
Ask HN: Review my startup: Hackerfly.com - p1niu
Hi fellow Hackers,<p>Can I ask for feedback on a new product that I am working on: http://www.hackerfly.com<p>Hackerfly is a SaaS tool providing analysis and insights into the software programming industry.<p>The intention is to give marketers, analysts, developer evangelists, managers and decision makers a simple tool with statistics and quantitative information enabling them to understand software developers better and make more informed decisions regarding software and programming.<p>Currently, we're focusing on StackOveflow as a data source, but in the future we want to add many other relevant (developer-focused) data sources like GitHub, Twitter, etc.<p>- What do you think about the idea and the product?<p>- Is value proposition / offering clear?<p>- What do you think about the pricing model? Would you be willing to pay for this kind of service?<p>- Do you know of any startups doing the same or something similar?<p>- Do you like/dislike the look&#38;feel of the marketing site?<p>Thanks in advance for all your help.<p>ps.
You can already sign up and you will receive a personal invitation as soon as we launch private beta tests.
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skyhook_mockups
The marketing site looks great and I like the sound of the idea, however I was
surprised to see this as a paid-for service.

This is not because it is data not worth paying for but rather because I
usually start thinking about new tech at the start of a new project, and I
only start a new project once every year or two. An ongoing fee for this type
of aggregator seems hard to justify.

A possible alternative would be to open up the data for free and supply
affiliate links to related books, tools etc.

Maybe it's just not aimed at a user like me.

All the best :)

~~~
p1niu
Hi. Thanks for the feedback.

Opening up the tool for free is actually one of the options that I consider.
Of course, only if there's a good reason to believe that this is the right way
to go.

I know of some free alternatives, like <http://www.ohloh.net/> but on the
other hand there are also pricey reports on technology trends, such as:
<http://w3techs.com/> This shows that there are companies willing to pay a lot
of money for technology insights.

BTW, is there any specific kind of data/insights you would be particularly
interested in?

~~~
samuel02
One idea might be to charge per usage rather than on a monthly basis. So let's
say I'm starting a project I pay a one-time fee to use the application for a
certain amount of queries, days or weeks. Like skyhook_mockups said it's not
something I'd use everyday but rather a couple of times a year when I start a
new project or pivot.

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yataa
Clickable <http://www.hackerfly.com>

~~~
p1niu
Thanks yataa

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babarock
A couple of remarks:

\- As mentionned by others, I wouldn't pay for this data. It's not that it's
not worth it, it's because I would only need it at the beginning of a project,
which is rare enough to justify the monthly fee. That said, if I were a
manager responsible for 10 ongoing projects at any time, I'd be very
interested.

\- About the pricing, the one thing that bothers me is that I have no idea
what a "technology category" is, and how much do I actually need. I have no
idea if 5 is enough or not. Maybe you explained this and I missed it. Maybe a
demo would help picture what it is. It's up to you to figure it out, but as
far as I'm concerned, I spent over 3 mins on the (otherwise very appealing)
website and did not find the info.

That said, I think it's a good idea, and while I have no clue whether it's a
profitable one (or how you should proceed to make it so), I think it's a
really cool project capable of providing real value. Congrats and good luck
for the launch.

~~~
p1niu
Thanks. This is a lot of valuable feedback!

By "technology category" I mean: Programming languages, Version control
systems, PaaS providers, NoSQL databases, Relational databases, IDEs, etc. -
basically different categories of tools/technologies that software developers
use to get their job done. I agree this should be explained more somewhere on
the website.

------
adambenayoun
First of all congrats on launching.

I'll deliver some quick tips in term of UI/UX - hope they can help.

1\. I'm not a huge fan of slides because you either have to get the user to
click on the next to find out about the other slides or move them
automatically after a certain interval which is what you're doing in your
case. However it can be frustrating to move to the next slide while I'm
reading (happened to me just now). My solution would be to either get rid of
the slides and just concentrate your message in one slide or have a high
interval between slides and have a bigger call to action to navigate to the
next slide (you might even entice the user to click by giving him a short
headline of what's next).

