

Ask HN: Review my Craigslist killer - colemaniac

www.menkle.com<p>Our focus is on creating local marketplaces in small towns and neighborhoods (as opposed to large population density areas where Craigslist dominates).  We accomplish this by using zip codes (or neighborhood or town names) as a primary location reference.<p>We are looking for feedback on the following:<p>How do we provide an incentive for users to post on our site when we have very few buyers browsing the site?<p>What are the best categories of second-hand items that we should focus on (ex. Electronics, Furniture, Real Estate, Services, etc)?<p>What do you wish you could do on Craigslist but can't?<p>What can we offer that would make us a better alternative than Craigslist?<p>What would you change on our site to make it better?<p>Thanks for your thoughts and comments.
======
rm999
It's tough to provide a good incentive. I think your idea of initially
targeting zip codes not covered by craigslist is good, but then your problem
is marketing to thousands of local, semi-rural areas. Very tough...

Perhaps a way to break into the market would be to find an esoteric genre of
items to trade with a very devoted user group - these people generate buzz for
free. Then, when you have a group of users, slowly expand into more mainstream
categories that have some relation to the original base. For example, you
could start with car stereos and speakers, then slowly expand into other car
parts, then into everything. I realize this may require shipping and isn't CL-
like, so it may not be what you are looking for.

I think the most important thing for me that Craigslist is missing is user
profiles of some sort. When I am going to drive 30 miles to some guy's house
to pick up a widget, I would feel much more comfortable if other users said he
was on the level and dependable.

Feature-wise, I'm unclear on what your site offers that Craigslist doesn't,
other than a more web 2.0 interface. If anything, I think a simpler, quicker
interface would be better for something like this.

~~~
colemaniac
that's a great point -- start specific then branch out. i agree it would be
helpful to know more about the sellers.

------
sonink
I think before you want to make something like a CL killer, you first need to
understand what is CL, why is that so popular as it is - essentially what is
the primary driver of business for CL.

As other would have already commented, it seems that the simple interface is
one of hte biggest drivers for CL. You would find the same if you dig through
tons of forbes/media articles. I think that is not the case. That is just
post-facto insight - something which gets generated a lot in the media.

The primary driver of business for CL afaik is data and the people who already
use CL. If I want to sell something I go to CL because it offers me the most
amount of buyers. If I want to buy something vice-versa. It is a self-
fulfilling loop.

The only way to beat CL is to figure out how do you overtake CL in its primary
driver of business. It will not be easy - I dont know even if it is possible.
But what I do know is that anything else (neat UI, AJAX) is just
inconsequential.

~~~
RobGR
The existing user base of CL, and the chicken-and-egg problem of buyers and
sellers, are definitely valid issues.

However I would keep a very simple interface. There are things that I have
sold on craigslist and I knew that I would get more and sell it faster on
ebay, but right then I just wanted to get it "in the process" of getting gone,
and ebay is a pain. It may be because of the computer or browser I use, but it
is slow, it loads up all kinds of ads and kruft to show me what I want in a
tiny 2 square inches in the center of my big monitor.

