
Host me in California - jurajmasar
http://www.hostmeinca.com
======
chewxy
What I think he did well:

    
    
        - Strong, direct message within first view (he out right tells you, the visitor, what he wants)
    
        - He takes you through his expanded 'executive summary'.
    
        - This sequence: What, why, who, how. Many startups get this wrong and do Who, What Why, How.
    
        - Nice CTA at the bottom
    
        - A modern design
    
    

Things I think he didn't do so well:

    
    
        - No close. Everytime I see these sorts of design, if I don't see a CTA or a close on each panel, I make a note of it.
    
        - No close. Seriously. Even at the end, the CTA wasn't trying to close at all.
    
        - Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag
    
        - The site was designed for smaller screens. I don't think he expected screens with higher resolutions.
    
    

EDIT: Formatting.

~~~
nodata
Can you give an example of a good close for him?

~~~
orangethirty
He was indeed closing. I count 6 different places where he did. They are not
direct closes, but nudges towards getting you to contact him. Can't really do
a big close on such type of situation, because nobody (well, Brad Pitt might)
will bring a kid from miles away without knowing him a little first.

By the way, he is using the compassion close.

 _Don’t decide now. Please write me and we'll see how we get on with each
other..._

He is aiming right to your heart and hitting.

Much better copy than most startups out there. I agree. Which brings out an
important point. If you want to sell something, you better be convinced and
believe 100% in it. Otherwise, your copy is going to be bad.

------
UnoriginalGuy
That page causes Chrome to lag.

I would also say that if that page was any longer or any more information
dense then it wouldn't work as a thing. It only works because there is so
little content.

In general it depends what you're trying to sell. I've never actually
purchased from one of these "flow" pages, but I have purchased a lot from more
boring product pages like this:

<http://www.linode.com/tour/>

The OP's sales page is definitely in fashion right now, in fact it looks like
every current startup's page. But just because it is in fashion doesn't mean
it is actually effective, and I've seen no evidence (and the OP supplies none)
that it causes higher conversions than a "boring" sales page.

~~~
cadab
Website loads fine (no lag) on Chrome Win8 for me.

~~~
beefsack
Chrome on Xubuntu is perfect too.

~~~
chill1
Page loads just fine on Chrome on Ubuntu as well.

------
jan_g
This seems very vague:

    
    
      I need you. A loving family that will take care of me during my school year in CA.
    

Does he only need an address and a room, or full service including meals,
financial aid, school tuition, etc.

~~~
rabble
He wants to be an exchange student in high school, but instead of doing it
through a program like AFS or Rotary, he's arranging things himself and put up
a website to find a family. With programs you don't get so much say as to
where you go, often not even the country, much less the state. Since he's a
techie, i'd imagine he wants to end up in Silicon Valley or near by. Seems
like a smart tactic to me. That said, he probably needs a follow up page or
something for folks who are serious about hosting, which includes what it's
like and need to host him as a high school exchange student.

------
gesman
I think 90% of commenters here would benefit from making an effort to remove
your heads from your own asses. "Chrome bug?" "sales pages"? "incentives"?
Give the young guy the benefit of expressing exactly what he wants without any
reservations. And share a few of his talents along the way. I am sure he'll
get to CA soon!

------
Codhisattva
He's done a great job and presented his information quite well. As an adult
and a father I'd say that I represent his target market perfectly and he
succeeded in: a) impressing me with his ability and determination, b)
delivering to me the kind of information I need to know and c) delivering to
me a sense of his maturity.

Not only do I think he would be a great guest but I can see him being very
successful with whatever career path he chooses.

So is it a better sales page than you? Yes indeed, information delivered.

------
citricsquid
Design aside, does something like this work? I notice he's starting with just
an idea (he has no place, no visa) if he can find a family willing to take him
in for a year is that the hardest part, or will it be difficult for him to
also get a visa and a place in a school?

------
AncoraImparo
Why is everyone criticizing his website? He isn't here looking for a website
review. He is here looking for a family to host him. Reading from Ireland
here, if I lived in CA, it wouldn't be an issue.

~~~
peteretep
I wondered this, and I suspect the title of this post used to be something
different, before being changed by a mod to what it is now.

~~~
h2s
Correct. It used to say "This 16 year old from Slovakia has a better sales
page than you". I think somebody posted it because they thought it was well
executed and wanted HN to see it, but the title change makes it look like the
creator of the site itself is pestering HN for accommodation.

