
Ask HN: I use my own product, but others don't. Why? - faisalkhalid80
A few days back I launched restaurantmapper.com, a way to easily discover restaurants when you are on mobile. I personally use it a lot, because I find it easier than Google or FourSquare. But, the response I&#x27;m getting from people I&#x27;ve shared it with and on forums I&#x27;ve shared it is... non existent. No response. Please can someone tell me - what&#x27;s going on? is my design really bad? am I solving a problem only I have? is it not clear what the product does? What is the issue... thank you.
======
lsiunsuex
Doesn't work in the USA

Clicked a few of the items you have listed on the left. I like the design.

We're always trying to find new restaurants and try new places so I would use
something like this - but as an iPhone app - not really a website.

I dabbled in restaurant apps a few years ago and came to some conclusions:

More often then not, people make restaurant reservations or look for a
restaurant to go to while at work - sometimes, people don't want to use work
computers to do this (+ firewalls) so from their phone is best.

More often then not - picking a restaurant is pretty spur of the moment - "hey
want to go out to dinner? sure - where? I don't know - let me look something
up quickly" \- and what is the device most of us have on hand? Our phone.

(completely based on personal research)

So - make an app, and possibly try another demographic.

------
Guest192038
The site looks like a clone of Google Maps, but you're limited to London, you
show far fewer results in any given location, and the search doesn't work
nearly as well.

For example, I can visit Google Maps, type in 'Italian food in Mayfair' and I
instantly have results. On your site I type the same thing, and I get nothing.
Instead, your site gives search suggestions for Indian and British food for my
Italian search, and I'm forced to click one of the suggestions.

It also doesn't allow me to search cuisine and location at the same time. I
can search for Italian food across your entire database, or I can search for a
location like Mayfair. To do both, I need to search the location first, and
then apply a filter for Italian cuisine. Also, why can I search cuisines, then
filter cuisines? I mean, I can use the British search suggestion, and then
apply a filter for Indian. Why is this even possible? Filters shouldn't exist,
the search bar should be able to combine cuisine and location.

Lastly, for my original search, your site shows 8 results. Google is returning
hundreds. You're going to get absolutely no traction when you offer an
inferior product to a well established competitor with millions of users.

Why don't you tell us some reasons why someone should use your site instead of
the competitors, like Google Maps?

~~~
faisalkhalid80
Thanks for the feedback. The main reason to use us is.. 1. its easier to use.
you mention google maps - try using it on mobile, when you need to decide in 2
seconds. doesn't work, too much noise. you see 8 results because these are top
ranked, we don't show you everything. if thats what you want (everything) then
its google. 2. aggregation. unlike google, which you mentioned, we show you
content from numerous different sources. when i am picking a place i want to
know: is it michelin rated? zagat rated? timeout top100? what % score did it
have on zomato? did any of the major newspapers write up on it? what do ppl
say about it on twitter? what are recent reviews like? these are all things we
have, in one place. the use case here is mobile entirely. mb we should just
get rid of the desktop site to clarify that and add a mobile app..

~~~
Guest192038
You might want to consider trying something more like Airbnb. Play around with
the Airbnb search, and imagine the same for restaurants.

[https://www.airbnb.com/s/Rome--Italy](https://www.airbnb.com/s/Rome--Italy)

Some Airbnb improvements that could be applied to your site.

1\. Give more room to the results, instead of having the map cover 80% of the
screen.

2\. Search bar for location, then checkboxes for cuisines.

3\. Slider for price.

4\. Update the results when you move or zoom in or out on the map.

------
LarryMade2
Since it is focusing on food, you might want to take out some of the
guesswork:

i.e. some more direct browse options would be nice... such as

\- I'm hungry - What's Open Near me now (this could be a filter)

\- Top rated

\- Browse by type

Maybe have a login accounts where people can check off/rate places they've
visited (for those adventurers that want to eat at every fish and chip shop in
London.)

\---

Marketing - Have you done any flyers? Visitors to London may not be aware of
the service... Just as something as simple as:

Hungry?

[QR code]

www.restaurantmapper.com

Maybe add in a strip of various foodie pics to entice.

\---

Here's my ongoing side project work on a mobile community resource:
[http://www.doplaces.com](http://www.doplaces.com) might give you
inspiration...

Also it takes time to get traction via word of mouth certainly more than days.
Keep up the good work.

------
mbrock
I don't feel attracted to sites like these, or even FourSquare, because
they're so impersonal. It's like the yellow pages on a map widget.

You gather reviews and Michelin stars and stuff, which is probably good for
you and some target audience, but I don't care about that stuff.

Michelin guide judges seem to belong to some other world of foodie snobs who
order stuff I would never order and don't care about the aspects I do care
about, like price, ease of access, humility, coziness, friend recommendations,
etc.

When I'm out and about, or when I'm planning an evening, I'm not interested in
seeing all possible options. In fact that just makes me more confused because
now I have to look at 50 different fact boxes and try to decide on dinner
based on a bunch of facts and stylized pictures.

The only similar site I've used and actually liked is SpottedByLocals, which
is more labour intensive because it is made by locals and expats who go to
places, take their own pictures, write their own reviews (with a bit of
personality), etc.

