

Show HN: Spoffer – Not just another deals site - vaitko
http://www.spoffer.net

======
vaitko
Some more links for those are interested:

[http://www.spoffer.net/help/about](http://www.spoffer.net/help/about) \-
short explainer how it works

[http://www.spoffer.net/help/business](http://www.spoffer.net/help/business)
\- explainer how it works for business

[http://editor.spoffer.net/edit](http://editor.spoffer.net/edit) (user: demo,
pwd: demo123) - see drag&drop offers editor in action

Don't want to describe this project anymore there and i hope that links above
are quite explanatory, but if you have some question - welcome, I'll gladly
answer.

This is one-man-army project. Idea born in my head few years ago and I started
brainstorming and developing at odd moments. It took so long because I was
creating it alone, and in case that I'm developer some parts took quite much
time like layouting and creating design, I had a feeling "how it should look"
but didn't have desire to hire expensive designer or so, in case that it was
not designed to "earn money" from the start and was more like hobby :) So
finally it looks more or less how I imagined it, but... I understand that not
everything is fine... I understand that i need solve chicken-egg problem: no
business wants to publish offers if there is no quite big community, and how
to get community when there is no bussiness publishing offers... I have a plan
how to solve it, but i think I'll need some cooworkers/coofounders for that at
least marketing expert and designer at first - if you feel that you would like
to take a part there please contact me gintaras[eta]spoffer.net

And of course I'm waiting for any kind of response, please write what is your
first impression when visiting this website? What do you think about such
approach in general? How does desing look for you? Whats is missing, what are
the main drawbacks from the first sight?

Thank you very much!

~~~
ghayes
Is it possible to view the about / business pages without registering?

~~~
vaitko
Looks like fixed, should be fine now :)

~~~
ghayes
Cool, looks fixed over here.

------
lazyeye
Looks like a great site and well executed. Im left with the impression though
that the layout/design could do with some extra polish. Im not a designer
myself so cant really make useful suggestions. Perhaps submit your site to :-

[http://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques/](http://www.reddit.com/r/design_critiques/)

to get some feedback.

------
skiltz
I didn't really understand the 'how it works' video, I 'subscribe to a
business' and then what? Do I get emailed with offers or do I need to go back
to the website to see new offers? How are you going to get people back to the
site after the first viewing if you're not going to email or connect with them
on social media?

~~~
vaitko
Yes the main idea is that after you subscribe to businesses you're interested
in you are able to access your offers stream in several ways: of course you
get notification emails about new offers from businesses you're subscribed if
you want to get it (there will be settings for that because idea behind of
that is that EMAIL IS NOT FOR SUCH THINGS LIKE SPECIAL OFFERS:) ) also there
will be push notifications in mobile apps about new offers you're interested
in (subscribed) and maybe you want to visit spoffer directly to see "whats
new" like you do with your Facebook social news stream? :)

~~~
fapjacks
>Push notifications in mobile apps

There's no way this could get annoying. Push notifications are great for
things like SMS, voicemail, email, and emergency management alerts (such as
amber alerts, or if there is a fire nearby), but coupled with anything
resembling advertising -- even if the user claims they want to see it -- I
would wager heavily that it will cause a service to hemorrhage users. Is this
an opt-in only "feature"?

~~~
vaitko
Agree. The idea is to have all notifications configurable, only "silent"
notification which is visibile when you connect to website or app, email
notification on/off, mobile app notification on/off - for example if you're
preparing for your new skying season and want to buy some new equipment, maybe
its not so annoying to get push notifications from www.dickssportinggoods.com
about great sale of winter goods?

------
kip_
So you want to be yet another place I need to check in with to get these
offers and provide the tracking, analytics and subscriber numbers to sell to
businesses?

In addition to Facebook, Twitter and my regular email.

~~~
vaitko
In fact yes. But its the same with every new service or? Also "sell to
businessess" is not really correct wording... why? Because after you register
on spoffer and subscribe to some channels (businesses) spoffer itself is the
only one "entry point" to you for businesses. They don't get your email or
social network access and you don't risk to get spam there later on.

------
baudehlo
Would a good description of this be Red Flag Deals with a way better UI? Looks
awesome.

~~~
vaitko
RedFlagDeals like others (slickdeals.net, dealspl.us and etc.) are quite
different - there are community found and posted deals with some

"premium/partners" ads mixed. Spoffer works in a different way - people get
deals and offers directly from businesses. Business channel on

spoffer is smth like business Facebook fan page, but entire solution is
dedicated to special offers without any noise and with all necessary

tools for businesses (offers editor, analytics) and for people who want to
discover offers as well. Also it could be treated as new generation

marketing channel which is a bit similar to email marketing, but businesses
are collecting spoffer subscribers instead of email addresses and

other side - people, are getting these offers to their offers stream instead
of email box.

------
wengzilla
Just out of curiosity... How are you planning on monetizing this?

~~~
vaitko
Well in case that its advertising platform there are a lot of different
monetizing ways like pay per click (pays business), "staff recommended"

offers which pops to the top and are "more visible" than others, or some
pricing scheme with "pay as you go", "monthly subscription" and etc.

------
panacea
Is this for me? I'm in Australia.

~~~
vaitko
Not yet. The idea is to have it globally, but for now only some well known US
brand names are covered. But your question is about different markets, its
impossible to launch such kind (business to people) of website in all over the
World at once :) But theoretically - yes, of course its for you in case there
will be a lot of Australian retailers, service providers and etc. publishing
their offers.