I like the way HN's policy on titles prevents Reddit-esque editorialising, but
it has backfired pretty badly in this case.

~~~
dllthomas
My read is entirely the opposite. I think people have been responding
defensively to "[...] better [...] than you" and sympathetically to "Host me
in California".

------
waitwhat
He appears to have made zero sales. By most metrics, this is not a "better
sales page".

~~~
fl3tch
The cost of hosting someone for a year is pretty high.

If you become a yacht salesman, are you expected to sell one on the first day?
Are you a failure because someone else sold a hundred hot dogs?

~~~
mongol
I always thought that one of the hardest thing to sell must be fighter
airplanes. A (normal) country only buys new ones maybe once every 25-30 years.
It is a long selling process!

~~~
justincormack
You do not yet understand the role of bribery and corruption in the sale of
fighter planes.

------
ianstallings
Damn it. I came in all skeptical ready to fire away and found out the site is
actually very nice. My trolling has been thwarted. Good job!

------
mrknmc
Slovakia is in central Europe.

~~~
digitalengineer
But us Western European people think of everything at the right of Germany and
Austria as "Eastern Europe" because of the Iron Curtain and all. I suppose
it's culural.

~~~
jwr
It's been more than 20 years now since the Iron Curtain lifted, so I guess
people might as well start getting used to the idea that old divisions no
longer make sense.

~~~
blablabla123
It's not really clear where Europe ends. Some people argue geographical Europe
ends at the Ural Mountains. I guess currently Europe ends politically at the
western border of Russia, rendering Austria a Central European country by your
vague definition.

The old divisions make a lot of sense because they are still reality. Both in
an economical and a cultural sense. Looking at Google Maps makes me consider
Cuba to be kind of North America. :P

------
tonfa
So are high schools in the US actually of higher quality than in Slovakia?

~~~
Equiet
Yes.

I was graduated from high school in Slovakia 2 years ago. In my town (about
45,000 inhabitants, 12th largest in Slovakia) there are 11 high schools (with
50-1000 students).

I was actually attending 8-year grammar school - a special school that merges
elementary and high school, allowing me to finish my studies 1 year sooner
than standard education. This was intended to be for "smarter" kids. (It
isn't.) However in terms of quality I think it is similar to most of the high
schools.

Out of about 11 classes I've taken every year, only 7 actually required some
effort to get an A. Some teachers did not even care about "cheating" on the
exams - it was pretty common for me to solve all variants in 20 minutes and
then distribute it in the class. At the beginning of the school year, we got
about 20 textbooks chosen by Ministry of Education. Half of them were never
used, some were 15 years old. We paid only for few textbooks.

Students were bored, teachers were bored. Only few took their job seriously,
only one was doing more than required.

During the classes like Biology, Geography, Chemistry, History and Slovak
literature, the teacher dictated what we should write. During the next class,
one was chosen and graded based on how good he/she memorized the notes.

The more students the school have, the more money it gets. Every school keeps
as many students as possible. Even if they do not pass the entry test.

The last year was by far the most wasted year of my life. Student chooses 4
subjects from about 9 possible for the state exams. We were however still
obliged to take 12 subjects. All teachers stopped teaching the other subjects,
because it "was not required for our state exams" and "gave us time to learn
the important subjects". They were simply lazy. Sometimes they didn't even
attend the class.

Today I remember almost nothing except Maths and English.

On the other hand, free WiFi. And a lot of time for personal projects.

~~~
dllthomas
I'm not sure you understand how bad some USA highschools are.

------
PonyGumbo
I'm getting a Service Unavailable page.

------
kjackson2012
What sort of legal implications or liabilities would someone take on by
hosting this person? For example, if the child got hurt or in a bad accident,
would they have the legal obligation to pay for him? And would this child fall
under the hosts' medical insurance, or would he have to pay for his own
medical insurance?

~~~
ardit33
"Exchange student" programs have existed for long time. Usually the exchange
students are required to buy at least "catastrophic" health insurance, and
they might have to pay the tuition for the high-school they attend (even if it
is a public school, since their parents are not us citizens and haven't been
paying taxes).

The family is required to provide food, shelter, and some basic
transportation, but that's it. Students are required to have some money aside
for monthly expenses.

I never have heard bad stories from the family side (i.e. they end up with a
bad students) as the students themselves are well filtered. Most horror
stories I have heard is from the students, where they go to a family and then
they find themselves they have to babysit or do other stuff they are not
expecting to.

------
jarospisak
Hi Marek, a fellow Slovak from Presov here :). Great job on the website. I
would suggest being more specific on what you actually expect from the family
in the US. Do you want just a place to sleep or do you expect them to provide
food, transportation, pay your study fee (if any) etc. Good luck!

