Show HN: DreamCoin: Anonymously Share Your Ideas and Profit | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: DreamCoin: Anonymously Share Your Ideas and Profit

dreamco.in

4 pointsaaronmhatch19 comments

Last year, I announced an app called Dude, I Got It! for anonymously sharing ideas and getting paid for them. The app has been rebranded into DreamCoin.

It's still a work in progress with an experimental design, so if you have any suggestions, I'll send you some DreamCoins for helping me out. If you're interested in joining the team, please let me know. Can't offer any full time positions at the moment.

I've received some feedback from people saying they had a hard time figuring out how to create an idea. It seems straightforward to me, but then again, I'm the one who designed it.

You cannot seem to view any of the 'dreams' without creating an account. You are going to lose a lot of potential users this way.

Hi, yes you have to create an account to view. I've accepted that I will lose many potential users by choosing to avoid the typical VC-funded, unethical approach to the internet. I don't have any advertising, tracking, or selling of user data. The way I pay for the site is by having people purchase DreamCoins. Hopefully, I can attract people who respect this approach and are thankful to not have their information tracked and sold, although I'm not sure many people care about that.

That's a very noble approach, but I don't understand how it relates to not showing non-users current dreams? Is it that you have to pay to even view dreams? I didn't get that from the home page. I think at the very least you need to demonstrate to potential users what the product does, otherwise (I think) few people will sign-up for something they don't really understand.

Yes, to view a dream, users pay the price shown on the left. I thought I explained how the site works well enough in the "How This Works" section, but it seems like that approach isn't working. Do you have any suggestions on how I could better explain this to people? Might it be a good idea to have the "How This Works" section pop up automatically when people visit the site?

Is the interface confusing to you? If so, what would make it more intuitive?

I'm willing to pay anyone (in DreamCoins) who helps to develop an effective explanation. You can cash out DreamCoins, so there's real value if you want to help me out.

I'm afraid I have no real expertise in user-experience so I cannot really say. I definitely think you want, as you suggest, a "How it works" at the very top, centre of the landing page. Preferably in graphic form.

I also still think you want example dreams to be viewable by anyone. I believe that few people sign-up without a good idea of the kind of thing they are signing-up for.

OK thanks for the suggestions.

One comment I would share; I completely missed the "How This Works" link because it's in the part of the page where people usually put the name of the site, and doesn't look like a link. I might be the only person who ignores the upper left hand corner of a page but it is one data point.

Interesting, thanks. Do you recommend changing where everything is laid out in the header / footer? Do you initially look toward the upper right?

So, I'd be happy to share some ideas for free, if that meant I could get a look at some real entries.

Maybe that would be a way to collect more dreams/ideas that you could then help monetize?

Hi Brad. After letting users post for free during beta testing, we decided to charge one DreamCoin per submission to filter out spam and hopefully to improve the quality of the content.

After you join, you may view dreams that have a value of zero for free. You also start with one DreamCoin, so you can submit one dream for free essentially. If people like it, you'll accumulate coins that can be used to view other entries. DreamCoins are also given to users as a gift at random times, so that's another way to do it.

Okay, so how does value get assigned?

Is there a voting or karma process?

If so, do you have to spend DC in order to vote?

Does the poster get a chance to request a certain value for their idea, and if so does that cost extra DC?

The value starts at 1. The first person to view pays 1 DC to see it. If the viewer up-votes the dream, the value goes to 2. If the viewer downvotes it, it goes to 0. The value increments by 1 for every up-vote, and the lowest value is 0. Too many down-votes at 0, and the dream is forgotten (deleted). It only costs DC to view. Voting doesn't cost any DC.

The poster cannot request a certain value. All dreams start at 1.

FYI, we've changed the starting value to 0. That way, if someone posts spam or an otherwise bad idea, people won't have to pay to view it initially.

I don't understand it.

Hi, please elaborate on what you don't understand. Is the layout confusing for you? Were you able to find the "How This Works" page; and if so, do you have a recommendation on making it more clear? Thanks

So in IMHO the fact that this person cannot see any of the dreams prevents them from understanding. If you really do not want to show non-users any dreams, why not just have a couple of made-up example ones?

I have an example in the tutorial. As I say in my recent comment, maybe I should have the tutorial / help section pop up automatically when people visit the site?

I added a "How does this work?" link to the login popup. Does that make easier to understand what's going on?

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