

Show HN: Nearby Buzz – Take control of your online reviews - dutchmaster

www.nearbybuzz.com<p>Today i&#x27;m launching my startup after more then a year of development. I quit my job last year to make web and mobile apps and Nearby Buzz is my first big project. Love to get some feedback and see what you guys think!
======
AznHisoka
This is one of the few useful products I've seen showcased in HN over the
years (congrats!), based on concept - I haven't tested the implementation, but
you've picked a great market.

One piece of feedback is that your pricing is way too low. Start at $99/month.
Get rid of the free plan, as it accomplishes nothing for you. Most businesses
are either mom and pop stores that will get by with the free plan, or
businesses with more than 1 location. And the mom and pop businesses probably
aren't the type of ppl that will write influential reviews that will recommend
you to other users.

~~~
twohlix_
Agreedo on increase in the pricing and removing the free tier. Free tier is
where you will spend all of your time in support with not much to show for it.
Maybe not $100/mo as that will prevent most of the mom and pop shops, maybe
move the free tier to $20/mo and the real deal to $99/mo. Pricing is hard.

~~~
deftnerd
This seems like a very good pricing model. If he wants mom-and-pop customers
to get a free taste, he can just make the first 30 days at the $20 level free.

------
mgkimsal
Maybe I'm too literal, or just... can't get past "terms of service", but...

Yelp TOS:
[https://www.yelp.com/developers/api_terms](https://www.yelp.com/developers/api_terms)

"You agree that you will not, and will not assist or enable others to: cache,
record, pre-fetch, or otherwise store any portion of the Yelp Content, or
attempt or provide a means to execute any "bulk download" operations, other
than storing Yelp business IDs which you may use solely for back-end matching
purposes;"

It _looks_ like you're storing Yelp Content. Or maybe reviews aren't "Yelp
Content" specifically? Or did you get a written waiver for this service?

Or does no one ever give a toss about these TOS, and just complain on twitter
when they get API access revoked?

~~~
secos
This is exactly why this product doesn't exist yet - I looked at building this
exact app 18 months ago.

Yelp expressly forbids this, and without Yelp, you don't have a product. That
said, I think it's stupid that Yelp disallows this and hope that OP succeeds.

~~~
mgkimsal
I've had numerous discussions with folks about projects that all involve
LinkedIn data. People always seem to assume they're the first people to have
idea X. After digging in about 18 months ago, I saw how limiting the LinkedIn
API was, and that basically none of the functionality people wanted to do was
possible. _technically_ possible? yes, for a while. Legally? It's outside
their terms of use, and you'd either get shut down or sued.

------
sageabilly
Good idea, great ability for companies who can make or break on reputation to
track what people are saying across all manner of review sites. Have you
thought about integrating into any other social media monitoring aggregators
like HootSuite? Any plans to let people reply to reviews through your
software?

Judging by you picking Founding Farmers in your example I'm thinking you might
be based in DC- if that's so and you ever want to talk shop with a techie
Business Analyst who's worked with big data and social media I'd love to buy
you a cup of coffee and pick your brain sometime.

~~~
dutchmaster
For social media platforms like twitter the user can reply, retweet or
favorite directly. Posts from google plus have links directly to the posts and
such. Love to do some of the features of hootsuite but had to start limiting
the scope to get something to launch. I am in DC! Send me an email at
hello(at)datafocusllc(dot)com.

------
huhtenberg
Really well done design-wise!

One thing that is probably worth clarifying that this is geared towards
physical businesses. It wasn't at all obvious until I tried to sign-up (to see
if I can use it for software products).

~~~
dutchmaster
Any thoughts on how to do so? I did notice several people signing up for
websites and not physical locations. Seems kinda of weird to have messaging
for "this must be a physical location!"

~~~
huhtenberg
"Take control of online reviews for your offline business" ?

------
Someone1234
I love the product.

A lot of companies need exactly this. For example you see Reddit threads where
someone badmouths a company which results in a lot of negative "buzz" around
it, and it seems to take the company a really long time to figure out the
origin so they can take some [hopefully] constructive action (e.g. apologise,
tell their side, etc).

I cannot help but wonder if your prices are far too low. $20 for your top end
plan seems insanely cheap and unsustainable. I'm not sure exactly what price
the market will bare in this case, but I also cannot see you being able to
make this a full time job on just $20/month. You'd have to have 166 clients
and $0 in running costs just to bring in a $40K/year salary (all pre-tax).

I think if it did kick off a natural area of improvement would just be adding
additional social networks, in particular link-sharing sites (Reddit, Digg,
4Chan, HN, etc).

~~~
secos
Do you really see it being that difficult to get a few hundred customers for
this after your statement "A lot of companies need exactly this"?

~~~
Someone1234
I think you're taking my example too literally. Note the $0 in running costs.
It will take significantly more than 166 to see a workable single employee
salary.

The price as it stands likely isn't sustainable no matter how good the product
is. Unless he plans running in part time, but this doesn't seem like the type
of project that can be run part time (a lot of moving parts that could
potentially break).

Really you're paying for integration into a dozen different platforms.

------
brandedMan
Awesome landing page design. Did you build it?

