

Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.) - mikegreenberg

Hello!<p>Every once in a while, I like to offer my time to help other passionate people be a little more successful with their goals. If there's anything I can help you with, just ask here. No strings whatsoever.<p>If you'd like my help: Be specific about what you're trying to fix/solve/accomplish...your goal. The more details you provide, the better I can help you out.<p>I've done this before a few times now, and it's worked out well for everyone. Check out some of the previous "No strings" sessions I've done to get an idea of how I can help. (http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mikegreenberg)<p>Cheers<p>PS: If you'd rather give than receive:  Go find someone else to do something nice for...like give them a back rub. Those are fantastic! Or spend two minutes helping me validate a market. http://bit.ly/pmhS0U (Thank you!)<p>PPS: I will try to help all requests made before tomorrow afternoon or so and will attempt to complete by the end of Sunday. Be patient and check back. Also, I thought it was rude to mention before so I removed it, but I please keep requests to tasks I can do in ~15 minutes. I'll spend more time willingly, but smaller requests lets me help more people! Thanks. :)<p>PPPS: You guys are totally welcome to help each other out, too! (Request-maker, be sure to tip helpful replies!)
======
ido
Can you think of a way to improve my game's[1] interface, taking into account
that it has to work on both mobile devices and PCs?

Also, if you find any bugs I'd love to hear about it!

[1] <http://cardinalquest.com/free_edition/>

~~~
mikegreenberg
\+ The intro instantly made me want to play. (I love RPGs.) I'm certain you've
seen enough Square titles to see how they make epic introductions to their
games. I'm not sure what you built this with, but an epic intro is CERTAIN to
get people to try your game out.

As far as game interfaces are concerned, I need to understand the mechanics
behind your game and spend more time with it than I'm willing to now. I'll
spend time one evening going through it and will give a more thoughtful
response over the weekend. :)

~~~
mikegreenberg
Alright, I made it most of the way through the 4th floor, and then the
monsters became a bit overwhelming... I'll try again later but I feel I have
good handle on the game.

\- Harest part for me was the learning the hotkeys. Most game designers will
layout the slots to mimic the location of the hotkeys on the keyboard. I note
that the right-side spells start from hotkey 1 and the bottom quick-items
continue where the right side left off. You might find it more intuitive if
you laid them all across the bottom and put less space in between the icons.
To make it easy to visually determine which hotkey each button is, you could
group them in sets for 5. For example: [1][2][3][4][5]__[6][7][8][9][10]

\- Consider reducing the size of the buttons for the INV, MAP, and CHAR. These
are usually mapped to [I]NV, [M]AP, and [C]HAR as you have them so seasoned
players will not have trouble opening them. Hotkeys will be displayed on mouse
over anyway for newbies and you'll regain more of your play area.

\- With the MAP, INV, and CHAR buttons reduced, you can remove the left bar
and leave the portrait of your character as a floating box in the top right,
if you like.

\- The level of your character can be simply a number in the top corner of the
portrait. Players understand this is the level of the character. And you can
make this more obvious on level up, this number could GLOW briefly.

\- Health is probably the most important stat. I'd probably emphasize it by
making it thicker, or longer (or both?).

\- Sometimes, I see items disappear (I'm assuming because there are two of
them and you just drop them). Maybe you give the player a few points of XP or
a gold piece for the trouble. It sucks to find some treasure and it's of no
use to you at all. At least you can get a consolation prize. :)

What do you think?

~~~
ido
Good points all around!

About your last point, that's already the case - you get gold when an item is
destroyed, but maybe it could be conveyed better.

------
stuartk
Thanks Mike! Would you be able to give me some feedback on a product idea I'm
working on?

Its a platform for video tutorials where the student gives their response for
a lesson via video also. The first use case that comes to mind is guitar
teachers. Students can post video responses to lessons and be corrected/
advised. The teacher would pay for the platform and perhaps charge th students
through the site, or even off site.

Do you feel this has legs? Any thoughts or ideas welcome. Thanks! Stuart

~~~
mikegreenberg
I think it's a really good idea if you made it easy enough to record and
reply. The majority of your value will be based around those specific
interactions. (Video hosting is pretty much solved.) I would focus a lot of
your effort on the UI/UX end of it. If you're green on UI/UX, read:
<http://designingfortheweb.co.uk/book/>. Alternatively, hire someone who
rocks.

Additionally, I'm not certain online music teachers would be willing to pay
for such a product. Have you talked to any yet? Make some interactive mockups
(Balsamiq or Keynotopia) and visit a few schools. Try to find people who are
already sharing tutorials online and ask them.

~~~
stuartk
Thanks Mike, that's helped me see where I need to focus my attention.

I was looking at direct webcam recording, but was going to add that later. But
given your comments I think that is a must now, to enable quick and seamless
video comments and feedback.

Regarding music teachers paying, I mentioned in the other thread to Matt that
I may be thinking more towards making it free for teachers, charging students
per course, and taking a percentage.

Re mockups, I am creating html mocks, but I'll look at the quick prototyping
mockups so I can pitch to various music schools.

Thanks for the advice, you are a true gent!

~~~
mikegreenberg
My pleasure! ;)

------
brockf
I'd love if you could try a quick install of <http://www.heroframework.com>
(open source) and tell us (a) how did the install go and (b) do you know what
to do next to build your website with the product? :)

~~~
mikegreenberg
Unusual problem for me... I installed it on a MAMP instance and I don't seem
to be able to do an initial authentication. At first I thought just didn't
remember my username/password correctly. So I dropped my tables and started
again. But the same thing happened. I stepped back a few screens and noted
what I thought to be just weird typo... but it showed:

Your Account Credentials You can login to the control panel, and throughout
the site, with:

Username: or Password:

This is unmodified output from the page. It looks like the username and
password should be present here. It was not. So maybe something usual with my
installation of MAMP that could be creating this side effect.

The user record definitely exists. I don't see errors in the server logs. Want
to help me figure out where I went wrong?

------
chetan51
Hi Mike,

Thanks for your time and generosity! I just entered the beta phase for my
side-project OtherMind, a fast way to take notes and make lists
(<http://othermind.me>). I'd really appreciate it if you could try it out and
let me know whether you think it's useful and marketable. Any feedback in
general would also be great.

Thank you so much!