So on SpottedByLocals I get an interesting "curated" subset of restaurants
that I know have been visited by what I think of as "actual humans" and who
provide actual on-the-ground information instead of generic overviews.

Thus, for me, the site would be way more interesting if it only had 12
restaurants that _you_ have been to, with one or two Instagram pictures each,
a little tip ("I loved the hummus"), and maybe something about what's in the
neighborhood.

Metaphorically it's like if I were to ask a friend "hey, where should I have
dinner in London?" I don't want 200 restaurants, I really only want _one_ , as
long as it's decent.

One random idea would be to Tinderify the user interface. Instead of making me
hover over dozens of map pins, it would just ask "does this look good? y/n."

Or maybe a kind of 20 questions approach, so I would say: "Nah, too fancy.
Nah, too meat-based. Nah, too far from Soho. Ah, yes, that place looks good."

~~~
faisalkhalid80
this is excellent feedback, and is a great articulation of what i have been
feeling, but perhaps lacking confidence to say to myself. thank you, you have
probably saved me a month of useless development through this.

------
ColinWright
Immediate thoughts:

Why would I learn to use yet another tool? You already use it, you already
know how to use it, but I would have to invest effort in learning its quirks.

Seems only to be focused on London, UK. Is this right? Didn't work on three of
the other major UK cities I tried, which makes it useless for me.

How would I find out about it? What does it offer that I can't get from Google
or FourSquare?

Why should I invest the time and effort, with the risk that in a week or two
it will disappear?

~~~
faisalkhalid80
thank you for the feedback. yep it's only for London right now..

~~~
ColinWright
I feel like I'm being unnecessarily harsh. I'm on a desktop, the design seems
clear and clean. When I ask for an area I get a tiny cluster of flags that I
then need to zoom in on, but I guess that would be easier on a mobile, just
pinch/zoom. If I hover over a flag I get the details, but when I move to click
on one of the links, they disappear, so I can't actually access the details. I
can't phone to make a reservation, or check on the Google search results.

Those are my immediate usability comments.

 _Edit:_ These are of necessity "drive-by comments," neither crafted nor
gestated. I'm in the middle of other stuff, and had some immediate thoughts.
Take them as intended to be overall helpful. And now I need to go.

~~~
faisalkhalid80
thank you.

------
zhte415
Why not take on the criticism, polish some points and make it clear about
focused results, etc, (different sized icons for different Zagat scores, etc)
and pitch it to a London-based newspaper rather than take over the world.

You could have a lot of advantages being London based, given the concentration
of people and wealth, solving a specific case rather than a general case.

~~~
faisalkhalid80
absolutely, once the comments are over in a day or two, i will aggregate all
the feedback, sit with the team and prioritise which ones to do..

------
phantom_oracle
Let's critique/fix a few things:

1) Show all restaurants (with markers) on the map, so that when someone
visits, they know there is data on it.

2) Tell people that you are currently only in the London+surrounds area

3) The biggest issue you face is that Google already has this built-in to
their Google maps product

4) Maybe the URL is too long for (some) of the target audience

Good luck

------
ColinWright
I see you never responded to this comment:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9883697](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9883697)

Is that because you didn't see it, or didn't like it? Have you taken it on
board and incorporated its advice?

~~~
faisalkhalid80
Hi Colin - I have read the comments on that link several times, and they were
very helpful. I have tried to incorporate them.

~~~
ColinWright
Cool. So the question is - why would anyone choose to use your app? What
additional value does it provide?

~~~
faisalkhalid80
1\. usability - on mobile, its just easier than using Google, Yelp, Zomato or
anyone else. less noise. 2. aggregation - we pull data from many different
APIs so you have all the info you need to make a decision in one place
(Telegraph news articles, Twitter feed, Uber cost, Google and Zomato reviews,
Google search results, Zagat status, Michelin status etc...)

------
DrNuke
Generally speaking, it's 2016 and market is flooded: every other and new
product needs more than design & usability to stand up, say some sort of
original, maybe unrelated hook that drives people crazy even before launching.
Good luck!

~~~
faisalkhalid80
Thank you, I see your point..

------
kleer001
How is this any better by an order of magnitude from the current spate of
mappers that contain resturants? Why reinvent Yelp or 4Square or GoogleMaps?

>am I solving a problem only I have?

Most likely.

------
_RPM
It asks me for my location but shows me places in London. That causes me to
exit the page.

~~~
faisalkhalid80
Good point. I will clarify on the website, its for London only right now.

------
sharemywin
buy some adwords traffic. send people to your site and see if the continue to
use it. you can filter by city. might look into
[http://luckyorange.com/](http://luckyorange.com/) also.

------
faisalkhalid80
clickable link:
[http://www.restaurantmapper.com](http://www.restaurantmapper.com)

~~~
ColinWright
Not, in fact, clickable.

 _Edit:_ I see you have form[0][1] for this, you don't seem to appreciate
what's needed to make a link clickable. You need the "[http://"](http://") on
the front.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9680810](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9680810)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9881349](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9881349)

 _Edit 2:_ I see you've edited it - good response.

~~~
faisalkhalid80
thank you, noted for the future. my mistake here.

------
wieckse
doesn't work for my country

~~~
faisalkhalid80
It's only live for London, UK right now. But this needs to be clearer I think.

