telling our system whether they can't wait
to see a movie, or if they're going to pass on it.

Finally, we are also building up our own social graph.

So, without going into too much detail, we think there is immense value in
overlaying the graph of what people want to do in the future (which movies
they want to see), with the graph of who their friends are.

~~~
waterside81
Eric weren't you working on an another YC company? Convore? Or am I mixing
people up?

~~~
ericflo
Yep, I was at Convore, but left that company to start this one.

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Inufu
Love the app, but please make an iPad version. (doesn't need to be pretty,
just play the trailers in fullscreen)

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bignoggins
10,000 copies in one month strikes me as extremely low for a free app.

~~~
ericflo
It's been 2 weeks.

~~~
bignoggins
still pretty low, that's 700/day. I've never released a free app that didn't
get < 1,000 d/l a day, and my apps are niche apps with no advertising or
marketing at all.

I would remove the 10,000 copies reference because anyone who has any
experience on the app store would see that those numbers are very low. It's
like bragging about a 3.0 GPA.

~~~
ericflo
We cannot "remove the 10,000 copies reference" because this was an article
written about us, not by us.

Also, we like the way our graphs are inflecting. In the first week we pushed
way less than 700/day and in the second week we pushed way more. Dividing it
out and saying 700/day is a bit simplistic.

In any case, I fail to see the purpose of your comments. What's the goal?

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pud
Just installed it. I wish it would let me browse movies by genre. Unless I'm
missing it, there's no way to do that.

~~~
ericflo
Thanks for the feedback! You're not missing it, we haven't quite built browse-
by-genre yet. Early users didn't mention it, but just recently we've heard
this feedback from quite a few people, so it's definitely on the list.

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judofyr
ericflo: What's happening to Convore now?

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vrikhter
Love the juxtaposition!

Microsoft BizSpark sponsoring a section highlighting an iPhone app.

:)

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Urgo
Hows that android version coming..

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ericflo
Right now tabs work and click properly. It loads data from our HTTP API and
displays it in an ugly way, and trailers do play in a basic way on the Android
version.

tl;dr: I'm actively working on it, but I don't want to promise a release date
just yet.

~~~
dannyr
If you are not embarrassed with your 1st release, you've waited too long.
Release it now! ;-)

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bignoggins
that strategy does not apply to mobile apps. You need a polished product
before you release.

~~~
dannyr
Yo guys. It's a joke. I'm friends with the founders.

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chrischen
I Can't Wait to win my free movie ticket.

~~~
ericflo
There's a decent chance that'll happen if you use the app :)
<http://i.imgur.com/yFPbP.png> (Keep in mind that's just the people who
decided to share, and to share to Twitter instead of e.g. Facebook.)

