

Ask HN: review my site, afterthepinkslip.com - nonrecursive

I've been working on afterthepinkslip.com, and I think it's ready for other people to use. The site's a tool for helping people stay organized when they're looking for jobs.<p>The site is simple (I hope), and I'd love to see what the Hacker news community thinks!
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jadence
Don't have the video auto-reply/loop. Just play once.

Also I would tweak the demo video so that you're explaining what problems the
product solves and how the product helps rather than explain how to use the
product. There are some lines such as "Notice when you view this page your
cursor is in the first form field automatically. You can just start typing"
that I don't think really help to sell the product. I say just use the product
while you explain how the product helps the user and why the user should use
it.

TC has two pretty good articles on how to demo a product:

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/09/how-to-demo-your-
startu...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/09/how-to-demo-your-startup/)

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/how-to-demo-your-
startu...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/how-to-demo-your-startup-part-
two/)

Joel also has a pretty good article:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/11/16.html>

PS/OT - For future reference, what did you use the create the demo video?

~~~
nonrecursive
Thanks for those articles, they'll definitely help me create a better demo
video. I definitely approached it from a "weeeee I finally feel like I can
show this to other people look what I did" standpoint whether than a more
marketing standpoint.

Here's what I used: Samson CO1U mic:
[http://www.amazon.com/Samson-C01U-Recording-Podcasting-
Pak/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Samson-C01U-Recording-Podcasting-
Pak/dp/B000H4MZU2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1226177489&sr=8-2)

Screenflow: <http://www.flip4mac.com/screenflow.htm>

VisualHub: <http://www.techspansion.com/>

Flow Player: <http://flowplayer.org/>

------
adityakothadiya
why limit this to only people who got laid off? this can be helpful for all
job-seekers.

so instead of keeping <http://afterthepinkslip.com/> as a domain name, keeping
generic domain name will help more.

i think people who did not get laid-off and simply looking for job search may
find that this tool is not useful for them.

my $0.02s! overall, it's a nice utility.

~~~
nonrecursive
I wouldn't say it's limited to only people who have gotten laid off, though it
does seem to target them.

The site was born out of my own experience with getting laid off twice in
three months. I feel like I know that specific pain, so I'm decently equipped
to build a site for people who are also dealing with having lost a job.

It probably makes sense to expand the site to apply to anyone who's looking
for a job, and I'll probably do that. The site is actually pretty young - I
put most of it together in 14 hours over last weekend.

------
hopeless
Looks good and quite useful (my wife was recently laid off).

My only question is whether you intend to run it as a business or not? It
seems that the recently laid-off won't be the most generous with their cash
and neither (hopefully) will they be long-time customers.

~~~
nonrecursive
Thanks hopeless! If your wife ends up using it I'd love to hear her thoughts
too (my email is daniel at flyingmachinestudios.com)

I've considered charging for it eventually - something like $8 for an account,
for life. I agree that it needs to an amount the recently laid-off are willing
to part with, and definitely agree that it hopefully won't be used for a long
time. So charging a monthly fee definitely wouldn't work, because it would be
too much of a hassle for a user to come back and cancel the account.

~~~
sokoloff
You could also do $5 for 3 months, no auto-renewal.

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thomasmallen
It doesn't necessarily have to be a pink slip:

* www.afterembezzlement.com

* www.aftergettingcaughtwithyourbossesdaughter.com

* www.neverhadajob.com

~~~
time_management
* www.lostmillionsandnowhavetowork.com

* www.afterbeingbeatenupbyaspikyhairedguywhonevertalksandhishotfriendalongwithsomeguyyouturnedintoafrog.com

* www.republicansenator.com

~~~
nonrecursive
i'm not sure that
afterbeingbeatenupbyaspikyhairedguywhonevertalksandhishotfriendalongwithsomeguyyouturnedintoafrog.com
would really communicate that the site is for people looking for a job

~~~
time_management
Why else do you think Magus joined up with the bastards who invaded his home,
beat up his friends, and nearly killed him? He was out of work and looking for
something to do.

------
BenS
Maybe you could call it postpinkslip.com It's a bit shorter and (IMO) sounds
better. It's also available.

~~~
nonrecursive
Yeah, I'm not sure what to use for the name. As other folks have mentioned it
might be a good idea to have a name applicable to all job searches (though I
haven't found a good name to use for that). I've also tried "after pink",
which is rubbish. In a way, though, I like how "after the pink slip" sounds.

Maybe I should drop a vowel : aftrthepinkslip.com

~~~
arthurk

      "Maybe I should drop a vowel : aftrthepinkslip.com"

Please don't do this.

~~~
nonrecursive
maybe "aftrthpnkslp"

though maybe now that the 2.0 bubble has burst, I should look ahead to web 3.0
and consider dropping consonants

~~~
fallentimes
Simple words that are spelled properly are almost always best. If you're in
doubt, buy a few domains and test them.

Screw the web 2.0 horseshit.

~~~
nonrecursive
Yeah, I was being facetious. "aeii" wouldn't really be very descriptive as a
name. I'm thinking something like "worksearchtool.com" might work (just got
it). Not sure when I'll have the time to test out domains, but that's a good
suggestion.

~~~
fallentimes
Ironically, once you find a good domain you'll most likely have to buy its
misspellings :).

<http://instantdomainsearch.com> is pretty good

------
lacker
I expected this to be a job posting site a la monster, hotjobs, etc. I was
glad to see it was different. This is more of a job-hunt-organization tool.
But you could maybe have the name suggest that. "after the pink slip" - why
wouldn't this be just as useful for someone who wasn't fired, but was just
looking for a better job?

Also it seems like a pain to type things in. It seems like it would be simpler
just to bookmark job listings than to use this site. Maybe you could have ways
to import or connect with common job sites, or with a generic bookmark. A
bookmarklet to import a job listing might make this easier.

~~~
nonrecursive
Thanks for the feedback. Seems like there's a consensus that it could use a
better name :)

I agree that having a bookmarklet would be helpful. Another possibility is to
have the user add RSS feeds, and automatically add those job items.

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lethain
It's an interesting idea, although for me personally I much prefer using a
general tool that can hold that data and connect it with other data, rather
than a myriad of applications each with a separate reservoir of data.

My only specific complaint is that I found the video player to be a bit wack
on WebKit nightly.

------
jrnkntl
Have you ever heard of XSS? I didn't fcked it up though.

~~~
nonrecursive
Thanks for pointing that out.

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rms
I like the name.

------
pclark
this is a fantastic name.