~~~
inconditus
Hi, just wanted to let you know your application is vulnerable to XSS. I can
impersonate users, steal login credientials, and more.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_scripting> for more inofrmation.

~~~
chetan51
But since anything you input to the system will only be displayed back to you,
how are you able to perform XSS attacks to steal other users' data? Did you
mean database code injection?

------
brlewis
I have a process for using Dropbox to upload a large number of photos. My goal
is to find out (1) is it easy, (2) does it _feel_ easy as you go along, and
(3) what unknowns might make users uneasy during the process. (Feedback that
doesn't serve this goal is welcome too.)

Pretend you want to try a site that automatically organizes your photos into a
blog-like format.

Share a new Dropbox folder with box@ourdoings.com

Think aloud during this process as follows:

    
    
      time question when-answered
    

Mostly just "time question", but sometimes you'll go back to note when you got
your answer, e.g.

    
    
      10:30 Shared the folder...what next?  10:45
    

Much appreciated!

P.S. I filled out your survey and left my email address.

~~~
mikegreenberg
10:06p Shared dropbox folder... seriously, what next? haha 10:07p

10:07p Got email describing next steps. I suppose I wait for human
intervention to arrive. (PS: So far, none of this is easy. If it weren't for
it feeling like a treasure hunt, I'd have probably given up already.)

10:12p Decided to register while I wait...

10:15p Got the welcome email...

10:17p Fell into a rabbit hole.

Sorry, but this is much too complicated. I realize this is a VERY early
prototype (I hope) but there is no way a user will open an uploaded html doc
to follow a url in order to link my account to my shared folder. Surely there
is some other way of doing this via Dropbox's APIs?

~~~
brlewis
Thanks for the valuable feedback on this process. 57 users have gone all the
way through it, or an even more complicated previous setup, but 19 abandoned
it in the middle (including you). I've looked at the Dropbox API before, and
at the time it didn't seem as good as the shared-folder method. I'll have
another look, keeping in mind what a big UX difference it could make.

~~~
mikegreenberg
I really feel this is important to invest significant time into. The
onboarding is probably the biggest touch point with your customers and their
first experience. Further, just because users have completed the process, it's
important to ask if they are happy after completing it. Satisfaction is a much
more worthy goal.

~~~
brlewis
I agree onboarding is key, especially at this point. Most users will start
from the web site, not from sharing a folder, but some will start from sharing
a folder, and I want that process smooth. I've got post-setup satisfaction
among the (mostly early-adopter) users who've tried it, but that's because
they only have to do it once. The "amazingly sweet solution" quote on
<http://ourdoings.com/> is from someone who went through the previous, even
more complicated setup. But I definitely do need to make it smoother if I want
to attract even more early adopters, much less mainstream users.

~~~
mikegreenberg
I'm happy to try it again when you have an update. I've left my account
active.

------
pfui
Do you think there's still a market for feed readers? I've built one (not
public yet) with two somewhat distinct features: 1. you get a river of news
with the ability to perform complex search queries against your feeds; and 2.
it provides relevance sorting of articles based on your reading history. I've
found that search, when accompanied by tagging, provides a reasonable
alternative to the folder-based feed management approach while relevance
sorting helps cut down the time I have to spend wading through the never-
ending stream of articles. Should I consider opening it for the public? I
don't want to spend money on hosting and bandwidth unless there's a reasonable
chance to recover some of the associated costs.

~~~
mikegreenberg
Emphatically, yes!

.

.

.

What are you waiting for? It's not going to upload itself!

~~~
mikegreenberg
Seriously though, (don't take this personally, but) being concerned about the
hosting fees is probably one of the single worst reasons I've heard to NOT
launch something. As mentioned, there are HUGE swaths of services which will
host you for less than a dollar a month. Clearly, you won't be relying on them
to give you five 9's of uptime but will certainly give you enough of an
indication if your product satisfied enough paying customers to make it worth
your while.

Hell, if you want, I will put you up on my reseller server and not charge you
a red cent until you hit your 100th paying customer. And I'll even help you
migrate to better hosting when you're ready. No, you won't get 24/7 technical
support, but you'll get a control panel to handle 95% of what you'll need. Let
me know if you're interested.

Anyway, yes. If you feel like this is something you want to invest more time
into and want to offer it to the market, then by all means give it go. Worst
case scenario, you'll experience the sweet stench of failure. (At which point
you'll dust yourself off and try again.) :D

------
jpallen
I'm trying to expand my online LaTeX editor into a viable business. My
cofounder and I think there is potential for a great enterprise product where
we could really improve the workflow in publishing houses and teaching, where
LaTeX is used a lot. We've had enough feedback from individual users to think
this, but we're struggling to get our foot in the door with the people we'd
need to talk to about selling to them on a larger scale.

Basically we're new to this game and are struggling to get started. I don't
know if you or anyone can help, but it's worth a shot. Thank you very much for
lending your time like this, I hope the karma comes back to you!

~~~
Qworg
I've written any paper I've worked on in the last 7 years in LaTeX as soon as
it gets over 5 pages or has any math of any kind in it.

I'm currently writing a book with a publish house that uses Word templates
(dear god!) and it really sucks. =)

Here are a few pain points you need to solve (esp. for academics):

\- All the formats: If you can offer all journal/conference formats
(especially those that don't have LaTeX formats), you would be a godsend. \-
WYSIWYG -> LaTeX editing: Sometimes you don't want to handle all the boiler
plate. \- Integration with reference software.

Pain point for book houses: \- Converting their carefully designed styles into
LaTeX templates and back again. Can someone design up a doc template in Word
or whatnot, then bring it to your site and make a LaTeX template from it?

A few questions: \- How does your collaborative editing work? Can multiple
people work the same file at the same time? Also, it is pretty rare that this
happens in my experience - most papers are written by one person with some
help from others. \- In the end, without formatting or the other things
mentioned above, you've got a place to store/share LaTeX docs. Given that,
your pricing is a bit odd. However, with the features listed, I think it'd be
a great product (at an awesome price).

