Ask HN: Please review my startup www.Swayable.com

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2098235

by static47 • 16 years ago

9 8 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

The HN community has been a great resource to me in learning all sorts of startup advice/tips etc. I'd like to get some feedback/reviews on my startup http://www.Swayable.com

jayzee• 16 years ago

Promising but one huge issue in mind:

You have developed a broad service and there is nothing wrong with that. But you need to focus on one particular vertical to grow. Let me explain why.

As you will discover the challenge is not in developing the site (though that is not to be minimized). The challenge is in growing the user base. The only practical cost effective way for a start-up to do this is by word-of-mouth.

When you target multiple verticals (sports, handbags etc) people are not going to become passionate about the site. And people are not going to come to it again and again for opinions. A few visionary souls may try it out but never return.

So you need to pick a vertical which gets people in that group to come back again and again to your site. And refer it to their friends. Thus a viral loop is born and a community comes alive. And then you can move to an adjacent vertical. And grow from there. Its going to take time. And it is hard to focus on a vertical because you will feel that you are reducing the size of your market.

But you need to focus. Pick some sector/user demographic. Quora did this brilliantly by focusing on the start-up group. Facebook did .edu. etc.

olegious2• 16 years ago

Is it possible for him to just wait and see what community of users makes up most of the userbase and then slowly begin to focus the product on them?

olegious2• 16 years ago

The header area is very busy, I would eliminate some of the elements like "Swayable is a cool new way to help you make decisions online or on the go Create a Swayable comparing anything you can take a photo of or find on the web.Let your social circle Sway your decision." Then make the video tour icon smaller. You have "Register" and "Login" in the header and in the nav bar fairly close to each other, you can eliminate one of the pairs to reduce clutter.

venturebros• 16 years ago

Good idea but not a fan of the design.

togasystems• 16 years ago

Looks good

- had a problem swaying from iphone not the app... Got an error saying there was a problem - have you thought of making this a facebook app?

zone2• 16 years ago

clickable http://www.Swayable.com

fezzl• 16 years ago

Your homepage is too B2B-ish and too cluttered.

jetjune• 16 years ago

Great site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ask HN: Please review my startup www.Swayable.com

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