Ask HN: Looking for feedback on my weekend project - Pitch A Journalist
I came out with this: http://pitchajournalist.com
I am trying to solve the problem of finding reporters and journalists who would be interested in covering broad startups, niche startups, and micro-niche startups.
Right now if you asked for a list of journalists that cover web 2.0 technology startups, I would send you this: http://pitchajournalist.com/lists/1
I am solving this problem by scraping news websites for emails and doing reverse lookups for information about the emails for the purpose of creating lists of relevant reporters and journalists.
I can then manually email a journalist or send an email to a list of journalists (distributing a press release, or pitching a new startup). If the email is sent through the website, it is tracked so it can be referenced later by the user who sent it.
What do you guys think? Do you have any advice?
Do you see value in the time this type of a service saves if you commit to using it?
As for business models, I envision one of the following: 1) Sell a monthly subscription giving full access to every feature. 2) Sell credits for emailing journalists, distributing press releases to lists, and credits to download lists that you create. 3) Freemium model allowing people to send a limited number of emails, perform a limited number of searches, and create 1 list. Subscription to full featured site. 4) Give full access to everything, limit the display of lists to 20% of the list, and sell access to the full list. Give 30% commission to the user who created the list.
Let me know what you guys think.
I am also interested in opinions on how to prevent people from abusing a site that contains tens of thousands of emails. Right now I converted all emails to images to deter people from being malicious.
You can use most of the site without registering, but if you do register, let me know and I will approve your account.
Thanks!