~~~
jpallen
Thanks for the feedback, it's really useful. I think you're right that a big
problem is the lack of compatibility between word and latex, particularly
since few people know both well. We've been concentrating on just the latex
side since it's what we know, but taking a wider view might help.

We're currently adding in templates and formats, as well as looking at how we
can better integrate with other referencing tools.

Collaborative editing is not real time but warns and merges if you are editing
a document at the same. I think the ease of use for collaborating is our main
selling point at the moment, but I agree our pricing needs refinement. First
we need to fix our focus and main features.

Thank for your time in replying.

------
gmichnikov
Hi Mike, I'm new to coding, and I'm building a site (using php) that I'm going
to try to launch as a paid product in a couple of weeks:
<http://www.gmatboost.com>

I'd really appreciate any feedback you have on what I should add, remove,
change, be aware of, etc.

Also, I'm not sure how I am going to accept payment yet, so I'd be curious to
hear your thoughts on how I (i.e. someone with the bare minimum amount of
coding ability) could most easily and securely accept payment.

Thanks a lot, it's very generous of you to offer.

~~~
mikegreenberg
If you're new to coding, it doesn't show in the least. At a second's glance,
this is a polished site. Very clean layout and presentation. Clear
communication of value-add. And I assume the images of the colleges gives
semblance of social-proof for your product. Excellent!

(I don't understand why but cooler colors tend to do much better producing
academic products. I have nothing but subjectivity to back this up, but I
notice this over and over again.)

As far as accepting payment, I recently came across Stripe. It's completely
free to implement and play with. PCI-compliant. You pay when you get paid. The
discount rate is a bit higher as a result of not having a monthly fee (which
is still reasonable). With their javascript library, your servers never see a
CC# and you remove a LOAD of liability from your business. I intend to use it
for my next project. They have a RESTful API with plenty of examples. And most
importantly for you, they have examples in PHP: <https://stripe.com/docs/api>

<http://stripe.com>

~~~
gmichnikov
Hi Mike,

Thanks a lot for the prompt reply. The polish is largely thanks to a purchase
from ThemeForest, I did very little on that front. The image slider was part
of that layout, and frankly I couldn't think of anything to throw in there
besides the images of the schools.

I will definitely check out Stripe, thanks. I saw their post on HN, my biggest
concern was whether or not I'll be able to figure out how to set it up, since
I've never really used an API and I don't know much at all about JavaScript. I
guess we'll see.

Thanks again. In the unlikely event that you know someone who could use some
pointers on any math or test prep, feel free to let me know.

~~~
mikegreenberg
Of course. Just realize that many universities have services like this
provided by the local honor society and chatpers. (I know this to be the case
at my current university, where I ran the program there.)

~~~
gmichnikov
Would you mind clarifying what specifically you were referring to as "services
like this"? I am curious what type of service you had in mind.

~~~
mikegreenberg
Our engineering society at school provided tutoring and workshops for test
prep on major exams. PE, GRE, and some industry specific certifications. I
would imagine there are other organizations who provide tutoring and workshops
for other tests as well. This is primarily what I'm talking about and will
likely be competition for you.

------
cliftonmckinney
Hey thanks! Would love your feedback on <http://www.workforpie.com/>. It's a
resume of sorts, built specifically for software developers, and based
primarily on open source contributions to Github and Bitbucket.

I'll leave it wide open, but would especially like to know what
feature/features you think might make it useful to you. (survey completed, btw
:) )

~~~
zheng
As a user, it would be nice to know exactly how the score is calculated. I can
see what part comes from which site, but for instance, my github profile only
contributed 2 points to my WFP profile. Is this because I only have 2 repo's?
Or because my repository isn't watched/forked? Or is it based on updates, etc?

I really enjoy the site, however. If I could add one feature, it would
probably be a short landing page that I could edit to maybe include a short
description and maybe a link to a blog/resume.

~~~
cliftonmckinney
Thanks for the feedback. I think we can do a better job of telling folks what
makes up their score. The exact algorithm does change, but general guidelines
about what percentage comes from code, what from Stack Overflow, etc., and
maybe what weighs most heavily in the code equation would be a good thing.
Working on some tweaks to the "about" section of the site this weekend, so
we'll try to incorporate a few of these things.

FYI - Code is king. Most of the score comes from code contributions, and forks
and watchers are much more important than followers. :)

------
gsiener
Sure:

Go to <https://app.profitably.com/plan_ahead> and model out a business. Would
love to hear your thoughts on 1) how we can streamline that process 2) where
you felt most confused or lost

Thanks! Graham

~~~
mikegreenberg
Thoughts as I go through:

\- Interface is quite busy. There is no clear call to action so I have to wade
through the elements to see what I'm suppose to do first. (I highly recommend
you play around with Wufoo's onboarding process to get an idea of a clearly
defined path.)

\- I like how you broke up the steps to the left, but it's not clear they are
steps until I click NEXT. Conventionally, links to the left of a page are used
for navigation. Placing numbers to the left and bring more attention to the
current step to clarify that there is a flow here.

\- I really appreciate the supporting material. (Video, articles...) The video
would probably be very beneficial to introduce the step to the user and what
they will do. Find a way to shorten the video to a 30 second overview and then
offer a longer 3 minute version if the user is interested in hearing more. The
30 second clip might start when the screen first loads. (The auto load should
probably be limited to new users only... saved users will have already seen
this and will annoy them after some repetition.)

\- Find a lecture hall with carpeted walls and re-record those videos (or
invest in a clip mic). The echo is horrible in the video.... (still, major
points for having the video in the first place).

