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Comment by smt88 | Hacker News Reader

Edit: I was wrong. The testimonials are real. Only the first picture is a stock photo.

I just quickly checked out Mentr, the company listed on your profile.

The very first picture is obviously a stock photo[1], which I confirmed with a Google search.

Lying to customers and misrepresenting prior success might be a common tactic in Silicon Valley, but it also shows a lack of integrity (and lack of users) that would worry me as an investor.

If you can't find 5-10 real people to use your service and talk about it, you should move to the next idea.

1. https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-black-blazer-jacket-on...

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Nobody cares about made up quotes or user testimonials.

The Reddit founders made fake accounts to create the illusion of community in the early days.

These are no made up quotes, they sent it to me. The only conflict is that I had to use one stock image because that student did not send me her profile pic.

I was wrong in assuming any of the testimonials were fake. They're real.

That said, fake accounts on social media are legal. Fake testimonials aren't.

Reddit is one random success story and not indicative of whether something is ethical, where it concerns investors, or whether it's a good idea for a SaaS (a completely different model from Reddit).

You had an important point: the testimonial looked fake, and that makes people trust the product less.

Thats not true. All the students are real, except the one who did not send her profile picture. I could have left it alone, but she is one of the best student success stories. I did not lie, I can share their emails. Also not sure if you ever ran a company, but many times in business you need to take these risks. You need to work with whatever you have.

I've run several businesses. I've never used fake testimonials, which is what I thought you'd done by reverse image searching the first picture.

I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions based on the first image!

It sounds like OP's feedback is not that you shouldn't take risks, but that they think the risks you took may backfire with investors. (Or rather would backfire with OP, an investor, or someone taking that perspective).

You may want to proof read your testimonials again. The testimonial from Leah has two different surnames. She is called "Leah Smith" and then "Leah Remini".

I changed the image from stock image to image of a real student. Thanks for your candid feedback

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