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Comment by edawerd | Hacker News Reader

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 =(

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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