2\. If you're doing slides - make sure to have your main CTA (call to action)
button in all slides - if you convince me in slide #3 - you want me to click
on a button and fill our my information - any hesitation on my end will result
in a drop of conversion.

3\. The message is not clear - I have no idea what you are doing (perhaps
because I am not the target audience) but at least explain in simple word the
different use cases. I am sure it would possibly help people quickly decide if
this is something that could be useful to them.

4\. The pricing - there are some elements which I really like - the fact that
you can switch from a monthly to a yearly pricing plans is clever however If I
would be you I'd show the old and new price in the yearly price (with the old
price crossed - that way you re-enforce the savings indication).

Good luck!

~~~
p1niu
Adambenayoun, thanks for your UX/UI remarks. I agree with most of them.

Regarding the message and use cases - I'm trying to explain this in a section
below the slides. "Technology research tool", "IT buzzword monitor", "Analysis
and reports", etc. Isn't this visible/clear enough? What would you suggest to
make it more eye-catching? Thanks again for all your feedback :)

------
illdave
Congrats on launching - always difficult to finally get it out the door, so
good job.

As adambenayoun said, using slides to present information can make it harder
to get your message across (either people will miss some of the slides, or the
slides will move halfway through being read - which is pretty frustrating).

I'm most likely not your target audience, but my advice would be to refine the
messaging on the homepage. I couldn't figure out what it is your app actually
does (could just be me skim-reading it, but keep in mind that's how a lot of
people will approach your site). It talks about how important data is - but I
can't tell _what_ data I'd get back. It says "delivering quantitative
information on developer trends and demographics" - what kind of information?
What should I do with that?

I think one of the biggest things you need to answer on your homepage is "what
problem does the app solve"? The main headline is "Stay on top of the latest
programming trends" - but it doesn't tell me _why_ I should. Think about who
the app is designed for, and what they'd use it for - and that can probably
help you adapt and refine your message in a way that's simpler and more
targeted. Good luck!

------
hluska
Good day!

I'm going to list off a few things that I notice while browsing around your
site.

\- First off, your website looks really good. Congratulations!

\- I don't think I understand what your product offers. From reading your
website, I imagine something similar to Wikipedia (only about software
development). Am I close? If so, I think you need to do a better job of
communicating your value statement. If not, I think you need to work a little
on explaining what you do and how you're different.

\- My biggest criticism about your site is related to your slider. You have a
lot of text on the first slide, but I think it changes to the next slide too
fast. If I were you, I'd increase the delay.

\- Personally, I always feel a little uneasy about including somewhat related
quotes from famous people (unless of course, they're talking about your
product). While social proof is undeniably important, I worry that somewhat
related quotes devalue brands. If I were you, I'd test this (and blog about
your results!)

\- You should run a test on your pricing page. I suspect that the FAQs you
have on the bottom will reduce your conversions, but that also would be an
interesting test. If I were you, I'd remove all the FAQs (but add 'no
contracts to sign' into your list of features).

\- I'm concerned about word of mouth, (specifically conversations like this)
--> "My pointy haired boss told us to write the app in Rails. He read about
Rails on Hackerfly." Snark like this can be very expensive to extinguish. This
concern could also be an amazing opportunity to build a community where
engineers and managers can get together and have frank conversations about
technology and working together.

Good luck with your product and sorry this isn't more detailed!

Greg

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yllus
Terrific website design, congratulations on the launch! I'm really just going
to repeat and perhaps clarify sentiments of two other commenters below:

First, what you are offering as a product is simply too abstract for somebody
to click "Purchase" without seeing an example/demo of some kind. I suggest
releasing slightly out of data reports (maybe from three months ago, followed
up with a quick note on how accurate it turned out to be) as free, one click
PDF downloads from the home page.

Second, even with a demo I suspect you will see little traction. I think your
only real hope of revenue is to continue to release data for free, get a lot
of attention/users and then introduce a pricing tier. Keep it relatively
modest and communicate early on that if traction picks up you will need to
charge sooner or later and you should be fine.

Good luck!

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vkkan
Hi there,

Overall site looks professional, I have few questions for you to answer 1\.
Nowadays platforms are very unrealistic about their offering to developers for
example recent twitter announcement? since you took lot of information from
stackoverflow how do you cope in future? 2\. Do you think really some one buy
this? since if its a big corporation they will read all magic quadrant from
gartner if its a medium or small size they will try to use the tech stack
based on what resources they have and they try to reuse it so often ? 3\. Do
you think you can sell this to outsourcing shop ? big no ? Please take my
question as constructive feedback not other way around.