~~~
dutchmaster
Yep. Spend way too much time on it but it was my first real web design. Come
from an agency background where I worked with designers.

------
eugeneross
From a design standpoint, great job on the site! I love all the little
interactions and attention to detail. I also like the overall scope of the
service and will use it personally. Awesome job and good luck in your future!

~~~
dutchmaster
Nice! love the hear that from a designer. First time designing something
myself.

------
mirzmaster
Design looks great, though I've encountered a bug. When I click "Get Started"
the signup modal displays. Clicking the browser's back button after this
removes the signup form, but leaves the modal in place. Continuing to hit the
back button appears to toggle display of the signup form. Hitting the 'x' in
the top right corner will dismiss the modal.

~~~
dutchmaster
Missed this one. Should all be fixed now.

------
gingersnap
Tried to signup, just to check it out and give feedback, but seems to be US
only for the moment. I'm ok with only US, especally in a beta phase, but it
would be nice if that was stated, at least on the signup page.

Positive: Like the idea, it looks simple to use, like the Freemium offering
and the landing page is clean and clear.

~~~
dutchmaster
Good point. I did have to limit it to US only, natural language processing can
get really hard, especially if you don't speak the language. Using natural
language processing to extract keywords from reviews. Actively looking on how
I can add more areas, hopefully add more countries in the future.

~~~
dean
Sounds like the limitation is on the language of the review, not on where the
user lives.

------
splike
I just registered the infamous Amy’s Baking Company restaurant without any
verification. Even though it is all public information I'm looking at and I
can't do any harm, it feels as though I shouldn't have been allowed to do
this. Can each business only be registered to a single account?

~~~
dutchmaster
I've actually heard this before; for locations such as Amy's Baking Company
you really do get an inside look into the day to day operations of the
business. During the preview you can only have one location but when I
complete the product users can have unlimited locations. There would be a fee
for every additional location.

------
iqihs
Great idea and looking really polished!

I noticed that there are screenshots/views of the application, but perhaps you
might want to have a short video showing it's use in real time?

Also just a minor note: the "Back" button in my browser (Chrome on Mac)
doesn't work after I visit the Login/Sign Up views.

~~~
dutchmaster
Thanks you! and good points.

A video would definitely help explain the product a bit, i'll get on this for
sure.

I was able to reproduce the back button issue, i'll fix this right now.

~~~
amelius
I also noticed that when you click "login", the keyboard focus is not on the
first input field.

------
juliancox
Create an API we can tap into and allow inclusion of other more local review
sites relevant to us eg: [https://www.zomato.com](https://www.zomato.com)

Then our site, www.eftplus.co.nz has customers that would be willing to pay
for it as an add-on.

~~~
dutchmaster
Zomato is a source nearby buzz can retrieve reviews from but I agree. It would
be nice if there was an API that would make it easy for it to digest custom
data.

------
tixocloud
Congratulations on launching! It's well polished and very nice. We're doing
something in the same market but a slightly different take on it so we're
definitely interested to see the space grow.

Good luck!

------
aresant
I work with a local biz with ~70 locations, just signed up and would consider
switching over from a competitor based on your pricing / UX - what's the best
way to get in touch w/you?

~~~
dutchmaster
Feel free to reach out at hello(at)datafocusllc(dot)com

------
magic_beans
Design is AWESOME. So many HN showcases are really lacking in design, but this
is great. This is also a really interesting concept! Well done!

------
h4waii
"Terms of Serivce" in your footer.

Not sure if "with each week’s statistics and analyses" should be _analysis_.

~~~
dutchmaster
Thanks for catching these. Will fix them right away. I'm a one man show, bound
get a few things wrong.

------
thebiglebrewski
Tried to signup and I get "unable to process request, please try again later".
DM me when it's ready!

~~~
dutchmaster
Workers had a hard time keeping up with the demand, things should be better
now.

------
designml
The design looks great and congrats on launching! May I ask what is your tech
stack if you dont mind me asking.

------
bsbechtel
Can this be used for an e-commerce company? Curious because I'm in the process
of launching one...

~~~
dutchmaster
Currently it's for physical locations only. I'm hoping to move to products and
companies like ecommerce in the future.

~~~
bsbechtel
Awesome! How can I register to get news when you do start working on those
projects?

------
mukarramtailor
The features of the product are cool but a great design make it all a lot
attractive.

------
nazjunaid
Sounds interesting would like to give it a try but cannot register from UK

------
sixQuarks
I really like what you're doing. How can I get in touch with you?

~~~
dutchmaster
Feel free to reach out at hello(at)datafocusllc(dot)com

------
kirk21
Cool! I could see some of my friends using this. The pricing is confusing for
me. Why don't you just say free trial?

We are working on an invoicing tool for Freelancers:
[http://recurvoice.com](http://recurvoice.com)

------
benHN
Design looks nice! Good luck

~~~
dutchmaster
Thanks!

