

Ask YC: Feedback on BreakkUp.com - pxlpshr
http://breakkup.com
BreakkUp was originally an idea my gf had roughly 2 weekends ago. The idea came about after receiving 4 phone calls in a row seeking advice regarding relationship troubles. I took the idea a step further by building it around a pre-established model (Digg) using open-source (Pligg). Maybe this was a bad idea on my part, maybe not...<p>For me, this project is an experiment in replicating models for other verticals using open-source. And, an exercise in CPM/CPA advertising and PR -- two areas I don't feel I have a strong understanding of. I'm currently working to raise money for an original idea and ad revenue will play a big part in our ability to stay afloat.<p>In total, from idea to beta product -- I've spent less than a week putting this together so criticism certainly won't hurt my feelings. We most definitely need to work on an About Page and Tutorial, my assumption is most females have no idea what Digg is.<p>If I had more time, I'd like to put more focus on the presentation of this site so it looks less digg-like, but my client work needs attention this week. Gotta keep the lights on!<p>I'm rather excited about BreakkUps opportunity to generate modest revenue (assuming we get traffic) because I feel the audience will often be in an emotional state when visiting, and roughly 50%+ female.<p>We also own these domains:<p>BreakupWithHim.com 
BreakupWithHer.com<p>Suggestions, comments, criticism please. Thanks guys.
======
pxlpshr
BreakkUp was originally an idea my gf had roughly 2 weekends ago. The idea
came about after receiving 4 phone calls in a row seeking advice regarding
relationship troubles. I took the idea a step further by building it around a
pre-established model using open-source (Pligg). Maybe this was a bad idea on
my part, maybe not...

For me, this project is an experiment in replicating models for other
verticals using open-source. But more importantly, an exercise in CPM/CPA
advertising and PR -- two areas I don't feel I have a strong understanding of.
I'm currently working to raise money for an original idea and ad revenue will
play a big part in our ability to stay afloat. I'm rather excited about
BreakkUp's opportunity to generate modest revenue (assuming we get traffic)
because I feel the audience will often be in an emotional state when visiting,
and roughly 50%+ female.

In total, from idea to beta product -- I've spent ~a week putting this
together so criticism certainly won't hurt my feelings. We most definitely
need to work on About and Tutorial pages, my assumption is most females have
no idea what Digg is.

If I had more time, I'd like to put more focus on the presentation of this
site so it looks less digg-like, but my client work needs attention this week.
Gotta keep the lights on!

We also own these domains:

<http://BreakupWithHim.com>

<http://BreakupWithHer.com>

Suggestions, comments, criticism please. We haven't started advertising it yet
except to peers...

Thanks guys.

~~~
ericb
I tried this same experiment with pligg on a site I put up, freenormous.com
(free samples and offers). I found that almost no one posted, even after I
worked hard to get traffic and spent money on adwords. Now I get postings--
they're just all SEO and spam.

It is _very_ tough to build a community. I spent a lot of time talking to
myself under different usernames. Only around 1% of users will post (maybe
less, from my experience).

I also found that even with 1000 visitors a month, I was making less than $5
per month with adsense. That would be fine if it didn't take a continual flow
of real posts to build content, but it does.

This soured me on adwords based based businesses, and even moreso on any
business that requires a network effect to work. Now I focus on business
models that offer value even when there are no other users.

It was an educational experiment, though, and for the time investment, gave a
good return on enlightenment.

~~~
jamiequint
"I also found that even with 1000 visitors a month, I was making less than $5
per month with adsense. That would be fine if it didn't take a continual flow
of real posts to build content, but it does.

This soured me on adwords based based businesses"

$5/month for 1000 monthly visitors is not bad for ads in general. Assuming
maybe 10% of those visitors are really active and the others are just one off
hits (1-2 pageviews) you're looking at about 5000 pageviews/month which would
equate to $1 eCPM on AdSense, which is actually a pretty decent ad network
eCPM.

~~~
ericb
I wasn't thinking it was bad for adsense. I was thinking it was a bad price
for my time... It took a lot of hours to create the content, and was difficult
to get others to create it on their own.

------
Mystalic
I don't care how obvious the purpose of the site seems to you, I don't care
how much you don't want one, but the EASIEST thing I should be able to find is
the "About" section, whether it's a 2 line blurb ont he front page or a
separate page.

People need things explained to them and leave if you don't.

~~~
pxlpshr
The one-liner is available for non-registered accounts on the rectangle image
to the right of the site... the big letters read WTF? :)

We're working on the formal About / Tutorial stuff this week.

~~~
bprater
You literally need the words About as a hyperlink. Don't get too creative
here. We are used to a certain pattern that every website uses.