~~~
p1niu
Hi vkkan Thanks for your constructive criticism & questions. They're always
welcome. My answers below:

1\. SO data is available under the CC license. I don't expect this to change
in the future. Regarding other data sources, I plan to use API or will need
special agreements in hand with data providers.

2\. You never know this until you try to sell. This is what I'm trying to
figure out right now. If there's a good reason to believe that nobody wants to
pay for this, I will proceed with plan "B" and will make the tool freely
available and will need to find a different business model.

3\. I would target the tool primarily at marketers, evangelists, companies
building developer-focused products (books, courses, conferences, it vendors).
I wasn't thinking about outsourcing shops to be honest.

~~~
vkkan
Nice to hear your answers, but until you find out product/market fit no one
can predict which way to go.

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jcampbell1
The design looks great.

I really think the best way to get this service off the ground is to expose a
large amount of the data for free in the form of articles or other linkable
content. Get lots of backlinks and visitors, then upsell a package with more
information. Make it easy for the tech press to use your charts and backlink
to your site.

Freemium won't work because that requires a login, and the idea is to generate
interest in the product through public and google indexed content.

------
ig1
It's not really clear what your product-market fit is, who are you targeting ?

I'd feel that individual teams wouldn't care about this data (they'll use
subjective calls to pick technology about how it fits their business and not
popularity).

If you're going for the much higher level (i.e CIO) who are deciding on new
tech to adopt then you'll be competing against the like of Gartner's Magic
Quadrant and need to tailor your product much more for that market.

~~~
p1niu
Hi ig1, thanks for your remarks!

Yes, I'm rather going for the higher level (like CIO, sales, marketing, etc.).
I know Gartner, Forrester, IDC will be a competition. But my idea is to target
the tool at companies which don't want to hire rather pricey industry analyst
firms but still need to have some insights into what's going on in the
industry.

What do you mean specifically by saying: "tailor the product much more for
that market"?

Thanks!

------
eranation
Very nice design, a needed niche without a real competitor but... I think
paying 16$ for stackoverflow trends is way too much to be realistic, I won't
pay for it. I can get this information for free. and even more including HN
trends, google trends and indeed job search trends, all this for fee, or with
a few minutes googling.

------
tlogan
Great idea! Love it!

What is your target market?

I think it might be a good idea to try changing the message a little because I
don't think technology savvy people are the one which are willing to pay. I
have in mind recruiting, CIOs in big corporations, sales, etc. And in that
case you can raise the price :)

~~~
p1niu
Hi tlogan! Thanks for your feedback. Regarding the target market, I've replied
in one of the comments earlier: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4407545>

And yes, the initial idea was not to sell the tool to tech-savvy people but
rather to people who need to understand software developers and need some data
and statistics to support their decisions. You can think of it as DYI IT
industry analysis and an alternative to industry analyst firms.

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vital101
The site looks great and I love the idea! One thing that I noticed about the
landing page was that as I was trying to read your slides they transitioned to
the next one too fast. A longer interval or less text might make it easier to
digest.

Good luck!

~~~
p1niu
Thanks for this. Will definitely fix this.