\- When you're segmenting customers, make the left area your "workspace" and
the right area your committed data. Allow the suggested segments to be
expanded. The first time the user does this in each step, give them tooltip
explanations of each field and what it means in the big picture. Just a few
lines are sufficient.

\- A progress bar would probably help for long processes like this. I'm now
noticing that the left side expands as additional steps are covered. So maybe
the numbering scheme above might not work. But some combination between
numbers actions and a progress bar should indicate to the user how far along
the process they are. I currently feel like I'm falling down a rabbit hole so
far...

\- I should be able to reorder each (Customer Acquisition) Stage ever after
they're added. Having to remove them after realizing it needs to be entered in
order is forcing the user to do work twice.

This process is drawing out. Had you not specifically asked me to look through
it, I probably would've given up a step or so back. I'm not sure what your on-
boarding process is like, but the user should be prepared to invest 30-60
minutes if that's what it will take. (And PLEASE make sure you justify why it
takes so long! Let the user decide if they want to make that investment with
full knowledge of benefits and value they'll get.) I'm going to stop for now
but I can continue on it later if you'd like. Hope these initial thoughts help
a bit for now.

~~~
gsiener
Mike:

This is great, and helps us confirm and prioritize areas we'd like to improve.
Would you mind if I emailed you with a few updates we're working on?

~~~
mikegreenberg
That's no (my initials) at nobulb.com will get an email to my inbox.

~~~
mikegreenberg
That's no problem.* (ha)

------
JoeCortopassi
This would be a huge help to me: I make 40k a year as a web developer, and it
provides for my family, but we definitely have to cut corners to make things
work sometimes. I feel like, given my work history, skill-set and ability to
learn, I am worth more than this. But when I apply for tech jobs, it seems
like my lack of a degree prevents me from even being considered.

Can you look at my LinkedIn profile(which is basically my resume), and tell me
how I can better show people that I can be a great asset to their team?

<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joe-cortopassi/24/76b/5b9>

(more info in my profile as well)

~~~
tarekayna
Joe - one thing I would point out to help you out here. Every listing under
your experience section is written like a story. People, especially
recruiters, don't have time to read all this. My advice would be to remove the
story format and have just bullet points that highlight accomplishments and
business results. For example "designed and developed xx project using
php/mysql"... "led the technical vision of xx".

~~~
JoeCortopassi
You think I should ditch the summary part altogether, or just put some bullet
points above it?

~~~
tarekayna
I would ditch the summary altogether. You would mention this stuff when
recruiters ask you in details.

Here is what I base this on: "Research has shown that your impression of
someone is generally based on the average of available information, not the
sum. So telling people one great thing about yourself will leave them with a
better impression of you than telling one great thing and one pretty good
one". Pitch Anything - Oren Klaff [http://books.google.com/books?id=P3EFa-
WuMMkC&pg=PA98...](http://books.google.com/books?id=P3EFa-
WuMMkC&pg=PA98&dq=average+available+information+%22pitch+anything%22&hl=en&ei=GwuZTrbGJK7XiAKszLmqDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)

So just provide bullet points of the highlights, the accomplishments and the
business results.

------
sprobertson
If you happen to have an Android phone it would be cool if you could try my
new app Trollaroid
[https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sprobertson.trolla...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sprobertson.trollaroidfree)
and let me know if you think it's fun, if it's easy to figure out, and if
there is one feature I could add that would instantly improve the user
experience. If you don't have an Android maybe just check out the homepage
<http://trollaroid.com> and see if there's one improvement I could make there.

~~~
mikegreenberg
This is pretty funny. If you could show the live image as it's being "trolled"
that might be fun. Otherwise, I think the app is perfect. Simple,
straightforward and funny. Awesome execution. (Killed a good 5 minutes with
the app...) Might just be worth the dollar and change. :)

------
hernan7
Hi Mike, thanks for your kind offer!

We have an old Windows XP machine that I would like to replace with a newer
Windows 7 one. However, my wife is used to the old machine; in particular she
has Internet Explorer manage all her auto-complete's and username/passwords
for different sites she uses.

I looked around for tools to at least copy the passwords to the new machine
but 1) Microsoft says it's not supported 2) the unofficial tools all look
super-sketchy.

Any ideas of how to transplant the auto-completes and passwords to a new
machine?

~~~
mikegreenberg
You could try the Files and Settings transfer wizard (In Start, Accessories,
System...) and see if that works for you. I'm not aware of any tools off the
top of my head, but (on principle) I would not rely on any auto-
complete/password storage to ensure I could do my day-to-day computing.

There are plenty of tools which help in this area which are guaranteed to
provide better support than Microsoft will. Things like KeePassX (for password
management) and (while I don't use it, I've hear good things about) Roboform
are supported by communities who are invested in a long-term solution. I would
really try to migrate to a new solution. Anything else would be putting a
band-aid over a festering wound.

Good luck! :)

------
iamjonlee
Hi Mike! Thanks for displaying such unselfishness and support. It's really
people like you who begin making a difference.

If you don't mind, I'd like to get some feedback for the landing page
<http://grooovy.me> . If this is something that you might be interested in,
signups would be appreciated. It would also help immensely if you can spread
the word about us in any way you can!

