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Ask HN: I use my own product, but others don't. Why?
5 points by faisalkhalid80 on Nov 18, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 30 comments
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'm getting from people I've shared it with and on forums I've shared it is... non existent. No response. Please can someone tell me - what'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.



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.


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?


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..


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

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.


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 might give you inspiration...

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


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."


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.


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?


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


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.


thank you.


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.


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..


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


I see you never responded to this comment:

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?


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


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


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...)


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!


Thank you, I see your point..


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.


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


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


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/ also.


clickable link: http://www.restaurantmapper.com


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://" on the front.

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

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

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


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


http://restaurantmapper.com


doesn't work for my country


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




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