Ask HN: Review our startup, TimeCarrot

[ulugbek]

www.timecarrot.com

We've built a web and desktop app that tracks user-specified procrastination sources and allows setting of commitments to limit your procrastination. If you never procrastinate, then you wouldn't need it. But if you are like me, you spend hours on facebook or hulu during finals week or do other self-sabotaging things online when important deadlines loom close. Thus putting money on the line could help you stay productive.

TimeCarrot works by having you specify your procrastination sources (either a website or application). You then make a commitment to limit your procrastination to x hours for any period of time. If you reach your goal, you get your money back. If not, then either a friend or charity gets it.

I had a chance to meet Paul Graham at the last startup school event at Stanford, and chatted with him about TimeCarrot when it was just an idea. I told him I would like to apply to YC with this. He once wrote "Most people I know have problems with Internet addiction. We're all trying to figure out our own customs for getting free of it." (http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html) He said the idea was interesting but wanted to be convinced that users would stick with it and use it. Honestly, I don't know if it works beyond the small proportion of friends at Stanford. That's why I am posting it here in hopes that I will get honest feedback from people who don't care about our feelings. It is our first ever project and we would greatly appreciate your critique ranging from the idea itself to UI, user experience flow etc. It is still in beta and we are still working on it daily.

Thanks a bunch!

Bek

[_sagacity]

Quick question:

Is the desktop app only for Mac? What about Win; and more importantly, Linux?

First reaction on Design/UI/UX/Flow : 7/10 :)

Edit: Added: > we would greatly appreciate your critique ranging from the idea ....

This is more by way of a suggestion rather than a critique - why restrict the concept to just online procrastination; why not expand it to cover just about any kind of resolve? e.g. to quit smoking, to start workouts, etc.

HTH

[ulugbek → _sagacity]

That's where the inspiration came from, but it was easier to monitor time use than to measure the cotinine levels in someone's body.

[_sagacity → ulugbek]

Try peer monitoring/evaluation for all things off-line. :-)

[ulugbek → _sagacity]

forgot to mention, stickk.com does that with other types of commitments that require peer monitoring.

[ulugbek → _sagacity]

For now it is, we are developing Windows and Linux versions. Thanks for 7, it will get better day by day I promise :)

[RiderOfGiraffes]

Clickable: http://www.timecarrot.com

[avree]

This is a tiny thing, but really makes a difference to some people including me. In OSX, the standard convention has been to make all icons in the menu bar black. Yours is orange - is there any way of having a black alternative?

[ulugbek → avree]

Honestly, I wasn't aware of the convention. Seeing DropBox's color, we went with our own. Thanks for letting us know, we will definitely try to include it for our next update.

[grasstradamus]

Sounds interesting!