Again, thank you for taking the time out to do this. You're amazing.

~~~
mikegreenberg
Sure thing.... thoughts on the homepage:

\- Nitpick: The text left of the iPhone on Windows and Ubuntu is not
vertically centered on the band. I realize the headings line up horizontally,
but my OCD is still itching. (Chrome 14 on both.)

\- Nitpick: The active (blue) circle under the text to the right of the iPhone
is just a pixel or two too low. (Again on both Ubuntu and Windows w/ Chrome
14.)

\- Further Nitpick: On sliding the homepage over a few times, I feel this
color band across the back of the page is causing my OCD more problems than
text alignment. Maybe find another way to put a splash of color on the page.
Or make it more subtle.

\- I almost missed that I could slide the homepage over with the arrow, BTW.

\- I see the clever active email request form built into the iPhone demo on
step 2, but it'll probably get missed by the majority. Especially when there's
no reason to believe that anything is active in the demo area. (Even with
arrows.)

\- You mention a video in Step 4 but I see no video link anywhere.... ????

\- Do you track to see how many people get through to the end? Putting your
"RSVP" request only at the beginning and end (and hidden in step 2), you risk
missing conversions in the intermediate steps. I'd find a way to ask for that
RSVP on every screen.

Overall, the layout and walkthrough is nice and give users something to look
at if they're really interested. Nice work and easy on the eyes. I'm not an
iPhone guy so I can't help you there. Dropped a tweet for you because of the
decent execution here!

------
dougbarrett
Hi Mike,

I have created a free service for app developers to connect with their user
base through discussions, bug fixes and a static FAQs section.

I have some features I will be working on soon (closing bugs, assigning bugs,
"private" apps, RSS feeds).

Is the idea just not good enough, or is there something I'm missing that I
should be highlighting?

The site is <http://www.dcmntr.com/>

Thanks!

~~~
mikegreenberg
Hi Doug,

I have to echo much of the sentiment of other comments here. The project is so
busy. It does so many great things, but does it do any of them really well? I
would identify the primary features the people appreciate most from your
project and mercilessly slash the rest off. (If anyone wants to keep it,
you've open sourced it so tell them to fork off!) In all seriousness, if you
focus your project and show how simple it is to use, you'll find your adoption
will improve.

Once you have simplified your offering, start improving your messaging to the
public. Walk-through or tours will help greatly with communicating your value.
People are typically visual. Large blocks of text tend to scare people away
from the page. (You've got approx 3-5 seconds to grab a visitor's interest
before they hit the back/close button.)

Hope this is helpful. :)

~~~
dougbarrett
Sounds good. Thanks for the input!

------
akmiller
We just recently launched our first application at <http://teamloopapp.com>.
It's intended audience is to help manage the communication of any type of
sports teams.

I'm most interested in feedback on the homepage and if it explains enough of
what we do and the signup process through creating your first team. Any
thoughts would be appreciated greatly!

~~~
philjackson
I might be able to offer some criticism, if I may:

* The screenshot on the right is possibly pointless as it doesn't actually show me anything (it's too small and texty).

* The blurbs are good; I get a good picture of what the app is about. Though I would scale up in size everything in the blue stripe.

* I would try to cut down the amount of text in the feature boxes.

~~~
gmichnikov
As someone casually considering signing up for the free version, I would be
interested in seeing a screenshot or two of what using the app looks like for
the coach and for individual users.

Also, you just got feedback on a sports team management app for coaches from
Phil Jackson!

------
aorshan
Hey mike!! Thanks for doing this again. If you have some time I was wondering
if you would check out this political satire website I do some work for and
let me know what you think of the design and if anything needs to be changed.
Also any recommendations on marketing it would be appreciated!

<http://thewashingtonfancy.com/>

~~~
mikegreenberg
Hey there! Here are my thoughts...

I think the site could use more breathing room. The blocks are feel like
they're on top of each other. Adding some padding will make the site look less
busy (or potentially less full, a negative?) and easier for reading.

Honestly, I don't have much to complain about. The next thing I'd start
playing with is tracking where user engagement is low and find ways to
highlight long-tail content in higher-trafficked areas. Identify metrics that
are important to the site's longevity and optimize them. You're probably
beyond the point of tweaking the interface at this point short of trying
random A/B tests with new ideas.

------
jxcole
Hi Mike! Thanks for offering to help.

I am pretty good at programming but I know almost nothing about hosting or
servers or hardware. I would like to make a website with a Go/MySQL back end
(I know it's weird, but I love it). Do you have any recommendations for
hosting? Should I use a cloud host like EC2 or Rackspace's cloud or should I
use some other hosting service?

~~~
kevinburke
I've been using Webfaction, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's about $10 a
month, you get SSH access into your box, and they have really good
customer/technical support. <http://webfaction.com>

~~~
phzbOx
+1 For that. I really love webfaction and it was the best idea to go with that
as I didn't know at first how to configure my server. It has great "default"
configuration and practices. Also, as Mike said, the customer support is
_great_ if not the best I've seen.

And, as you'll become better at configuring your stuff and will want more
control over all the nifty details, you could then switch to a vps.

Also, don't forget that Heroku now support more platform.. in fact, everything
_python_ is supported, but the platform is strong enough to support anything..
even if it's not as userfriendly as the ruby or python way.

------
novitaOnCT2
Hi,thanks for your offer! Can you go to <http://www.codemaps.org/e/Lucene> and
play around with the diagrams and explorations? Its the prototype for the
system we are building to help open source developers explore the source code
online. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback! :)

~~~
mikegreenberg
I can see this tool being very useful from a functional point of view.
However, the UI is sluggish and there are some unexpected reactions that the
SW makes to my interactions with it. I don't believe anything is wrong at this
point because I'm certain there will be some training required to understand
what the software is trying to relate to me. But from playing with it for 5-10
minutes, I feel that the learning curve is slightly steep, but not unexpected
or unrealistic given the value this offers. (IMHO)

\- Interactions like mouseover on objects (which, I assume, give an overview
of the connections without activating it) creates a cluttered/confusing look.
Maybe while showing this overview, you fade out all irrelevant objects and
markup?

\- Doubleclick on objects should indicate that it's thinking or doing
something. There's no feedback to know I properly activated an object with my
intended interaction.

\- I'm not sure if it's my computer or the UI, but it's extremely sluggish.
I'm not sure I'd be satisfied with this experience in a finished product. I
know it's a prototype, but still want to mention this.

\- I might not be the best test subject as I'm not a Java programmer.... or
even much of a programmer for that matter. I know this is helpful for someone,
but I don't understand how it can be helpful for me. This might be important
to be aware of.

I hope some of these thoughts help. Overall, I get the impression it's cool.
(I'm just not sure why.)

