Show HN: A random generator for redirecting to your landing page using Ethereum

by quambene • 7 years ago

3 4 7 years ago

quambene2• 7 years ago

Having trouble to generate early traction for our main project [1], we decided to design a side project marketing hack. This traction hack resulted in StartupTwister [2].

The idea behind StartupTwister is to register the landing page of your startup in an Ethereum smart contract [3]. The main page of StartupTwister [4] randomly redirects to one of the registered landing pages in order to generate early tration. The landing pages currently registered on StartupTwister can be found here [5]. The first 25 pages were registered by ourselves for illustration purposes. You can register your landing page in the respective Ethereum smart contract here [6]. Neither a login is required nor do you have to provide your email address.

The price of registering your landing page is determined by supply and demand via an auction system implemented on Ethereum. The auction system is based on a Dutch auction with Harberger taxes. More information about the auction system can be found at the bottom of [6].

[1] https://turtle.community [2] https://startuptwister.com/home [3] https://etherscan.io/address/0xE1f01D1f7791aD4A45ccA7697b155... [4] https://startuptwister.com [5] https://startuptwister.com/shuffle [6] https://startuptwister.com/register

mstolpm• 7 years ago

Simple question: Why?

In detail: Why should I pay for someone redirected ramdomly to my site when visiting another homepage? Why would a visitor of startuptwister want to be rediected randomly? Why the need for Ethereum?

Seems to me as an overcomplicated, weird solution to a discovery problem that is much better handled without the "random" factor.

quambene2• 7 years ago

It is advertisement: You are paying to forward traffic to your site. Think of 'Chatroulette for startups'.

Doing it on Ethereum has the advantage that you don't have to provide your credit card details, and that we don't have to integrate Paypal, Stripe, etc. Also, an auction system implemented in a classical way would be much more complicated.

thojest• 7 years ago

The point is that you have a tool for getting very early feedback for an idea/landing page you want to showcase and do not have to provide an MVP, like in the case of Show HN.

Further more, registering your page on startuptwister, you contribute to the popularity of your site and all others listed, there. It will provide some network effect, if it is used frequently.

Show HN: A random generator for redirecting to your landing page using Ethereum

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