

Ask HN: Could you give me some feedback on my startup? - volpav

Hi guys,<p>I just (re-) launched my startup - PriceFlurry (a place where people can find and share information regarding prices on any goods or services), available at http://priceflurry.com.<p>The initial launch didn’t bring me any users and so I tried to improve a bit. As part of this release I’ve made a WP7 app, a mobile version of the website (http://m.priceflurry.com) and also released the REST API to the public (invite-only for now).<p>Any feedback (positive or negative) is greatly appreciated.
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ABrandt
I also like the idea and look, but have you thought about a different launch
approach? When your content needs to be geographically dense to be useful,
makes sense to limit your launch. For a non-FB example, you can look at
companies like Uber, or even today's YourMechanic launch. Yes those are both
service based, but it seems like you require a lot of users in one location to
be truly useful just like them.

On a similar note, I put in Madison, selected car repair, and my search didn't
return any results. Just kept on loading--not sure if this is due to traffic
or just no results available.

Keep it up though! I can see real potential in this, I think you just need to
keep tweaking to get there. I have faith :)

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volpav
Thanks a lot. Yes, we have a plan of pushing it locally first (because
otherwise it was like we are trying to swallow a watermelon). We will
hopefully start with it in October :-)

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xackpot
First of all, congrats on never giving up. I like the idea of PriceFlurry, but
right now there are too many clicks. Here are a few suggestions: 1\. Instead
of an empty location, populate the location with a default city, and/or get
the location using IP or geo location in the background. 2\. Put a few small
icons for heavily used categories such as entertainment, food, travel and an
icon for "more" which will open a current box when clicked. 3\. I think you
can put the input boxes just beside the description on the upper pane. Easier
for users to read and start interacting sooner.

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volpav
Great input, Thanks a lot! Everything in the backlog already ;-)

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benologist
I think this looks perfect for gift shopping but not general shopping - show
me a broad category of stuff between $x and $y.

For general online shopping it feels all wrong, too inspecific and of course
it doesn't fit entering the price range when I'm probably just looking for the
best deal.

In both cases I have to wonder about 'location'. There's arguments for and
against it, but it's the #1 criteria when the #1 location is I would think
probably just "online".

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volpav
Thank you for your feedback. Yes, the main idea is that price reviews a
"bound" to physical locations so of course it doesn't make sense if the good
are sold online. And very good catch about the "Best deals" option (although
the term "best" might have a different meaning to different people).

I believe that this service will be extremely helpful for people who are
travelling. Imagine a situation: you come to a new country, you don't really
know that's the average bill in restaurant in the city center, how much the
tour guide to that castle costs, etc. This kind of information might be hard
to find online (actually, this is when I come up with the idea - when I was
planning a trip to Czech Republic and simply couldn't figure out how much
money do I need to take with me). You just fire up "PriceFlurry" app and get
the _sense_ (that's important, reviews are recommendations rather than
something you can trust 99%) of how much the staff costs.

Again, thanks for your comments.

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benologist
For planning trips this could be interesting but that's such a tiny niche -
most people aren't going to leave their country even once a year.

I actually travel extensively and would only have had 3 opportunities all year
to have used this, and maybe a dozen over the last 8 years. Worst of all, I
don't need this anymore for any country I've _already_ been in.

~~~
volpav
Thank you for your input. The trip planning was one of the use cases. The
thing is that it doesn't really matter what kind of price review is that since
I'm not limiting the users in what they can post (obviously because I don't
know what other people are looking for to buy). Maybe it's even a short term
offer that will expire in a week and nobody will be able to leverage it. But
that's fine because people will get an _overview_ of how much things can cost
in that area (someone will make a conclusion that since there was such a good
offer, maybe there are other good offers that are simply not listed on
PriceFlurry).

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codegeek
small nitpick or advice: Always use Show HN instead of Ask HN if you want to
showcase your project/startup etc. Ask HN is usually to ask questions.

I looked at your app. i like the idea. One UI/UX comment: when i use the pop
up to select categories (car wash etc.), I was confused between the "Apply"
button and "Ok" Button. To close the window, you have to hit "Ok" which you
specify as a comment but I kept looking at the "Apply" button. Why not remove
that button and let the search box autofill the search criteria/tags and once
done, just hit "OK".

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volpav
Thank you very much. Actually I think the whole category selector is a bit
hard to use, gonna fix it in the next update (according to your comments and
what I already planned).

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codegeek
np. Btw, I really like the name of your app. PriceFlurry is catchy.

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volpav
Hehe, yeah, don't remember how many pages from my copybook went to the trash
before I got "PriceFlurry" :-)

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Domenic_S
For location, I typed in "San Jose". On the search results page, that got
changed to "250-282 N Market St, San Jose, CA 95110, USA". Intentional?

Looks like this is a crowdsourced Milo. Is that accurate?

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volpav
Yes, it's international. And yes, you're correct about how it's similar to
Milo. But I believe that putting prices closer to actual consumers (and not
proposing them through retailers which often can be just a paid marketing
campaign and the prices are not necessarily the "best") via letting them
collaborate on posting this kind of information will essentially create a
better overview of "how much" and will give consumers a better choice. I like
telling people that PriceFlurry is like Wikipedia for prices (in regards to
the concept). Don't laugh :-)

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Domenic_S
> _Yes, it's international._

I asked if it was _intentional_ \-- I tried to search for all of san jose, but
the system instead searched on a specific block :)

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volpav
Btw, I know it's empty but if you want to see how the search works and how the
result page looks like (if you don't feel like you want to post something),
try specifying "Aarhus, Denmark" (the place where I currently live) as an
address and setting a price range from $1, you'll get some results.

