2 weeks after launch, and no real traffic. What should I do? | Hacker News Reader

2 weeks after launch, and no real traffic. What should I do?

13 pointsedawerd33 comments

Edward - don't let the nay-sayers get you down. Here's a few pieces of advice. First of all, for all of the users who don't sign up and are merely there to look around and maybe catch some reviews, the site has no local focus.(I recently read somewhere that a typical site with user generated content can expect around a 10:1 ratio of readers to creators - so this group should be important to you). I'm not particularly interested in seeing a Google map of reviews from Connecticut when I'm in Portland Oregon. I feel like you would do well to pick one or two cities, and focus your resources on reaching critical mass in those markets. I think what you have is cool. Talk to your friends and enable them with digital cameras. A lot of people eat out once or twice a day and even a few of these people using your site will really rev up the user experience in a given city. After you have 100, maybe 200 reviews. Reach out to local bloggers, small local papers, and some of your favorite restaurant owners. Maybe even print up some info and go talk to some of the more interesting restaurants in your area. Restaurant owners love getting reviews, and many will be happy to speak your praises to their customers in hopes of a good review.

One last thing. When someone tells you that "people wont be interested in X", you need to seriously consider what they are really saying. For instance, "tx" says "is it so hard to accept that ppl dont' give a rat's a$$ about "blogging" about stuffing themseves with food? People like to talk about THEMSELVES. This is what drives social network sites." His claim that there isn't a mass appeal for restaurant blogging or reviews is legitimate. There probably inst. But there's definitely a market for consumption of that content, I won't even bother listing examples. He obviously doesn't know enough about content generation to understand the concept of power users and the influence they can have on a service like this. Anyway - You might even consider subsidizing meals to help generate content in the beginning depending on your available resources. Goodluck!

After months of after-work-hours programming, I launched my site http://www.mygrub.net but haven't seen any traction. Any tips for getting traffic? How did reddit get its very first users?

I applied to YCombinator with this, but was rejected. Maybe for good reason =(

http://yelp.com

This is a very niche site. I would think that the type of people that would be into this service would be (mostly) over the age of 35. What type of marketing/market research have you done for your target demographic? Do you have an advertising campaign set up to reach your target?

You have to realize that the kind of people that would like to share restaurant experiences are probably not the same type of people who enjoy discovering the latest web 2.0 website just because it has been launched two weeks ago.

"What type of marketing/market research have you done for your target demographic?"

What kind of market research can you do on a shoestring budget?

you'd be surprised. i work for a market research firm for start ups, and most of it is knowing how to search online, figuring out who to call, and pounding the pavement to get feedback from people most likely to use it.

that said, it's a lot easier to build something catered towards a specific user first than to build something, and try to find a use for it.

Food is a niche? Everybody eats...Most people prefer to eat good food rather than crap food.

As Aston pointed out, it looks a lot like yelp. I can see you've tried to differentiate it with the "food blog" thing, and all...but I think those changes make it less interesting than yelp rather than merely differentiated.

Don't get me wrong, it looks really nice--nice design, cool features with the maps and all. Looks like you've executed well, but with maybe a somewhat weak idea. It can probably be flipped over into something cool. You just need to figure out what...

And you will need more content, as another said. Until someone comes to your site and gets value out of it, they won't feel compelled to pay it forward with a contribution of their own.

reddit got its first users because Paul Graham linked to it. Remember it was a yc company. They were getting something like 3000 users a day in the first days. To me it seems that's the best reason to be a yc company, because you trade some share of your company to get free press and free traffic. Which is kind of expensive if you don't get it for free.

In your case I would perhaps consider finding a partner or something to link to you.

Intriguing idea in the abstract, the current implementation isn't quite grabbing me. Getting more content would help, but if I were you, I wouldn't be too eager for a lot of users just yet. What you need are a dozen or so people who are intrigued enough to give you some content and feedback to act on.

Things for you to consider:

Where have you been plugging this thing? Are you active in other food related communities, like eGullet? Have you thought about simple ways this can complement existing "web 1.0" discussion board based communities (like eGullet)? How about people who already have their own blog and sometimes blog about favorite meals/restaurants?

How about forums/communities for business and/or pleasure travelers?

Finally, what's in it for me, why, beyond self-expression, would I contribute to your site? If I enter my favorite restaurant at lunchtime, will I be glad I did by dinner time?

Some nits: Why are you showing me a map of Palo Alto by default after I register, and why isn't it easy as pie for me to change it.

Having the toolbars for the text editor be almost as large as the text area = not good. Simplify.

Make the logo a link back to the home page.

Hey, in Safari the "Add this..." doesn't work. Well, I assume it's just Safari. So, if I can't add any restaurants, I'm much less likely to use the site. :)

I imagine people are just going to your front page and then leaving, so what I would do is experiment with the front page to see if you can get better engagement. Focus on getting users to make the next click. Add a 'Add a Location' textfield on the front page, so that I can add a restaurant right away. Defer registration until after they typed in the review. Make it easier to browse restaurants, it doesn't seem easy to explore anything beyond what was recently added.

