

Ask HN: Is my concept and current application viable? - apedley

Hi<p>I have recently finished the first launchable product of my "startup" for want of a better word. http://jv.binkd.com<p>The basics - it connects businesses to join together to form joint ventures to help increase both of their businesses.<p>I am struggling to get constructive feedback on this application and whether it is actually ready for me to take further or needs a different approach.<p>The responses from people testing so far have been, looks good, good concept and it will be useful once you have lots of people. Not exactly confidence building.<p>So my question, is it just the people I require to increase it's usefulness and am I ready to hit my foot on the accelerator?<p>Currently this is funded by my other business activites in Binkd (Jvee is a small off shoot), I am not new to business but am fairly new to web based startups and the startup community in general.<p>I would be very greatful for anyone who could offer constructive feedback on this application and concept.<p>Thanks
Adam
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nithyad
Hi Adam,

I just went through your site. A few things from the 5 mts I spent there

1\. I find the name hard to pronounce. It would be tough for me to remember
the name let alone spread it 2\. As a business owner you didnt convince me
about how exactly I benefit by collaborating with other businesses. Any case
studies? Personal experience? I haven't felt the need to collaborate with
other businesses to improve mine. But if you can convince me about it I
wouldn't mind trying it. 3\. Monetization. What are your plans?

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apedley
Thanks for checking out the site. Some case studies would be a great idea, I
am about to use the software myself (in real business) to setup/manage a few
JV's, I shall publish the results. Thanks for that idea.

Monetization - freemium model. Once numbers have increased to a threshold, the
amount of businesses you would wonder who you could trust. Business
relationships are formed around trust. So additional verification added to
businesses who want to upgrade and also the current limit of a max of 5 active
Joint Ventures lifted, among a few other things.

Thank you for giving your feedback. I appreciate the time you took to do it.

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nithyad
All the best!

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apedley
Thanks, Also in addition to the case studies that I need to put up, I do
actually have a blog post on ways businesses can work together, if your
interested to read over it or maybe it will give greater insight into what
binkd is trying to achieve.

[http://jvblog.binkd.com/general/10-ways-to-expand-your-
busin...](http://jvblog.binkd.com/general/10-ways-to-expand-your-business-by-
joint-ventures/)

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notahacker
The one issue I have with the concept is that "joint venture" means so many
things to different businesses - it can be as simple as pooling cash for a
marketing campaign (probably quite easy to arrange via a website like yours)
or as complicated as setting up a separate legal entity after years of debate,
due diligence and contract negotiation. Generally I'd consider things like
sponsorship and donations (mentioned in your blog post) to be a different
beast entirely.

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apedley
There are 2 ways to do this, either open up and do it more as a social b2b
site and not so focused on JV's or close it down further and more specifically
what type of JV this site accepts.

You are right that JV means a lot to different people and I think that the
word joint venture probably has to go and I need to close this down further to
only support certain types of joint ventures.

Any suggestions?

And thanks for taking the time to look at my site.

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apedley
Ok, 30 mins, not one piece of feedback. I did learn about links becoming
active in comments and not posts, which is something at least.

Maybe I should ask the question on how do I get people to respond to my
questions? Because my experience over the last week is showing I am failing
fairly badly at it. :)

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veb
My 2 cents... I don't want to sign up to see how the system works, I'd rather
be looking at other businesses with goals similar to mine, and if I want to
get in touch... BOOM! Sign up time.

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apedley
Just an idea. If made the search open to the public, but required a little bit
of information at the start e.g. what industry you are in etc (some search
parameters, but not identifiable information) then it turned up unimpressive
results (as it would at the moment since there are not many businesses in
there)

Then say, do you want to be notified of any other businesses that are
interested in a JV with you in the future.

Would you signup to that? Or would you move along?

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veb
You raise an excellent point. I normally do shove my email address into things
to be notified of in the future, and the weirdest thing is I hardly ever get
notified.

I think this would work well (for people like me anyway...)

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apedley
Excellent. I think I might give that approach a try. Some extra coding for me
tonight, though it will be fairly easy to add to the existing site :)

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apedley
I have gone about this the completely wrong way.

Rebuild time :) (not as drastic as I just made it sound)

Thank you everyone for letting me think this out.

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newyorker
Linkity! <http://jv.binkd.com>

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apedley
what is the process for making a link active in HN.

Do I do html? BBCode?

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Skywing
links in the body of your post will not become a hyperlink. only in comments
do they become clickable.

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tst_
Just a small thing: Upload your logo in higher res

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apedley
Thanks, will do.

