Made a site to help find roommates/apartments in Austin TX [feedback wanted]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5423903

by harrisongantz • 13 years ago

3 2 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hey guys and gals, I'm pretty new on here so go easy on me. I just opened this site to the public in Austin, TX to help people find roommates and apartments. The traffic is pretty low as expected but I am having a blast building something regardless. I would really love some input on what you think I could do to improve the site! I have a lot of plans in the future to help people out in this area however I also have a full time job so I can only dedicate a small amount of time to it in between work. Let me know what you think! Check it out---> flatscore.com

deltaqueue• 13 years ago

Cool idea and I'm a big fan of the simple design. I have a friend here (Austin resident myself) who has been painfully vetting options this month through CL.

Looks like some of the filtering tools don't work -- I selected a min and max age of 23 and 30 respectively and the results shows people beyond that range. Screenshot: http://puu.sh/2lZ6m

I also think it would be a good idea to take a few pages out of Airbnb's book of how they handle reputation and let people link their Facebook account, as well as offer a background-checking service for people to help boost their marketability. A references function (like Linkedin) would also help.

Best of luck!

harrisongantz• 13 years ago

Thanks for pointing out the bug with the filtering. I appreciate it and will fix it right away! Airbnb is amazing and I totally agree with you that we need a verification tool. That is something I have been looking into but in the mean time I thought it would be good just to get the site out there. I don't have tons of time so I have to pick and choose which features to add carefully so it all makes sense. If you have any other suggestions I'd love to hear them.