~~~
novitaOnCT2
Thanks Mike! Your feedback and suggestions are really useful. And you raise
the issue about you not being able to understand how it can be helpful..
Surely it is an important point that we should think more about. Thank you so
much! :)

------
nickknw
Hi Mike! In your first post you say "I've got great aesthetics and design
sense". I could definitely use your advice on my personal website -
<http://nickknowlson.com>

My skills are those of a developer much more than a designer, but I tried to
make it fairly clean. Thanks for doing this!

~~~
mikegreenberg
This looks awesome! You did everything simply and with purpose. My only gripe
is with your line-spacing under the "Latest" heading on the "Home" page.
Increase the line-height and indent the paragraph content by a bit. Sample CSS
to do this...

    
    
        div.blockylist {
          line-height: 2.5em;
        }
    
        div.blockylist div {
          margin-left: 1em;
        }
    

And I would add some tracking to the site. Metrics are important to know if
people like what you're showing them or not. Even if you don't care now, it's
nice to see how your site grew. Google Analytics or GetClicky (which I use)
are perfectly fine and have free plans.

Great work!

~~~
nickknw
Thanks! :)

I'll apply that change forthwith!

I do actually have Google Analytics already hooked up. I posted one article
and it was pretty neat to see the big spike... followed by a return to
(effectively) zero traffic. :)

It makes sense though, there's hardly any content on there yet. A year from
now I'd like to have maybe 10-12 more blog posts and more projects as well. I
guess we'll see how that goes!

Thanks again Mike!

~~~
mikegreenberg
My pleasure, Nick. :)

------
Achshar
hello mike.. :D

i be quick, i made a powerful media player inside the browser(html5/js) the
response is average (for now). i would like to know what do you think about
the idea. i understand idea is not everything and execution matters but it
would really help if the base idea is strong.. app in question: goo.gl/kS86a

i would like to know what should i focus on, user experience (fixing small
bugs, polishing along as i develop) or development (adding big features), add
support for more platforms (web, windows 8, pokki, etc), or try to raise
capital, try for YC or startup-Chile for example (i don't really need capital,
but i could really use everything else that things like YC do for startups
[most importantly they would allow me to work full time which i can't do
currently because of college])

Thanks

~~~
mikegreenberg
Hey there!

I really like the effort of this product, but it isn't usable for me as it
currently is. Here are the things which are non-starter for me that I've
found:

\- Loading music is SLOW. I'm seeing a variable response of ~2-10 seconds PER
song. This is when I dump a single track to the interface. It doesn't seem to
matter which screen I drop the track into. This happens with MP3s and M4As.

\- Doesn't automatically go to the next track after a track is done.

\- No search field? It accepts my typing, but doesn't show it anywhere in the
GUI.

\+ The animations and the UI touches are admittedly nice and give it a nice
polish. But it doesn't matter if the product underneath doesn't play music
well.

You're asking me what you should do next with this, but it really depends on
what you want to do. Do you want to build a business out of it? What would
your business model look like? What is going to make people give you money for
this?

You might have a hard time developing a business model out of this project as
music players are a well-entrenched industry with many successful products
already on the market. The only way you'll be able to break into this is by
releasing a superior experience. And frankly, the other companies have a huge
head start.

This is not a bad thing at all! It's okay for this to be a project without
trying to make it into a business. The GUI skills from this will certainly
help with future products you'll inevitably make!

Something that also concerns me is that you're willing to drop college to
attend a startup program if they accept you. This should be a clear indicator
to you that this is not a project worth dropping everything to work on
(because you'd be working on this full-time and have dropped college already
if you were that motivated). And even if an incubator sees something valuable
in you to go through their program, I would ask yourself why you're even in
school if you're willing to drop it for a 3-month program. Figure out what
that answer is and see if there are ways to achieve that on your current path.
I'm not saying you should or shouldn't drop school, or should/shouldn't apply
for an incubator. It just sounds as if you're thrilled about the prospect of
being a successful entrepreneur with all the recent buzz these last years.
(This is great!) Just think pragmatically about what you REALLY want and find
a way to get there within your means.

~~~
Achshar
first, thanks for providing your thoughts, it is much appreciated :)

now for the minuses

\- i am aware of that but security restrictions don't allow me to read songs
from the OS itself, so i have to copy each song to the app's ow file system so
it takes more time.

\- it does not go to next track because it is in 'explorer' mode, a playlist
does that work, explorer is for managing files, i thought that was the
prospect. but i guess that the difference b/w explorer and a playlist is not
clear hence the confusion, i will work on that thanks!

\- there is a search field, it pops up on top left, maybe there is a bug but i
haven't heard of search bar not popping up before but i will look into it :)
thanks! here is a screen of how the popup comes (when user clicks on 'search'
tab)
[https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/NPI_iOXSKRiMn8bjoZ-5rzhK8e...](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/NPI_iOXSKRiMn8bjoZ-5rzhK8emLnDYey083MFwbXrPrVpHh-
XTivUgRtUkx0rDwzMFeQs2dVw=s400-h275-e365)

and i really want to work for it but i need to convince my parents to get me
to drop it, its India and we are not so 'independent' :P my parents are very
understanding and cooperative but they would still need a very good reason to
allow me to drop college. acceptance to YC would be enough i guess. :)

thanks alot for the detailed feedback, you have already helped me to decide
what i need to work on (improve underlying app and UX)

------
jirinovotny
Any ideas how to promote .NET WinForms control?

Our Better ListView is designed to replace the inbuilt crappy regular ListView
control, and it rocks - we just don't know how to promote it.

Check it out: <http://www.componentowl.com>

~~~
mikegreenberg
\- I would start out grassroots-style. Attend .NET meetups to talk about your
work and your project while you network. Offer promotions to these groups if
they'll have them.

\- Sponsor .NET Hack-a-thons?

\- Help feverishly in .NET forums and community sites like Stackoverflow. (Put
the service in your profile...people really look!)

\- Create programs that provide incentive for your customers to spread the
word about a product they already love. Word of mouth is the
best/cheapest/most-effective variety of advertising that I know of.