In fact, I would go further, and provide RSS feed interfaces and even a
newsgroup interface ( not many people will use that, so maybe make a few
million first).

~~~
colemaniac
i especially like the idea of RSS feeds or even a search that will notify you
when the item you're looking for is listed (i think ebay may have something
similar?)

------
RobGR
* Incentives for users to post, i.e. beating the chicken and egg problem: 1) Find a way to offer a payment service, or easily integrate with google checkout, so that the user's "Buy" button is automatically hooked to their GC account and the item description, link to menkle.com item, etc is in the GC transaction email. Don't use PayPal. 2) At least at the start, advertise some posts in other ways. You might buy google adwords that link to specific items, make a single-page poster listing half a dozen good items and have it put up around college campuses and other place, etc. 3) Attract buyers by buying certain items and re-selling them through the site, trying to break even on the transaction and taking a hit on the overhead of finding, dealing with the customer, storing it in the mean time, etc

* Best Catagories: I am not sure there is anything in particular you can focus on. If there are catagories that Ebay and Craigslist forbid, that are easy to handle, then you might advertise to buyers / sellers for that catagory, but the only such catagories that come to mind are firearms and used underwear. You can probably do the firearms, as long as you try to only assist in-state transactions, and you prominently warn parties that transactions are archived on the site forever. Maybe you could allow someone with a FFL to pay for a special account where they could do interstate firearms posts. Offering pets for free is another one.

* What I wish I could do on Craigslist: 1) Make a good search engine for historical pricing data, so I can see if something is a good deal, and price my own offerings. This is hard on CL because there is no way to tell if a posting ever sold, or if the transaction occurred at the advertised price. 2) Archive all posts in a searchable manner. This is good for pricing, but also for tracking down stolen shit. 3) Don't stop people from selling, trading, or giving away pets. 4) Swap meet - see below 5) Never completely delete posts. You can make them "go gray" YC-style with a few flaggings, but if the poster wants to remove it, or the transaction is done, it should go into some permanent archive. Access to the permanent archive can be sold at a subscription of $10 a year or something if you need to keep out spammers and etc.

* What I would change about your site to make it better: 1) Use a simple, no java script, craigslist like or google like interface. Look at plentyoffish if you want something a little more featured than CL. This site (yc) is also good. 2) In addition to searching by zip or region, have a "special region" called "mail order" for people buying or selling through the mail. 3) Offer a way to do an auction. Avoid the sniping crap by extending the auction for an hour every time someone makes another bid (i.e., make it a real auction)

Here's a way to try to get jumpstarted: hook up with some small flea market to
do a "county wide garage sale". Charge $5 to pile your shit in a parking lot
to sell it, free admission, the $5 charge is waived if you post all your stuff
for sale on merkle 30 days before the swap meet.

I would love to consolidate all my meeting of potential craigslist buyers, and
all the driving to check out items that turn out not to be as advertised, into
one day and one location. I could tell people I'm interested in the item, and
they should bring it to a certain place at a certain time, and then I could do
all the haggling and get my business done in one hour and save gas.

I like your idea. The most important thing is to make the interface cleaner,
don't use ajax or javascript or anything else that a web designer would think
was cool.

~~~
RobGR
I signed up and contacted a seller. In spite of all the java script the site
was pretty fast. I'd still get rid of it.

Two points:

1) You need to get people using the site, and I have to second the
observations that requiring someone to sign up to contact a seller is too much
hassle. Most people used CL without an account for years before they signed up
in order to post somethign.

2) Your search is broken. I listed books and searched on exact words in some
of those listings, I never got any search results.

~~~
colemaniac
i agree with you here..the sign in /register is a pain in the ass.

thanks for pointing out the issue with the search. we knew it was primitive
but not broken.

------
ComputerGuru
You can't kill Craigslist with that UI.

What makes Craigslist "just work" is the simple, bloat-free interface. It
makes it easy to view large quantities of data on a single page, and doesn't
make it a "chore" to browse through the site for stuff.

Your UI is really way too bloated. Cut down on all the "web 2.0" look, focus
on what your customers _need_ rather than making sure your design screams "I'm
a Web 2.0 Startup!"

Cut down on the graphics, the crazy whitespace.

Just my two cents.

~~~
trefn
My first reaction to the design was "landing page!". It looks so much like a
parked domain...

------
merklefeedback
_What would you change on our site to make it better?_

Here's a start: don't use javascript for link navigation. Try browsing
Craigslist with javascript disabled and you'll see that the site is fully
functional. Then try browsing your site the same way and see how far you get.

Craigslist quickly presents a lot of useful information in an accessable
manner. It's successful in part because _everyone_ and _everything_ can
traverse their site.

Craigslist on lynx:

front page:
[http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/cl.p...](http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/cl.png)

sf bay area:
[http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/cl2....](http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/cl2.png)

software jobs:
[http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/cl3....](http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/cl3.png)

specific job posting:
[http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/cl4....](http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/cl4.png)

Although not particularly pleasing to look at, nothing stopped me from getting
right to the information. Now consider menkle on lynx:

[http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/menk...](http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/lynxcraigslist/menkle.png)