~~~
pxlpshr
a high priority is to add About and Tutorial buttons this week. thanks guys.

------
culley
Post to Craigslist personals to drive traffic.

People hitting up the personals likely have funny stories to share.

------
pxlpshr
Just wanted to say thanks to all the feedback, was not expecting this much and
we really appreciate it!!! We're going to incorporate a lot of the changes and
suggestions that have been mentioned thus far, I only wish I had more time and
10 arms!!

------
HeyLaughingBoy
I'm not a big believer in the whole "social media" thing, but I do like this
site. It's entertaining and besides that, I can see it being useful to get a
different perspective on relationship problems. The nice thing about this is
that for it to be useful you don't need commenters who are "experts," just
people who can see things in a different light. Sometimes that's all it takes!

------
maxklein
It's a good idea and will be successful with very little effort. But you NEED
to make the comments possible without signing up for the first few weeks,
you'd have made me bookmark it if I had been able to leave a comment Because
I'd have been curious to go back and reply. But no, I could not comment, could
not be bothered to sign up and so moved on

Comments open for a few weeks, spam on yahoo answers and fluther and in a few
weeks you'll have a big site. Send me a thank you note then.

~~~
pxlpshr
Great point and something I've considered doing but it's not in the pligg
setup config, so I'll have to dig into the code to make it happen. (i'm a
designer but I know a little PHP)

Since you've confirmed this notion, I'll make it a high priority to get it
done before we start marketing it. I don't really like the idea of "spamming"
though.

Thanks for feedback!

~~~
maxklein
Here ya go:

<http://forums.pligg.com/8774-post16.html>

[http://forums.pligg.com/pligg-mods/6844-setting-anonymous-
co...](http://forums.pligg.com/pligg-mods/6844-setting-anonymous-
comments.html)

It will take a while before the spammers find you. When they find you, start
working on that problem, till then, handle your more pressing problem of
gaining users.

If you go to Yahoo Answers and point to a relevant link on your own site to
the question being asked, I think this qualifies as marketing, no longer spam.

In any case, realise this:

The users of fluther and Yahoo Answers are your CORE audience. You may also
take a look at the ask.metafilter.com users - if you sign up for a $5 account,
you can post a link to your site under the "Projects" section. You'll get
about 200-400 hits, but it's a relevant audience.

Otherwise, you'll have to use a gimmick. This is not ethical, but if you are
interested in relevant traffic, then do this:

Post a troll. Target this troll towards christian fundamentalists, teenage
girls, or housewives. Then visit a site where these groups are, like a
christian forum, a youtube posting of Avril Lavigne or an advice site like
flylady. Link to this troll of yours, and watch them get in a hullaboo about
it and create links everywhere.

For example, you could write:

"My girlfriend just admitted to me that when Snoop Dogg was in town, she slept
with one of his bodyguards. Should I break up with her?"

"My wife has herpes, and our gardener also has herpes. Is she cheating?"

"My sons girlfriend is 14 and he is 18. Is this legal?"

That's linkbait, but you need to target it correctly. The jaded crowd here
will immediately see through that, but the groups I mentioned above will
believe it immediately.

Yes, unethical I know, but it's just ideas. Pick and mix as you wish.

~~~
pxlpshr
Great thanks! I found those same threads shortly after your first post and
have an email out to someone that has supposedly authored a mod for version
9.x to handle the anonymous commenting.

Will take some of your advice on marketing the site next week, after
addressing feedback from HN and making some last minute changes.

------
marketer
Socialmoth was also a community-driven support website. They let you expose
personal tidbits on a public forum. You might try e-mailing them about it, see
what sort of problems they had.

I think the UI design of the site is great, but the social design needs a lot
of work. Breakups are quite personal and messy -- it seems like the last thing
people would want to do is expose details on a public forum.

~~~
pxlpshr
A youth teen would probably disagree with you regarding their comfortability
exposing personal information on the web.

A benefit of BreakkUp is that we're not trying to be a social 'networking'
site, it's mostly geared for individuals to use with relative anonymity.

~~~
marketer
Also, check out <http://www.divorce360.com> . It seems to be doing pretty
well. Maybe you could modify the site to be more of a portal than just a
community.

You could add some content to the site (theres lots of information about this
topic). Get articles like this:

<http://www.wikihow.com/Break-Up>

Because of the domain name, you could get a nice rank on search engines.

------
adityakothadiya
Just for your info - You might need to give credit to Pligg according to their
licensing terms somewhere on your website. You need to link it to their
original site. Something like -

Powered By: Pligg | Legal: License & Source

I do same with <http://siliconverge.com> on About page.