I'm not much of a marketing guy, but this is where I would start at first
thought. :) BTW, the control really does look quite nice. If I were a .NET
developer I'd be interested in using it.

Note: Tag line states "No Learning Needed", then in your advantages section
you state "Minimum learning needed." Strive to be consistent.

~~~
jirinovotny
Thanks for your advice Mike! We can't attend .NET meetings that much, because
we are based in Czech Republic.

Hack-a-thon sponsorship is an excellent idea. Any idea how to find these?

Thanks for spotting the inconsistency, too!

~~~
mikegreenberg
You might not be able to find them, but you can always organize one yourself.
It doesn't have to be huge, either. 20-30 people can be a lot of fun. I'd also
check out Meetup. They offer ways for sponsorships. See if you can find any
.NET groups on there and offer them sponsorships (as in free/discounted
licenses). Even if you give away a few licenses, you'd likely get a lot of
great word-of-mouth marketing.

And consider also sponsoring and attending conferences. Especially
Microsoft/.NET related ones. The travel will obviously be expensive, but it
could be a viable way to spend your marketing budget.

------
jreposa
Is this easy to use? Your goal is to open a new savings account.

<http://www.mybanktracker.com/savings>

We just launched our new style of rate tables, but we need more testing. It
would be great to have your opinion.

~~~
mikegreenberg
So, i agree that the page is a little busy. Maybe I'm dense, but the "Cash to
Save" was ambiguous and couldn't decide if you meant "The end amount of cash
I'd like to have after X months" or "How much I have now that I can move to
this account".

On the "Learn More" page after clicking a bank, the slider occasionally mis-
renders. (The handle will render under the textbox which requests my deposit
amount.) This is usually if I max out the Cash slider on the first step. (OS X
10.6.8, Chrome 14)

This seems pretty straight-forward to me. And pretty helpful. I think you're
moving in the right direction.

~~~
jreposa
This is great feedback Mike. The "Learn More" page was built a long time ago,
and I forgot that it uses the value from the slider from the previous page.
I'll fix that today when I launch it on the CD rates page.

Thank you very much!

------
lancefisher
Hi Mike, this is awesome! I'd love it if you could make a post on our website,
and critique the process.

Our site helps you find people to get stuff done. e.g. mow your lawn, build a
fence. <http://www.whocanhelp.com>

Thanks!

~~~
mikegreenberg
Lance!

Great execution on this site. Very simple and straight-forward. I was not
confused or lost at any step in the process. I'm pretty happy with the
business model as well. I'm guessing you make a commission on the offer made
by the service providers that bid on my jobs?

Your website is clean and straight forward. No distractions. It would seem
you're having a hard time getting service providers to give offers. I'm seeing
a lot of views but few offers being made. You didn't really ask, but I'm
assuming you have a way to target these individuals.

My only observation was that your heuristics for determining an appropriate
category were pretty off. I did pick a task that didn't seem to fit anything
appropriate, so I'm not sure if my case was more an exception than the norm.
Otherwise, I really like everything about this flow and onboarding. I think
you ask for just the right amount of information when it's needed and don't
force the user to commit to anything too early. IMHO, great job!

~~~
lancefisher
Thanks, Mike! We are definitely better guessing some categories than others.
We're improving that all the time. The suggestions are a feature we just added
last week.

It's actually free for services providers to make offers. We charge for ads,
and may charge for some other premium features in the future.

Thanks again for take the time to check it out!

~~~
mikegreenberg
I was happy to do it.

------
ad80
Hi Mike,

I love the initiative and using the opportunity... what is your opinion about
my recently launched project <http://www.mindthebook.com> and what would you
change to make it a better user experience?

Cheers

~~~
mikegreenberg
I think it's a good idea. Books are an appropriate answer to questions, but
sometimes I might not want to read an entire book to get to the part that's
relevant to me. Maybe you could find ways to cross-reference certain parts of
books with questions. (I see issues with getting content rights, or having to
build a referencing system that might be more effort than the value is worth.)

Questions beg for conversations to start around them. I'm not certain if this
would be clouding the simplicity of your offering...but I think there isn't
currently much to make your site "sticky" so the user wants to return. They
come for a recommendation, maybe they ask a question, but there's no reason
for them to participate further. They got their book. Discussion seems like a
perfect compliment.

The other thing that could probably improve is the search experience. This
might be a little harder, but you don't only want people to find their burning
questions, you want them to stumble on questions they didn't know they wanted
an answer to as well. This could be in the form of related questions in
search, n-th degree of questions to another question, or other interesting
discovery mechanisms.

Does this make sense?

------
msinghai
Hi mg!

Just completed <http://bit.ly/pmhS0U>. :)

~~~
mikegreenberg
I really appreciate you. Thanks! (And if you left your email, you'll hear this
twice.)

------
snikolic
Mike, this is an awesome gesture. I just filled out your survey.

If you have a few spare moments, I'd love UI feedback on <http://flock.fm> (no
big deal if you're overwhelmed with requests and don't have time)

~~~
phzbOx
I've tried the app a couple of time in the last few weeks. I've been a bit
disappointed by the music recommendation and what was suggested to me. I.e. I
don't care about "What everyone is listening" as I don't like it. I have no
friend on it. I understand that with friends and _probably_ lots of
like/dislike of music, it'll be easy to narrow down my taste. But, I think you
need to find a way to get the user started with something he likes; and make
it easy to skip music he doesn't like.

~~~
snikolic
Thanks for the feedback!

I think you're right. Our recommendation system has seemed a bit weak,
especially for new users - I think we're going to bury this somewhere as a
Custom option rather than emphasizing it as one of the four major streams.

Orienting new users is probably our biggest challenge at the moment, and I
think our product's biggest weakness. We have some solutions in the pipeline,
but we still don't have an elegant solution to immediately connecting a new
user to friends. Any ideas/suggestions?

