HN user
She seems to be very disciplined. I am seeing/finding out that , in the startup world as well, discipline to deliver consistently is much more important than any other form of talent. Given the opportunity, everything else can be learnt.
Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.
Hi infocaptor,
I am offering a free 30 day listing, if you want to test it out. Like any site, we are just starting out - so obviously we don't have a pagerank etc. But hopefully, with support from customers like you, the ranks will come in near future.
Regarding fees, to be bluntly honest - it just takes too much of my time to be doing it for free (even the most subtle of tasks end up taking a good chunk of your day). Moreover, I do not want to offer any advertisement, nor do I want to clutter the site with any and every submissions. So, the only way towards any revenue is a small fee.
Thanks for understanding (and your support :)
Do you run a games startup? I would be happy to feature it.
Vladd, that sounds great. I can be reached at startupontop@gmail.com or paul@startupontop.com
Hi Markkat, thanks for the heads up. There was a small jquery bug. It should be fixed now.
Not really. It looks a bit modernish. But I think there is a subtle emphasis on having you focus more on the ads (ads tend to stand out a bit more).
Most of the directory or listing services are worthless from a browser's point of view. Your startup(or any listed business) gets lost somewhere buried under categories and sub-categories. So, while these directories do offer a link or two, they really do not provide any value or a good user-experience to a casual browser who simply wants to check out cool startups, quickly find out a bit about them and explore further if interested.
I created StartupOnTop to address this very issue and offer a directory that presents startups in a clean, clutter-free manner. It offers a top-down view (startups first, categories later) and also shows a "quick - view" for users to quickly learn about a startup.
Most importantly, I intend to vigorously maintain it - I would like to keep it ad-free and spam-free. That means, the site is not meant for ‘every’ startup and will try to prevent the site from generic dilution. After a free first month, charging a basic maintainance fee.
Thanks!
Frobozz,
Agreed - as long as quality/depth is of critical importance.
A trivial fee ($2) does not warrant such response and neither do we guarantee that.
However, by charging that trivial fee, the goal is to "guarantee" an answer to anyone. In sites like Reddit, unless you can pique some corners of one's brain, you are not likely to get an insightful response in a private setting. We allow you to 'own' your advice and women understand that it is only seen by you and not the whole community. Therefore, they tend to have a more 'personalized' approach.
Of about 65 questions asked and a few hundred responses received so far we have noticed that women are actually taking the time to respond. It's not the $1 they make, but the trend seems to be that they actually 'enjoy' providing advice to men.
That's true. This seemed to be the most simplistic way I could come up with without discouraging registrations. I would be happy to entertain your suggestions.
Hi Joe,
Thanks for trying it out.
Please click on the "Check status" page which shows your current questions. Click on the view details link - which show a status of either :
(1)Waiting for a respondent (i.e. no one has reserved your question yet. (2)In - Progress (i.e. Someone is working on the answer. But it has not been submitted yet). (3)Completed. [ You will be able to view the response, and rate (1-5) the respondent]
Hope that helps. I just found out that the system does not send out emails when answers are complete. I will have to get that fixed today. In the mean time, please log in occasionally to check status.
Thanks. Paul
There is no such guarantee. Sometimes, free services might offer much better results. Our pricing, $2 and compensation of $1 to women does not warrant time-consuming, elaborate, results. With the small charge of $2, the intention, and the goal, is to:
1)Keep spammers at bay 2)Provide a small incentive to women to participate 3)Give you a genuine, insightful, no-b.s. response 4)Do not pretend to be a professional advice service
Thank you for your tips. I appreciate it.
Check out the last box (scroll down) "Gender Verified" on this page: http://www.helpaguyout.com/ladies.php
Basically, we ask women to submit their publicly available profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for one-time verification purposes.
Check out the last box (scroll down) "Gender Verified" on this page: http://www.helpaguyout.com/ladies.php
Basically, we ask women to submit their publicly available profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for one-time verification purposes.
Great tips. Thank you for the input.
Since all of our Q & A's are private, they are not published. However, as you mentioned, showing some sample may help encourage others to participate. I should probably add a checkbox saying "My question may be publicized" to get permission.
Anyways, to help you get started, here is a sample question for you:
Let's say you are into slightly older/mature women. So your question would simply be something like: "Can I get some advice on dating older women?"
And you would elaborate it further by adding details: "I have not dated anyone for a while. Last week, I met this very attractive woman at a local bar who is 34. We really hit it off. We have been out once for dinner since. Even though I wanted to pay, she insisted we split the tab (mixed signals??). I would like to get romantically involved and take this up a notch but cannot tell how she feels. Any advice on how to pull this off without messing things up or coming across as a little too desperate? I am 21 and she is single."
Wallflower,
Did not know about this site. Anyways, even though the concept is somewhat similar, I believe our approach and what we are trying to accomplish is different.
Yes. But let clarify.
You need to specify how many women you want the responses from. That means, if you want 20 responses, you pay $40. [$2/response].
Try it out here: http://www.helpaguyout.com/asker-submit-question.php It's fun.
To keep things interesting, ask a question to your significant other, then ask the same question to 5 ladies on our site. See what happens. You will get very interesting result. [
To answer your second question, there are variations of advice related services - from free to proffesional ones charging hundreds if not thousands. What sets us apart is the ease of use, low pricing and guaranteed response. Plus our platform allows everyone to remain anonymous - women tend to open up and give a more insightful, genuine opinion that way.
Since the advice is paid for, the asker "owns" the advice and the woman understands that it is a private advice only for him. So, though, anonymous, there is a bit of "I am actually helping this guy out" factor involved.
We have all been through various phases in life where some sort of female perspective would have helped out a lot. HelpAGuyOut.com lets guys ask question and get advice from women on dating, relationship, love, life, almost anything. We are charging $2 for a question and passing $1/answer to the ladies who respond to the question. The monetory factor helps prevent spammy answers while making everyone's time worthawhile. Furthermore, 100% money back guarantee allows the asker to get a refund for any response that he/she deems unsatisfactory.
Thank you for your feedback.
-Paul