Also, the content doesn't seem very localized -- I entered my city and state, but it seems to default to California every time.

btw, you have a bug when adding locations with a quote in the name (search for Rhea's or Provino's). I added a couple of locations for you, good luck. You should make a follow up post (after you fix that bug) asking everyone to post at least one location for you. Or maybe you can turk it (http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome)?

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions! It's all been very encouraging and I now have a lot of new ideas as a result.

There were a couple suggestions about linking my site to other existing food sites, like eGullet. I have a hard time thinking about how to do this without having it appear like shameless self-promotion or even spam. I posted something on chowhound.com about my site, only to find that it was quickly removed as spam.

As for marketing, I'm working with a shoestring budget, which consists on spending about 50 cents a day on google adwords. I guess I really just need to go out there and tell more friends about it. For whatever reason, I tend to be a little shy when it comes to making a big splash among my friends about my startup.

Cool site. I co-founded a startup that was doing a very similar thing in 2002 (it failed). Here are some ideas that will hopefully make your site successful.

- Start off with a really niche site. For example: Vegan food in Portland, Oregon. It's the niches that sites like Citysearch aren't serving very well.

- Don't code any more features. Spend the next 3 months on marketing. Making this site successful is an exercise in savvy marketing, not programming.

- No one cares about keeping track of restaurants they visited. Everyone cares about going to good restaurants. Same features, different message.

I think you want to focus, focus, focus. Ex. become the absolute authority on Pizza places on the lower east side of Manhattan (or whatever your thing is). Be SO important to a tiny 'slice' of the world that restaurant owners are encouraging their customers to review.

Definitely post your own reviews and talk about the idea an insane amount = as much as you can. How did CL grow - there may be ideas there.

All the easy ideas have been taken. Build it and they will come just isn't easy anymore. You have to immerse yourself in the market to get traction.

If all else fails, hire some hot girls.

It reminds me of one problem that actually needs solving: have you ever worked for a company in a remote location, where takeaway is the only food you can get? There are usually loads of leaflets from takeaway restaurants lieing around, and it is hard to remember which ones were good, and which of their meals didn't suck. Maybe if your blog became more fine-grained (which menu did I choose), it could be used for that.

Hi edawerd, reddit creators created :) fake contents in early stage to have something on their site.

I hate that - I don't think it's quite dishonest, but it doesn't feel real, either. Unfortunately, I think it's also a good idea:-(

Edit - hate is too strong a word, but still, it annoys me - see below.

Have fun basking in your honesty, all alone on your fantastic new site.

(if you were against it, that is.)

I said it's a good idea, and think it's probably effective. I still don't like it though, even if all things considered, there are a whole lot of worse things going on.

I wouldn't say the content was fake. They posted real urls to real stories they found interesting but under many different user accounts.

I don't think there's anything wrong with seeding your early content personally. As noted, the reddit folks did exactly that, and over time, it worked out.

I'm doing something similar with http://www.DailyHub.com (a social content site for business geeks). Right now, most of the links submitted are mine, but my hope is that over time, others will also start contributing.

Not all of us have a wide network of early users via YC. I'm envious.

The OP explanatory comment has drifted down the page by now. This feature request would be useful to stop this. http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=1149

I think menuism.com is doing something similar. They are based in Chicago and are targeting only select cities at first.

make something you want to use

PATIENCE, grasshopper. Give yourself longer than two weeks to build up 'traction'. The more stuff that builds up on your site, the more people will want to go there. And that takes time.

I would not worry about yelp or any other sites people are comparing you to. Google emerged after the problem of internet search was 'solved', and Flickr appeared and succeeded after photo sites had been around for years.

You might want to concentrate on (and emphasize) what differentiates you.

If you have not already, use every channel you have available. Tell everyone you know, and remind them. Link to other food sites (even competitors?) and post on restaurant forums and sites.

More anecdotal info: Digg didn't have very much traction until Paris Hilton had her Sidekick hacked, and someone posted a link to her photos. All of a sudden everyone went to Digg to see Paris kissing girls, and apparently the traction started there.

Even with a Digg/Reddit effect, there is no guarantee of traction. It takes time and persistence.

No, it was the number one or two result on Google.

"Ever wanted to keep track of all the great restaurants you've been to?"

The answer is NO. This is why you dont' have any visitors. Is it so hard to accept that ppl dont' give a rat's a$$ about "blogging" about stuffing themseves with food?

People like to talk about THEMSELVES. This is what drives social network sites.

I guess you've never used yelp. Or read one of the many popular food blogs.

tx: just b/c you don't want something doesn't mean no one does.

This food social site is quite popular in Italy:

http://www.duespaghi.it/

Quite right. I love yelp. Visit it regularly, for all sorts of reviews.

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