Show HN: forage - Deals from local restaurants & bars

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5495698

by chanced • 13 years ago

1 6 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I just finished the MVP for my first personally owned startup. It's been a long (longer than it should have been.. built too much) journey and I'm glad to finally see that chapter come to a close. I hit the streets tomorrow to get restaurants/bars signed up.

Filtering is currently turned off and please be aware that while the restaurants are not, the deals are all fake.

demo: http://demo.forage.at

angel list: angel.co/forage

dylanhassinger2• 13 years ago

It's not an MVP, I'd call it a non-functional prototype. But it's a good idea. Here's some thoughts:

- Cut the amount of copy, the site is WAY too wordy. Read some blog posts about copywriting

- it doesn't need more features yet. Make the features you are showing work, and then clean up the design on them

- Start a blog and a podcast, interviewing exciting restauranteurs. Use content to build the Forage brand

- new logo

keep rockin

chanced4• 13 years ago

First off, thanks for taking the time to give me feedback. Responses below.

>>It's not an MVP, it's just a mockup really.

How so? It's fully functional. I added a setting to disable all filtering (location, timing, tags) because I didn't want to have to schedule a ton of deals to match unforeseeable criteria.

>> Cut the amount of copy, the site is WAY too wordy. Read some blog posts about copywriting

Heh, I'm certainly not a writer. Thank you for the feedback on it, I'll try and trim it back.

>> - it doesn't need more features yet. Make the features you are showing work

What's not working? Did you run into something specific? If you're talking about filtering, I covered that above.

>> and then clean up the design on them

A large part of the design challenge is lack of content. As features are added, the content will fill out, allowing me to fill out the design. I also couldn't spend a horrible amount of time on the design itself. I'd love to hear feedback on what you didn't like specifically though if you have time.

>> Start a blog and a podcast, interviewing exciting restauranteurs. Use content to build the Forage brand

Agreed to an extent. At this stage I'm going to devote my days to door-to-door pitches to get restaurants on board while my nights will be spent developing features based on feedback from restaurateurs. I'm not funded so I have to cram as much as I can in. I realize the value of a blog though, well to an extent.

>> keep rockin

Thanks again :)

dylanhassinger2• 13 years ago

Fyi I tweaked my comments some. Here's responses:

"It's fully functional"

You said the deals aren't real. I guess I was confused, I thought this was automatically aggregating all the deals from other services. If you are having to go talk to restaurants and secure deals themselves, this idea won't scale. Just being up front.

"A large part of the design challenge is lack of content"

No, the design is obviously done by a non-designer. That's okay to start off with. Then slowly improve on it by asking feedback from people with design background, and eventually hiring a contractor to add some polish.

"At this stage I'm going to devote my days to door-to-door pitches to get restaurants on board while my nights will be spent developing features based on feedback from restaurateurs"

Marketing 1 feature > Adding more features

I highly recommend the book "Start Small Stay Small" by Rob Walling, it is a great business book for micropreneurs. Also Rob has a great podcast "Startups for the Rest of Us" that I think you would like.

http://startupbook.net

best of luck!

chanced4• 13 years ago

Did you visit demo.forage.at or just forage.at? If you didn't go to the demo, it would explain the non-functionality.

chanced4• 13 years ago

Clickable: http://demo.forage.at

Show HN: forage - Deals from local restaurants & bars

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