~~~
pxlpshr
Thanks and I will do that when I make changes to the footer / about section
this week.

------
pxlpshr
Opinions on tag line?

COMMUNITY-DRIVEN ADVICE or,

BRUTALLY HONEST ADVICE (original tag line)

~~~
maxklein
Don't forget your target! It's not this crowd - go to fluther and read the
quality of the submissions there. That's basically who you are targeting, so
customize your text for them.

Add a button to send this to your friend. Take a look at "AddThis", it's easy
to integrate and will take care of that problem for you.

I like "Community-driven advice", as brutally honest sounds a bit scary.
Teenage girls are sensitive about this stuff, it's the WHOLE world.

It still sounds a bit technological, but I can't think of anything better :)

~~~
pxlpshr
The fear of "brutal" to the youth audience was my exact concern too...
However, I liked brutal because some people just don't understand when they
are in a bad relationship, and need a reality check.

~~~
jyu
Community driven sounds too geeky for your target audience. How about "Real
Advice from Real People" or "Answers to Your Relationship Questions" or
something along those lines. Then maybe you can include a more detailed
description with what the site does for people.

~~~
pxlpshr
I like "Real Advice from Real People".

~~~
maxklein
It's bad. Too personal, I don't want to talk to "Real People", I want to be
anonymous.

------
iloveyouocean
I think you should have two voting options: 'Break Up' and 'Stay Together'.
With only the option to vote 'Break Up' can there ever really be another
conclusion?

Perhaps you can also have 'color coded' comments to denote the position you
are taking.

~~~
pxlpshr
I agree, looking to build in this functionality in the near future.

------
trickjarrett
My main issue is with the domain, the double k hurts. You're appealing to non-
web 2.0 people and so typoed domains are not going to be that good. You should
look for maybe something that is real words. Other than that, great stuff!

~~~
shiranaihito
It's really, _really_ difficult to come up with a relevant, concise dot-com
domain name that's not already taken.

~~~
pxlpshr
yeah, i spoke with the breakup.com owner and he's passing on offers that would
buy him an exotic.. I just can't afford that. We also own BreakupWithHim.com
and BreakupWithHer.com and their respective typos if someone forgets the
second H.

~~~
shiranaihito
Yep.

It's disgusting how some companies/people are reserving all the names they can
think of, hoping to sell them to someone.

No wonder we have services with names like "Heroku" - at least that was free.

------
fallentimes
Hilarious and useful. Just forwarded to some of my more uh..."outgoing"
friends.

------
Ilia
Interesting idea.. like the design, not sure about using pligg though, had
some bad experience with it, but good luck with the 30 day mark, it sounds
like a plan

------
jbenz
The blurb about your site with the "join now" button looks like an ad because
of the placement and because it is roughly 300x250 pixels.

Cool logo.

------
simianstyle
Nice concept, but i'd work on the design a bit. Overuse of the color red might
be a bit much for some users.

~~~
pxlpshr
If we get any traction, I will definitely put some time into improving the
overall look of the site. I really want to get away from the digg-style, but I
just don't have time right now to dedicate.

------
ScottWhigham
I love the look - very clean, very nice. I don't know about the idea but I
think it looks quality.

------
elai
There's no button to say don't breakup, only to breakup. Talk about negative!

~~~
pxlpshr
hahah, yeah I thought about that too... but figured "don't breakup" was
implied by drama not getting pushed to the home page. I've got a lot of ideas
for a version 2.0 though, that deviates away from Digg/Reddit style while
retaining core functionality that makes it fun to use.

------
josefresco
Watch out for Silahsiz Kuvvetler the Turkish hacker.

Seriously ;)

------
trezor
My honest opinion, and this is about the _idea_ , not the implementation.

If you need the relationship advice from the _internet_ , the god damn
internet _damnit_ , it's long past time to finish it off.

------
pavelludiq
<http://emo.com/> was taken? I don't want to sound like a troll, but i will,
so don't take it personally, but when im in an emotionally bad situation the
last thing i need is advice from random people on the internet. I also find it
boring/stupid to try to give advice to random people on the internet(hey, im
doing that now :D). There is a difference between a community and a mass of
random people you know, the former i trust(sometimes). Hope you don't fail
miserably or get bored/frustrated with you project, just thought some
opposition would help.