Unfortunately this is as far as we (and most search engines) are going to get
because your links depend on javascript for navigation.

~~~
colemaniac
thanks for the specific illustrations! this is a big help!

------
mdasen
_How do we provide an incentive for users to post on our site when we have
very few buyers browsing the site?_

That's the big question that none of us probably have an answer to. Like PG
said about auctions: "a startup that wants to do this has to expend more
effort on their strategy for cracking the monopoly than on how their auction
site will work" and like he said about dating sites "if you want to do a
dating startup, don't focus on the novel take on dating that you're going to
offer. That's the easy half. Focus on novel ways to get around the chicken and
egg problem."

Building a better CL isn't such a hard thing. The hard part is overcoming the
momentum that CL has or in your case (since you want to go for people in rural
areas) figuring out how to get people using it before there's a reason to use
it (i.e. other people using it).

So, the chances that your site will succeed aren't wonderful. It's not that it
isn't a worthy site, it's that there's a high level of random chance involved
in whether a site like this succeeds. Success for a web office suite will be
based on features, polish and the like. Success for your site will be (mostly)
determined by whether other people use it since the majority of the value will
be the user contributed content and not your code.

But, in terms of the code:

* Better search. CL only matches whole words as far as I can tell and it's just not great. Do it better. Get people to what they want more easily.

* Logins. I don't like having to create logins and until you're big don't put that hurdle in front of people. When your site has a million users, they will see the value of an account. Right now, an account is another reason not to use your site. Why should I register for a site with no one on it? However, if I can just post without registering, well, I might. Maybe offer the option of either ala CL.

~~~
colemaniac
Thanks for the feedback! We're hoping we can improve our chances of success by
listening closely to what our users are asking for.

I agree (as do others) that the search needs to be improved. We'll work on
that. And you're right we need to lower the barriers to entry (ie.
login/register).

Thanks for the feedback!

------
katz
It looks nice. Just my 2 cents (I am not a USA citizen so I don't know the
exact conditions):

Marketing in small towns is going to be difficult. A lot of small towns lags
behind more urban places in internet adoption. Their population are also
generally older and less tech savvy than cities - so you should plan for this
group (simple interfaces, etc...).

You also get small towns that are relatively near each other: if a person
wants to buy something $200 + he will happily drive through to the next town.
So if you implement a type of map and list nearby towns it may be good.

A lot of selling over here happens with small regional papers – a regional
paper will cover one or two towns and will be filled with regional news (stuff
like school performance, local politics, etc...). Those papers also contain
classified advertisements. If you can maybe link up with one or two of them to
put those advertisements online – or provide a system in which they can put
advertisements on your system (e.g. show on their website and redirect to
yours when a user clicks on the add) it would be great.

Most of those papers are usually a one or two man operation without much of a
website – you should check if you can get a system in which you supply a CMS
type system with your advertisement system to them. You provide the website
framework and advertisement system and they fill it with content &
advertisements.

------
cmars232
I could see having to sign up and register with menkle to _sell_ something --
CL does that. But if I have to sign up to contact a seller, I wouldn't use it.

Its little things like that that make CL such a winner. CL tells users that it
cares more about them than profiting or collecting data from them.

Also, there's no listings in central Texas.

It does look a little bit (like someone suggested) like a parked domain. I
think its the overabundance of whitespace and soft pastel colors. Do something
different and unique. I suppose it can even be ugly, just make it a different
kind of ugly than Craigslist and domain squatter pages.

There are a lot of things people would like to do on Craigslist but can't
(your question above). Many of them are unfortunately viewed as illegal or
immoral by various cultural groups, municipalities and governments. Perhaps
you should host your site offshore and tap into new markets, offer new
features like anonymous cash, etc.? I wouldn't do it, but it'd be interesting.

~~~
colemaniac
i agree you should be able to contact a seller without signing up. we'll take
a look at that! thanks for the feedback!

------
barbie17
I would change the look and feel of the site a little. It looks like those
spammy domain squatters. I would tweak the font a little, at least.

~~~
statictype
Yes, that's true. But what is it about the site that gives it that feeling? I
can't really place it. Maybe the color scheme? Or is it the layout?

------
truebosko
I'm going to be overly harsh on you simply because you called this a
Craigslist killer ;-)

\- Your site does not work with Javascript turned off. If you're trying to get
the small towns and such, you need to be careful on this.

\- At first entrance of your site, it looks like a typical domain parked page
with some ads. Make it more clear your site is about small towns and
neighbourhoods. Display your top cities up front, or at the very least use
some simple ip location to grab where I am and display relevant content.

\- You want to make me register to contact someone. Not going to happen

\- All the AJAX you are using is totally unnecessary.

\- Stop calling yourself a Craigslist killer and focus on a single niche, in a
few small towns and do it well. Dominate those towns and that niche, then
expand.

That, along with everyone elses comments should start you off .. good luck

~~~
colemaniac
I appreciate the candid feedback. Your suggestions are excellent!

------
barbie17
How about if you allow them to import their postings from Craigslist and other
places? Craigslist wouldn't like it but when you are small they probably
wouldn't even notice. Just do it from multiple IP addresses or something.

