

Ask HN: Review my bootstrapped startup, Moment Garden - garbowza

My co-founder and I created Moment Garden as a simple and secure site for parents to save and share memories of their children with their close family &#38; friends.<p>We allow parents to save stories, photos, and even video by simply emailing their moment to their child's custom Moment Garden email address (e.g. billy.smith@momentgarden.com), much like Posterous does for blogs.<p>All data is private by default, and parents have complete control over which family and friends have access to view their Moment Garden timeline and receive updates of new moments.<p>We have not officially "launched" (as in sought out press), yet through word of mouth we have seen some good, early growth.<p>We'd appreciate feedback from HN regarding the site, the messaging, usability, and usefulness. Any other ideas are welcome and appreciated as well!<p>http://momentgarden.com
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mikecomstock
Very cool idea. I've been wanting something like this for a while, but for my
own memories.

I have a pretty horrible memory, and I'd like a simple site what I can email
or SMS or enter posts about things I do, or random memories from my childhood.
When I get older, I'll wish I had entered them all somewhere.

Privacy would be my main concern - I'd want to permission it only to my wife
and children, and maybe a few others. I'd want my data encrypted, so admins
can't even see it.

Something like this would also be great for couples - documenting
relationships over time and being able to look back on them later. Emails
could automatically go out on a certain date every year to remind you of
something that happened on that date.

Also important would be getting my memories out. If the system ever went
defunct, I'd want my data emailed to me or something.

~~~
cjkundin
Thanks for the feedback!

Privacy is a big deal for our users and we take it seriously. Only the people
you elect to see your garden will see it. Data encryption for storage and
transportation (SSL) is on the horizon.

We're currently working on an export feature to automate the retrieval of your
moments but in the mean time, if you email us we'll zip them up for you.

It's funny you mentioned the relationship use case since we have a few users
that are already using it for that. One of them is using it like a time
capsule and giving it to her boyfriend for their 1 year anniversary.

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AmberShah
Love it. I'm a mom and I already know I'd use this.

Currently we use a combination of Facebook and email to get stories and pics
out to people. So it would be nice if we could continue using them that way
(ie. family members subscribe via email, and when we post something it
automatically emails them the new text/pics AND it also posts on our facebook
accounts)

My husband's response when I showed him the link: "thats brilliant / why didnt
i think of that / damnit / its awesome" (over IM)

~~~
cjkundin
Thanks for the feedback! You can add family members to contribute and they can
elect for immediate, daily or monthly digests. Although not "automatic" yet,
you can choose to share individual moments (and only those) of your garden to
Facebook and we'll even show the comments in your garden.

We hope you like it, and feel free to send any comments/questions our way!

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triviatise
I love it, we do this with facebook but it is clumsy and facebook is
constantly trying to make the stuff public.

I would love an ipad app so stuff I shared would show up on a dashboard for
grandma and grandpa who arent competent at using the internet (i.e. picture
frame which shows the newest stuff from the kids)

I also saved a bunch of events like first food etc that I lost during a hard
drive crash, love the idea of emailing to mark the events.

~~~
garbowza
Thanks for the feedback and encouragement! We've created the timeline such
that it looks beautiful on an iPad, filling up the full screen. However, we
have our eyes on a native app as well.

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michaeldhopkins
I have a few small children and I like the idea. However, I ran into a snag
when I attempted to set up an account. First of all, I can't add all my
children at once. I have to add a child, skip the invites, click on the
child's name up top, then click "Add garden." So, unless I misunderstand, it
looks like I can't have all of my children in one garden. What do I do if I
want to e-mail in a vignette about two of my children or all of them? And how
will my family view the timeline of all children at once? If you have an
answer for this, you could make that a little more clear.

~~~
cjkundin
Hi,

Great feedback and we definitely need to make that more clear on our site!
Thanks.

