

Ask HN: Review our Business TV Startup - zen53
http://meettheboss.tv/
Hey All,<p>Would love to get your feedback on a site I am working on at the moment. We just launched today so expect it to have a few bugs that need ironed out still.<p>Thoughts on branding/UI/Site content etc very much appreicated - either positive or negative. Will take them onboard/review and implement.<p>(Note: smart phone goodness a couple of weeks away)
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d4ft
So what extra does this provide outside of the numerous other startup/how to
rule world video sites (Mixergy comes to mind), and will whatever that extra
is make it monetizable? For instance, are you guys producing your own content,
and if so, are the people saying different things than they have already said
elsewhere? So in short, what value does meettheboss add to the already crowded
"how to run a good business" market.

~~~
zen53
Thanks for your insights. Big fan of Andrew's work. Yeah the content is
original and produced by us. The value-add is in the strength of the
interviewees we'd like to think. Breaking out an shining in this space is
definitely going to be a challenge. We are channelling all the value into the
content, ondemand access on multiple platforms (mobile, boxee, apps, widgets
etc), and working towards connecting the audience closer to the top CEO's of
the World. Thanks again.

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callmeed
First off, the design of the site is fairly solid. I think you did a good job
there.

As johnrob stated, the name might be an issue–you don't want your brand to
pigeon-hole you or give people the wrong impression.

I have no idea what your monetization strategy is, but I would look into a
paid section of the site. Offer the 2-10 min videos for free but have a
"premium" area where you have collections of 20-60 min videos available for
paid members.

You could also organize premium videos into groups and offer some sort of
"program" to entire organizations. Business training programs are big
business–especially in areas like management, customer service, conflict
resolution, compliance, etc. You could use something like Moodle
(<http://moodle.org/>) to offer videos, content, testing, and tracking.

Yes, I know it's expensive to create such content but if I were you, I'd go
looking for a partner–someone who has created these programs in analog/DVD
formats. Offer to repurpose their content for the web and share revenue.

Anyway, that's my $.02 ... might be beyond what you had in mind.

~~~
zen53
Really appreciate your thoughts Erik. The "premuim" area makes sense - this is
definitely on our roadmap. Love the idea/look of moodle will review this
further. Partnering makes huge sense for quality additional content for the
premium subscribers. Thank you

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Vindexus
"MeetTheBoss TV is where future leaders learn."

I think this is a bit ambiguous and sounds kind of marketingy. What does that
it exactly? I think something along the lines of " learn how to be a better
boss" or "how to climb the corporate ladder" or something along those lines
would be better.

I like the design though. It seems very clean.

------
johnrob
My first impression of the site was that it was a directory of videos
featuring bosses ("meettheboss.tv" implies just that). However, the site looks
overly complex given that mission... there are channels, articles, training,
podcasts, etc.

You should either make the product as simple as the name (i.e. simplify the
site's navigation and content so that it only includes boss videos), or change
the name/message to imply more than boss videos.

------
zen53
Hey All,

Would love to get your feedback on a site I am working on at the moment. We
just launched today so expect it to have a few bugs that need ironed out
still.

Thoughts on branding/UI/Site content etc very much appreicated - either
positive or negative. Will take them onboard/review and implement.

(Note: smart phone goodness a couple of weeks away)

~~~
mbreese
This is a very US centric comment, but the format of the dates threw me off
for a minute. I suspect you're a European company, so you use DD/MM/YY.
However, if most of your audience is US, they'll expect MM/DD/YY. As a
compromise, you could do Jan-18 or 18-Jan, or something like that... that was
the very first thing that stuck out to me though.

Well, that and the small size of the interviews. I would like to see the
interviews be a little longer. Perhaps you're planning on splitting a longer
interview into smaller chunks, in which case, it might be nice to let us know
what is coming down the line. If there are longer videos available to
registered users (which it looks like there might be), it wasn't very clear
how much longer they were or what other topics they covered. Perhaps you could
post two times. One for unregistered (2:30) and one for members (45:00). Then
you could have a breakdown of the topics, and show which chunk the
unregistered viewers get to see.

Also, while watching a video my scrolling position would frequently change. If
I was scrolled all the way to the top, it would scroll down (presumably to
make the ad visible?). This was distracting. If you need to have the ad
visible, you might consider relocating it next to the main video player.

I'd like to see more though... good luck!

~~~
zen53
Will look into the video scrolling...that shouldn't happen at all. The US
centric comment makes perfect sense as this is our target market.

It seems we need more of a call to action at the end of the video to pre-empt
registration to watch the whole video. The idea of showing the difference
between unregistered/members video lenghth/breakdown of topics is great and
one I would like to implement. Cheers

