

Ask HN: We ripped off Crush Notifier, now we need advice. - jonathanchiu

I liked the idea of Crush Notifier, but as a grown man out of elementary school, I wanted a little bit more.  So my brother and I stole Dan’s idea and came up with the “Friends-with-Benefits” Facebook app (http://friends-with-benefits.me).<p>Currently the game play is similar to Crush Notifier’s:
1. Each user picks the friends they want as “Friends with Benefits”
2. If their friends pick them back, we will send them both a notification email so that they can take their relationship to the next level; otherwise, the picks are kept secret.<p>We give our users 2 free “Picks”, and if they want more Picks, they can purchase them using Facebook Credits equivalent to US$1.00/Pick.  But we are trying to come up with another way of approaching this:<p>Instead of charging for each Pick they use, we will let them pick an unlimited number of friends.  When a match occurs, they can choose to pay US$5.00 if they want us to reveal the match. Our goal is to attract more users to use our app with the free Picks while also optimizing our revenues.<p>Please let us know what you guys think, any positive and/or negative comments are much appreciated.
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ffumarola
Quick note: The logo makes me think of the health industry, not finding a FWB.

I think your second model would encourage more engagement and help you get
through the problem of "Why should I pay $1 per pick if this app hasn't
reached critical mass?"

If people can pick a bunch of their friends, and everyone can do it free,
you'll reach critical mass easier.

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jonathanchiu
Yeah that makes sense too. I guess it's hard to grow when I limit my users too
much.

About the logo, I kind of agree with you. We're not designers, we just thought
the plus sign kind of conveys friends + something extra. It took us a few
minutes to do and it looks alright so we just let it go.

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mikerhoads
If you go with your first model, you are creating more a lottery.

The second model ties payment to the more valuable reward of an actual match.
It might not happen that often but if you go with this model, you are betting
that your app will work and provide value to your users. This is an actual
service and the route I believe you should take.

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mikerhoads
Also, people might dig it if you could filter out family members from the list
of people to pick from.

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jonathanchiu
Yeah, the second method does seem to make more sense. But I don't think
filtering out a few family members matter much when you have hundreds of
friends.

What do you feel about $5 for a match though?

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mikerhoads
From a guy's perspective, alerting them to a match means "We've got a near
guarantee of repeated sex with someone you find attractive". Most guys would
pay more than 5 bucks for that but $5 is a fair starting number.

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jonathanchiu
Can't agree more.

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Dnguyen
Do you think FB will let you run with this? How do you handle underage users?
I think you'll have a lot of hurdles to overcome.

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jonathanchiu
We did see many 'friends with benefits' groups on facebook, so we didn't think
facebook would care too much about it.