We're working on a "family" view so you can see all your kids in a single
timeline. If a user wants to email a moment for two kids, they could add them
both to the "to:" field and we'll show it in each of the recipient's garden
and eventually combine them in the family view. However, you're right - from
the web, this is not possible yet. We tried to keep things as simple as
possible, but this is something we'll have to consider going forward.

~~~
michaeldhopkins
Please send out a marketing e-mail when you have that ready. I think it would
really make it work for us.

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JonLim
Very cool idea! Well designed and presented, definitely something I will be
recommending to a few friends and family who have kids.

Question: on the technical side, what languages/frameworks do you guys use?

In addition, I'd love to talk to you about providing outbound transactional
emails.

Good luck with this, cheers!

~~~
cjkundin
Thanks! We use the LAMP stack with a few frameworks (CakePHP, jQuery) and
wrote some custom video processing code. Feel free to email us at
support@momentgarden.com

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vipivip
Like it, what's the revenue model?

~~~
garbowza
We're working now on integrating product purchases, such as photos and photo
books from the moments saved in the garden.

Additionally, we're exploring a premium version with more advanced features
that our users have asked for.

~~~
vipivip
I would go with premium features.

------
iworkforthem
easy to click: <http://momentgarden.com>

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cracked
What are some of the advanced features you might provide?

~~~
garbowza
We've gotten a ton of requests, but among the most popular are photo albums,
family gardens (showing all of a parents' children together), photo editing,
and custom backgrounds.

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tuacker
How about making it dead easy to get all pictures in print. For example take a
look at Apple iPhoto app (OSX) which allows you to easily create an album and
have it print.

~~~
garbowza
Yes yes yes! We're actually working on that as we speak.

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jvdmeij
Great idea. Reminds me of memolane.

One suggestion: Put up a real example, so people can play with the app
immediately.

~~~
garbowza
Thanks for sharing Memolane. I hadn't seen that before, but it definitely
looks cool.

And I really like your idea of putting a real Moment Garden on the home page
to allow interaction. You're right, that would help visitors grok the concept.

~~~
jvdmeij
Not a problem. Did you also see lifepath.me? Good to know who are also in the
same space.

~~~
garbowza
Yeah, we have seen that. Definitely similar concept, but different market.
Really impressive implementation!

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abbasmehdi
I am recommending it to about 10 people right now!!! This is very very useful!

~~~
garbowza
Excellent - we really appreciate it! If you have any suggestions for making it
better, we are all ears.

~~~
abbasmehdi
Here is a summary of feedback I have been getting from first-time new moms in
their late twenties with babies between 6 months and 1.5 yrs old, moms are all
top 50 university grads:

i) They loved the idea - first impression: Aww cutee!! (Which is awesome!)

ii) They didn't know what to do with the main page, how to get started - they
missed the big orange join now button. Drive the getting started process
harder.

iii) Felt confused by so much info about apps and such in the bottom - get
them in first then go into benefits. They said you could totally do away with
"Why you'll love Moment Garden..." on the main page - they were sold at
"Create and Share your Child's Story". Just say how it’s easy and private –
sold!

iv) They thought it might be hard to maintain, tell them quickly on main page
how it’s easy to keep updated with emailing. Upload a short video maybe?

v) They have already had their kids, and thought "I missed my first child's
Moment Garden, so I will start with the next one I guess", if someone ever
says I’ll will come back later, they are never coming back, promise! I think
this is because you start with conception in your main page image, most
parents don't think about this stuff till they have a baby, my suggestion is
to start with first steps, so you don't alienate existing parents (many) at
the cost of trying to capture future parents (few).

vi) There is totally a need! If you don't succeed it’s your own fault. So
never back off! :)

~~~
garbowza
Wow, this is incredible. Can't thank you enough!

We're working on a few of these now, based on your feedback. Do you mind
sending me an email? zack@momentgarden.com

~~~
abbasmehdi
No worries bro! Just sent you an email saying hi.

