

Show HN: forage - Deals from local restaurants & bars - chanced

I just finished the MVP for my first personally owned startup. It's been a long (longer than it should have been.. built too much) journey and I'm glad to finally see that chapter come to a close. I hit the streets tomorrow to get restaurants/bars signed up.<p>Filtering is currently turned off and please be aware that while the restaurants are not, the deals are all fake.<p>demo: http://demo.forage.at<p>angel list: angel.co/forage
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dylanhassinger
It's not an MVP, I'd call it a non-functional prototype. But it's a good idea.
Here's some thoughts:

\- Cut the amount of copy, the site is WAY too wordy. Read some blog posts
about copywriting

\- it doesn't need more features yet. Make the features you are showing work,
and then clean up the design on them

\- Start a blog and a podcast, interviewing exciting restauranteurs. Use
content to build the Forage brand

\- new logo

keep rockin

~~~
chanced
First off, thanks for taking the time to give me feedback. Responses below.

>>It's not an MVP, it's just a mockup really.

How so? It's fully functional. I added a setting to disable all filtering
(location, timing, tags) because I didn't want to have to schedule a ton of
deals to match unforeseeable criteria.

>> Cut the amount of copy, the site is WAY too wordy. Read some blog posts
about copywriting

Heh, I'm certainly not a writer. Thank you for the feedback on it, I'll try
and trim it back.

>> \- it doesn't need more features yet. Make the features you are showing
work

What's not working? Did you run into something specific? If you're talking
about filtering, I covered that above.

>> and then clean up the design on them

A large part of the design challenge is lack of content. As features are
added, the content will fill out, allowing me to fill out the design. I also
couldn't spend a horrible amount of time on the design itself. I'd love to
hear feedback on what you didn't like specifically though if you have time.

>> Start a blog and a podcast, interviewing exciting restauranteurs. Use
content to build the Forage brand

Agreed to an extent. At this stage I'm going to devote my days to door-to-door
pitches to get restaurants on board while my nights will be spent developing
features based on feedback from restaurateurs. I'm not funded so I have to
cram as much as I can in. I realize the value of a blog though, well to an
extent.

>> keep rockin

Thanks again :)

~~~
dylanhassinger
Fyi I tweaked my comments some. Here's responses:

"It's fully functional"

You said the deals aren't real. I guess I was confused, I thought this was
automatically aggregating all the deals from other services. If you are having
to go talk to restaurants and secure deals themselves, this idea won't scale.
Just being up front.

"A large part of the design challenge is lack of content"

No, the design is obviously done by a non-designer. That's okay to start off
with. Then slowly improve on it by asking feedback from people with design
background, and eventually hiring a contractor to add some polish.

"At this stage I'm going to devote my days to door-to-door pitches to get
restaurants on board while my nights will be spent developing features based
on feedback from restaurateurs"

Marketing 1 feature > Adding more features

I highly recommend the book "Start Small Stay Small" by Rob Walling, it is a
great business book for micropreneurs. Also Rob has a great podcast "Startups
for the Rest of Us" that I think you would like.

<http://startupbook.net>

best of luck!

~~~
chanced
>> You said the deals aren't real. I guess I was confused, I thought this was
automatically aggregating all the deals from other services.

Ah, I see. I just meant the deals are fake, as in please don't show up at the
restaurants and ask for a $5 burrito because "you saw it on forage"

>> If you are having to go talk to restaurants and secure deals themselves,
this idea won't scale. Just being up front.

Neither. Restaurants & bars manage their own promotions.

>> No, the design is obviously done by a non-designer. That's okay to start
off with.

Ouch. Outside of the logo and the specific pages (deal, restaurant) I actually
thought the design was decent. I'm horrible at branding so I hired a designer
but he came up with something horrible. I'm just using the current logo as a
placeholder.

>> Marketing 1 feature > Adding more features

It really depends on the features, product, and audience. Social networking
integration would go leaps and bounds above blogging.

>>I highly recommend the book "Start Small Stay Small" by Rob Walling, it is a
great business book for micropreneurs. Also Rob has a great podcast "Startups
for the Rest of Us" that I think you would like.

Cool, I'll check it out. Thanks again.

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chanced
Clickable: <http://demo.forage.at>

