
Ask HN: What is wrong with my bookmarking tool? - memset
Hello! A couple of years ago, I wrote a bookmarking tool to scratch my own itch. However, <i>nobody wants to use it</i>. My question is: why?<p>The tool is this: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.homepagr.com&#x2F;<p>I ask because I&#x27;ve tried to create this as a small business using &quot;textbook&quot; techniques, but without much user feedback or traction. I&#x27;m interested to see where the formula is breaking down!<p>- I built a tool that I myself wanted<p>- Started with an MVP a couple of years ago, with a simple UX, and then iterated to where it is today<p>- Put together a landing page, try to explain value proposition and collect email addresses (nobody signed up)<p>- Currently giving away the product for free - but even people who use it tend to stop after a week<p>There is clearly a market: pinboard.io, lots of positive feedback for raindrop.io, and I see bookmarking tool threads on HN very frequently.<p>Often, people ask me &quot;why should I use this instead of x product?&quot; I don&#x27;t have a good answer: except that I like mine better because it has the features that I care about (an uncomplicated UX), and none of the features that, to me, are a distraction.<p>Could it be that this is, essentially, a tool which is too specific to my own preferences? Am I marketing or positioning this poorly? What am I doing wrong?<p>(Incidentally! This is not a complaint - the tool is something that I built for myself, and have been using for a few years, and will continue to use! But, I am very much interested in help debugging why this is lacking traction compared to others!)
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darekkay
> There is clearly a market: pinboard.io, lots of positive feedback for
> raindrop.io, and I see bookmarking tool threads on HN very frequently.

> Often, people ask me "why should I use this instead of x product?" I don't
> have a good answer: except that I like mine better

I think that sums it up. If your product doesn't offer anything unique, I
might as well take one of the 100 bookmarking tools out there. Yeah, the
market is there, so is the tooling. Just have a look at this list [1] - what
makes your bookmark manager special?

I have written my own bookmark manager [2], and it provides a unique feature
that I haven't seen anywhere else (a single HTML file is being generated, with
the whole app included, so it can be easily shared without hosting it
anywhere). I'm dog-fooding this project at my job and many people find it
useful. Still, I've noticed early that it will be very difficult to market, so
it remains an open-source project.

I'm closely following bookmarking discussions (hence also seeing your post :)
). One trend I've noticed is that most people like a "dumpster"-like pinboard
solution more than any folder-like tool like yours or mine. So that's another
factor that makes our approach more difficult to market.

> Put together a landing page

One point I recommend changing is the headline/subheadline. The main benefit,
"essential bookmarking for teams", is 14px light gray. Make it _much_ more
prominent. Make it even part of the main headline. The light gray doesn't pass
accessibility contrast ratio by the way - this applies to all the heavy light
gray usage. It makes it difficult to read.

Is it possible to provide a live demo for your app? Maybe a demo/demo account?

BTW - the "take the tour" link in the footer scrolls the page to the top, not
the "tour" part.

I hope your project takes off :)

[1] [https://serafin.io/bookmark-managers/](https://serafin.io/bookmark-
managers/)

[2] [https://darekkay.com/static-marks/](https://darekkay.com/static-marks/)