------
chris123
Wow, neat idea and nice looking web page. One comment comes to mind: Think
about applying to school and getting in first (that what I recommend, in
fact). You will then find a place to stay even if you have to do it after you
arrive in Cali for school. Sure, you might have to work out a temporary
solution, such as crashing on a couch or short-term rental, but being on the
ground and meeting people and seeing places will be best, IMHO. That's how
I've done it and that's how thousands of students do it. I did it myself like
that when I was a student and I've hosted multiple students in my home now
that I am in a position to do that. Have fun and best wishes! Cheers :)

------
zxcvvcxz
What is the incentive for a family to host this boy?

I understand the value that someone in his position gets from being able to
live and study in California. But you have to give value to take value right?

~~~
furyofantares
The host family gets to help someone to have a better life, and has the
opportunity to get to know a creative and optimistic young man from a foreign
country.

------
pla3rhat3r
Say what you want but I know people in their 30's that can't put something
together this creative. I love the idea. Very creative. I hope he finds a
family.

------
lifeisstillgood
Can anyone with JS debugger experience (I am learning to fight the Chrome
debugger now) tell me how to identify what is causing that terrible lag

Partly it would be nice to let the poor kid know, partly I want to know how to
fix such issues as they inevitably crop up for me. (CPU measures seem not to
point to anything useful)

(If the answer is take stuff away till it works, well, why have a debugger?)

~~~
sisk
I'm on my phone so all I can see is a jquery mobile-based site but, given some
of the comments, I assume he's probably overloaded the scroll event. That
event fires _a lot_ so if you load it up with too much logic or attach too
many listeners, you get some nasty lag (think "New Twitter"). You're better
off attaching a single listener that does some light action like setting a
variable (`didScroll = true`) and an interval timer (every 50ms is fine) that
checks that variable and performs some logic as a result.

John Resig wrote up an article about this very probably several years back. If
curious, I can dig it up.

~~~
brokentone
John Resig article circa jQuery 1.4.4 but still relevant:
<http://ejohn.org/blog/learning-from-twitter/>

------
beefsack
He has a video too: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQsaCXJeoDY>

------
conradfr
But not a better host :p

~~~
KirinDave
He's in Slovakia, man.

Just think about that for a few minutes. You're complaining about the hosting
quality of a page that is being HN'd from a _kid in Slovakia who put up the
page to try and appeal to Americans to host him as he studies in their
country._

Can't the novelty of this new era persist for even a few years?

~~~
conradfr
I was just making a joke relative to the title that was something like "This
guy has a better sale page than you" while the site was rendered 403 by the HN
effect.

I see the title has been changed and the page is available.

------
b0rsuk
This 16yo boy from eastern europe has a better sales page than you
(hostmeinca.com)

503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

It looks like a cruel joke.

------
MisterBastahrd
Any page with that little information on it and forces users to scroll is a
testament to over-design.

~~~
spudlyo
I didn't even realize you _had_ to scroll down. I saw some bouncy text and
images with no navigation hints whatsoever. I clicked around, went ' _eww_ '
and closed the tab. Once I figured out that you had to scroll down, I admit I
found effect pretty cool. I think adding an arrow pointing down on the main
page would help.

------
sdoering
AdBlock Plus and Ghostery do not only kill the Trackers, but also kill the
design/css.

Not quite sure, why that is, but site doesn't really look good.

Non the less - hope this guy has success...

~~~
Herover
I think it is because the site is under heavy load. Reload and it looks fine
again, or give a service unavailable error...

------
ghaskey
link to the cached version, as it looks like HN traffic killed the site. :)
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hGI4ggM...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hGI4ggMhIDMJ:www.hostmeinca.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

------
KirinDave
Yes.

When I was 16 I had lots of free time for projects like this, too.

Are we implying that everyone who reads hackernews should have a page like
this? Because if so, then this page is a _terrible_ sell for a hacker.

------
jfb
It is very nicely done, but I think that "Eastern Europe" as a synonym for
"Borat" is a trope that, while never accurate, has run its course.

~~~
nodata
Huh? Who mentioned Borat?

~~~
jfb
Why else mention "from Eastern Europe"? Would "from France" or "from Sweden"
be seen as remarkable? It's a great page from anyone, 16 or no, but the fact
that he's from Slovakia isn't germane.

~~~
grego
Well, GDP/capita in Slovakia is quite a bit lower than in France or Sweden,
and that is a common trait across Eastern Europe. As he is asking for hosting,
money enters the equation.

