

Ask HN: Review my startup, reasons2.com - pretotyper

http://www.reasons2.com<p>We'd appreciate your feedback on the concept and on it's ease of adoption.
Thanks a ton.
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brendanchua
I can see the potential here.

I guess the barrier to signups would be how useful is the site for visitors.
Is the site useful in functionality? (the way quora.com is) Or more of a fun
way to read light-hearted content? (the way 9gag is). To get the first 1,000
users, it might be useful to target a niche segment, rather than a catch-all
segment.

Also, this site seems similar to quora.com. People ask questions on quora,
whereas you are soliciting reasons. Yes, I can see how there is a slight
differentiation here. So it might be useful to actuall really make it more
explicit, probably through sample posts, what kind of content are you trying
to capture here that makes you different from asking a question on quora.com.

Probably the content can be more compelling. Asking questions like "why I
should exercise?" may not really interest the average visitor. I probably
already expect more than half the answers there. More compelling content could
be questions like "why are people allowed to carry guns in the states?". And
then users can try to frame these questions in the reasons2-esque style:
"Reasons for allowing guns in the states". Such content sounds a lot more
compelling, and might motivate users to sign up and participate in such a
'forum' of sorts.

There certainly is potential. But the differentiation from websites like quora
has to be deliberate here. That's my two cents, hope it helped.

~~~
pretotyper
Thank you for the feedback brendanchua.

There are a few key differentiators in my mind but I agree it isn't clearly
communicated to the end user yet. As for the content, I thought that among
what's posted so far there would be something that peaked someone's interest,
enough to sign up. obviously a bad assumption and I'll rework that part.

All comments have been very helpful. Appreciate everyone making the time.

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JacobAldridge
I like the community feel of this, and the focus on reasons "to do" something
rather than not.

Like any community site, there's challenges getting the group to a point where
it has traction.

There's also the 'will this actually help?' question in my mind. Specifically,
if someone is thinking about doing something (like writing a book) hard enough
to post it here, then they probably have enough good reasons to go for it.
There's just something stopping them - fear of time, not knowing how etc.
Perhaps threads would evolve from Why into How - knowing Why to do something
is essential, but not knowing How kills a lot of great ideas as well.

~~~
pretotyper
Thanks JacobAldridge.

Linking the how is something we want to consider for sure. I'm particularly
interested in the getting traction part. Finding the early adopters who will
try something new and who will contribute even if the site is still in a
pretotype or MVP state. Any suggestions/comments/best practices you recommend
for user seeding and adoption? Cheers.

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superqd
So, are you supposed to create a topic, and explain why it's worth pursuing,
or are you supposed to create a topic and other people are supposed to give
you reasons why it should be done? I can't quite tell.

You may need to seed it with people who are good at motivating others. Most of
the motivations I read for many of the topics seemed somewhat, um, non-
compelling.

~~~
pretotyper
You post something that you want to do but are on the fence about and solicit
reasons why you _should_ do it. You can add reasons of your own too, but
having others contribute may give you added perspective, humor, you name it.
Agreed in needs to be seeded with users for more compelling content. What
would you say is the biggest barrier to signing up?

~~~
superqd
Well, there isn't a barrier to signing up, it's just that there isn't a
compelling reason to sign up. I perused a number of topics, and none of the
reasons (the name of the site) were interesting, funny or motivating. Without
insightful or meaningful reasons for the existing topics, it just doesn't draw
me in to be a member. Since the site it supposed to provide reasons to do
something, and the current reasons don't strike me as persuasive, then it
seems the site doesn't quite serve its intended purpose. Therefore I wouldn't
feel like it would be useful to sign up. I don't feel like I'd be missing out
on anything.

If the topics had reasons for doing things that were insightful or uncommonly
interesting, such that I found them at least interesting points to consider,
then I'd feel like I'd be missing out if I didn't join. But since the answers
to most topics were rather trite or banal, etc, then I didn't feel I learned
anything new. For something like this it would seem paramount that the reasons
provided (or at least, the top reasons) were original and very likely not the
commonly provided or well known reasons for doing that particular thing.

Maybe you guys should rank or measure originality (or motivational quality) of
answers. Or solicit the help of bloggers or other folks who are good at
thinking of "why".

~~~
pretotyper
Got it. So as I understand it, based on your feedback, thus far its a content
issue. If the content were there the concept could possibly hold. It's a
matter of finding the early adopters who are willing to see beyond what's
currently there and help build out the content/community. Thanks for your
feedback.

~~~
superqd
You are welcome.

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verelo
I don't get the revenue potential immediately, what model do you thinking will
work?

~~~
pretotyper
Thanks verelo for making the time to check it out. Without going into too much
detail yet, there are options. Would you have any feedback on the user
adoption part? Cheers.

