

Ask HN: Review my startup - padjosh

Hey folks, getting ready to launch a group social discovery/dating website and wanted your input, suggestions, comments, etc. You can access a test beta of the site at the following address:<p>http://www.planadrink.com/user<p>The basic premise of the site is to make meeting new people through the internet easier, more comfortable and fun. Currently, most socializing/dating websites focus on a one on one meeting which can be very uncomfortable. We think the best way to meet new people is in the company of your close friends. The vision we have incorporates your already established "social circle" in meeting new friends and potential dating partners online and in reality.<p>Our goal is to concentrate on making matches through real life group social activities. We we will be providing the medium of establishing new potential successful connections by offering a complete group social interaction and discovery experience.<p>Our website interface is simple and direct:<p>1.	Sign-up and create a brief profile.<p>2.	Add/Invite a maximum of 6 close friends to your circle that you normally socialize with.<p>3.	Start meeting new circles in your area!
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trevelyan
It's not clear as a first-time visitor what this site does. Why not have a
simple header like: "Have a drink with ________ at ___________?" Suggest
something I _want_ to do that will justify giving you my email address?

More pedantic notes on design:

(1) There is far too much text in general and the font is too small.

(2) Profile spacing is really bad. Top/bottom whitespace is not symmetrical
and photos don't have equal padding on all sides. Profile content also crowds
far-left, leaving a huge swathe of whitespace in the center of your webpage.

(3) Remove the text telling people they can't signup unless they're in New
York. You will need all of your visitors to test the attractiveness of your
splash page and iterate towards something that is more viral.

(4) There are too many signup boxes. Your signup box is your notification box.
And you should remove it until someone asks to signup. Let a single button
trigger a lightbox that asks for no more than someone's email address and
location. Mail them their password.

(5) Telling people to go through the work of creating an account, filling out
their profile, inviting friends, and browsing stranger profiles is not telling
them how the service works. It is telling them to go away and never come back.

(6) The color red really jumps off the page. Using it for the signup button is
smart. Using it more than once is less smart, especially since the first red
profile button overshadows your signup button in visual hierarchy, and then
the remaining buttons undermine the signup button by pulling my attention
downwards and away.

(7) There is a lack of design consistency in user profiles. Some have
signatures and some don't. Quite seriously, why don't you just put a number of
photos there so you maximize the chance of me seeing someone I find
attractive?

(8) If you want me to invite my friends, there has to be a non-weird reason
for why I would do this.

Intended as constructive feedback. Good luck!

~~~
padjosh
Thank you for the great feedback, much appreciated. I see where you are coming
from with a lot of your points and we definitely have some improvement to make
on the design/user sign up.

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JS_startup
A few things I noticed after a brief look:

Your blog still has the starter Wordpress post in it. I understand if it isn't
finished yet, but you should remove the link to it until it is.

It wasn't immediately apparent to me that this site's hook was getting entire
groups of people together. The tagline sort of hinted at it ("Have your people
meet my people") but I still didn't know if this was a standard one on one
matchmaking site. It'd get the point across better if you showed entire
circles of people on the landing page, not just one member.

~~~
padjosh
js_startup - Thanks for the comments. What you mentioned about showing the
entire circle was being thrown around between my partner and I. Will
definitely take that into consideration.

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gus_massa
Approximately 1/3 of images of the profiles have an iStockphoto watermark.
They look like fake profiles. <http://imgur.com/q5Pbh>

~~~
padjosh
gus - That's because they are...the site isn't launched yet we are just
testing everything. All of those will be removed when we start to roll out the
site to the public.