~~~
phzbOx
Maybe. Ask the user for a couple artist/song he likes. And then, try to find
an existing user who liked these songs. So, implicitly, the new user could
_follow_ that existing user and get his/her recommendations. Does it make any
sens?

~~~
snikolic
Makes sense. We've considered something like this. We also considered showing
a cloud of tags, artists, and/or genres and asking the user to select a few.
What do you think of something like that?

~~~
phzbOx
I think this is a great idea. A tag mix of artists/genre would be a great way
to get started as you can quickly select different kind of style you like..
and also it works for artist that goes for a big range of style.

------
ameyamk
Hi Mike. You are making this thread really interesting. Can you give us some
feedback on <http://www.tringify.com>? we are still in beta phase, but would
love to have some feedback.

~~~
mikegreenberg
I think sounds like a great service. But the million dollar question is, "Why
isn't there a live demo?" :)

Everything else seems really good. (But you might want to tighten up your
other slide images on the home page. Center them and put a white background
behind it so it's consistent with the prior screen.

------
chaddeshon
This shouldn't take more than 5min:

I would love it if you could go to boardgamecalendar.com and tell me one thing
I could do to make the product or my description/presentation of the product
more appealing.

Thanks.

~~~
mikegreenberg
Keep the following text:

This calendar features creative photographs uploaded by the community at
BoardGameGeek.com.

54 pages. One for each week.

Remove everything else. People understand calendars. They know how they work.
Instead, put a BIG INTERACTIVE demo letting users flip through the calendar to
look at pictures. Under the text, place a large PURCHASE button. Add the
newsletter signup underneath if you must. But it really should offered after
they make their purchase. Make it exclusive! ;)

Bonus points: Insert easter egg appointments in the calendar for ridiculous
things like "Catanadians Anonymous @ 8pm (BRING BEER)".

Just an idea.

UPDATE: So it looks like this is a test and the product has not been produced
yet. And from the looks of your blog, you've spent a decent amount of time to
get to this point. So I didn't mean to cut what you created to shreds. There
is absolutely nothing wrong with this page, especially if it's generating
cash. However, something needs to be said for conveying a simple message. "I
have a calendar. The pictures might be of interest to you. Come and buy it
from me." Adding all of the additional text is a distraction from what you
want your visitors to do. If they want to buy it, they will. Additional
pictures may entice them to dwell on the thought a bit longer. Additional text
might do the same thing. But I believe that people prefer visual candy to
reading more often than not. That's the main reason behind my suggestion. Hope
the explanation helps.

------
ianpurton
Mike, I'd appreciate some feedback on my sales page for Status2K
<http://status2k.com>.

Does it look professional ? Would you change anything about it ?

Thanks.

~~~
mikegreenberg
I think the sales page isn't bad. But it feels bland.

\- Your value add is probably not the elegant interface you're showing us.
Sure, eye-candy is great, but the features you outline below talk about
"Anywhere Monitoring" and "Multi-Server Listening Support", etc. Maybe an
image of a guy staring at his phone (anywhere) with lines going from his phone
to your logo to his servers. Give people an "at-a-glance" of how your product
works.

\- I'd draw more attention to your "Call to action". It let's me know
immediately what you want me to do. Should I view the demo? Should I give you
my cash? Maybe you want me to look at features? (You probably want my cash
above all else. Why not show it?)

\- (This is super nit-picky, but...) Your copy reads in blocks. (Imagine Ben
Stein doing a voice over for your website.) There's no visual rhythm on the
page. Spend a few hours looking at other sales pages (Here's a good spot:
<http://startupli.st/startups>) and look for patterns (ignoring, of course,
all the cookie-cutter landing pages).

\-- The important parts of description text LEAP off the page at you.

\-- Very focused call-to-action.

\-- Strong images which relate their message.

\+ This is a great start! You have the important parts of the page down. Now
you just have to tweak it. (Even the best do this:
[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3007-37signalscom-homepage-
ev...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3007-37signalscom-homepage-evolution))

~~~
ianpurton
Thanks, I really appreciate your time.

~~~
mikegreenberg
My pleasure! :)

------
GICodeWarrior
Hello Mike,

Who would you target this product at? <http://goo.gl/Oue0b> (the top one)

How would you reach that audience?

All feedback is welcome. Thanks :-)

~~~
mikegreenberg
This page is far too busy. Filter your primary value proposition into a few
lines, tops. "Add a simple-to-manage wiki to your Google Apps domain!" Drop
everything else. You can add the "Why" and the "Coming Soon" to other parts of
the page that you can offer to the visitor. Give them the value proposition
and the call-to-action first. Then, politely to the side, offer alternative
ways for them to learn more while still driving them toward your primary call-
to-action.

Marketing isn't my forte, but this sort of thing lends itself to large
organizations. (The ones who typically use Google Apps.) I was try to optimize
the channels that Google provides for App deployment. Attend Google related
events and talk to as many people as possible. Your audience will likely be
quite diverse in their needs. But there should be a few features that would
add value in a way that satisfies many of them. (i.e.: Simple setup, simple
code base, easy customizability, etc.) Try to identify what that feature is
and work toward it.

~~~
GICodeWarrior
Thanks!

I like your ideas for the website. I am not very good with design, but with
this feedback I should be able to tweak it some more.

So far, most of my active customers (currently about 20 over any given week)
appear to be small and medium businesses (3-50 accounts). I do need to work on
my marketplace listing page (the "try it now" button goes there). They sorted
things around recently and it looks even worse for my content.

Thanks again for your time. I appreciate it. :-)

~~~
mikegreenberg
My pleasure. :)

------
afunnyfunnyman
Hi Mike,

Thanks for the offer!

If you wouldn't mind checking out some of the businesses I'm working on and
letting me know what you think that would rock!

www.digitalqcards.com www.myclouds.com

~~~
mikegreenberg
Sorry to reply so late, but could you ask for some specific feedback you're
interested in?

------
evilswan
Maybe you could help me with an iOS API build question?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3110572>

~~~
mikegreenberg
I offered some thoughts, but not sure if it'll be helpful. Gave it a good
swing though!

------
peachepe
Give me a great idea for a startup