~~~
RobGR
CL postings expire, so I don't think that is a big deal. The way to do the
import is to write a program that runs on the seller's desktop, that goes out
to CL and logs in and snarfs the stuff, and then has them confirm / edit one
by one as it inserts into menkle. That way the IP that visits CL is always the
IP of the seller anyway.

------
psyklic
I realize you're targeting small towns and neighborhoods, but I live in LA and
travel between numerous zip codes every day (and wouldn't mind stopping in any
of them).

~~~
colemaniac
you're right -- you should be able to view more than one neighborhood at the
same time

------
vaksel
well first things first you need to realize that your audience isn't tech
savvy. So your site should work without javascript.

Install Noscript in firefox and try your site out. When you do, you'll see
that your site is completely unusable if the person doesn't have
javascript.(can't change categories)

So either remove it, or add a javascript check that shows different content
when it doesn't detect javascript

~~~
colemaniac
great suggestion for overcoming the javascript issue! thanks!

------
algul
Take a look at the Craigslist message boards. You'll find all sorts of
customer complaints about how Craigslist has been taken over by spam, in all
sorts of areas, including the personals. Offer your site in those cities where
the "overtaken by spam" complaints are the loudest and you'll provide a real
alternative. There are lots of international destinations as well where you
won't find Craigslist.

------
andrewljohnson
Your site would be more useful to me if you listed any items in California. A
search for California on the site shows nothing.

------
tlrobinson
Isn't the " _[insert huge company or product]_ killer" phrase incredibly
cliche at this point?

~~~
colemaniac
you're probably right -- i was hoping the phrase would attract some readers.
not sure if it helped or not :)

------
ieatpaste
Instead of zip codes, why not do closed, individual communities? I know there
are a lot of forums that have a closed buy/sell market that could use this
application. Some guys recently were trying to buy/sell on HN and this would
be a good opportunity to expand.

~~~
colemaniac
that's a really good idea! who would we talk to about providing that kind of
service to HN?

------
asimjalis
One thing I wish Craigslist did but doesn't do is look good on the iPhone. I
am not suggesting you do this. But that might be a strategy for you to beat
CL: find a niche that CL ignores and target that.

~~~
jwilliams
There are some Craigslist iPhone apps - try <http://www.pheedyou.com/> (I've
not tried it myself)

------
rantfoil
If you're going to AJAX, what about just going all the way and never showing a
'loading' page? Just cache all the pages and all the item listings in memory
so that its zero cost to browse around fast?

------
unalone
You have very low information density. I go to Craigslist and see an
incredible amount of data instantly. On your site I get very few things at
once.

~~~
colemaniac
that's a good point -- we'll try to improve there!

------
MaysonL
One possible method for building user bases - one zipcoed at a time: signs -
see the thread on _SomeLittleTown_ singles.com a while back.

------
eli_s
What is the point of all the AJAX? All your content is virtually invisible to
google, and given that you're looking for ways to get traffic i would have
thought natural search would have been very important.

I think you need to think a lot more about your urls - make them friendly for
people and search engines, so instead of:

<http://www.menkle.com/BrowseCategory.aspx?c=3>

why not:

<http://www.menkle.com/categories/electronics>

and instead of:

<http://www.menkle.com/ShowClassified.aspx?id=847>

why not:

<http://www.menkle.com/items/dvd/american_pie_2> or

[http://www.menkle.com/washington/georgetown/dvd/american_pie...](http://www.menkle.com/washington/georgetown/dvd/american_pie_2)

some well thought out url rewriting will go a long way + will give the benefit
of obscuring the fact you're using asp, which might help with security.

~~~
RobGR
The human-parseable URLs would definitely be a big improvement. "Power Users"
(i.e., nerds) of CL often type in the whole URL to the city / section that
they want instead of going to the main page and clicking from there.

------
TweedHeads
There are one million sites like yours out there. Half of them scammers. Yours
looks like one of them.

It has to be clean and professional to give me some confidence.

And let me tell you, I really really hate CL.

------
andrewljohnson
Your name strikes me as somewhat anti-semitic, but I wouldn't swear to it. Did
you have gibberish Hebrew in mind for the name?

~~~
katamole
I know you're trolling, but what do you think it actually means?

~~~
colemaniac
it's a nonsensical word actually derived from one of the founders' last name
-- coleman. switching syllables it's man-cole which become "menkle" over time

