My experiences on a one month startup
neverreadpassively.com
neverreadpassively.com
Firstly congratulations on getting the idea from zero to launch in one month. Even if the thing fails you have invested only 1+ resources building. I tried this yesterday, registered and had a play around. Impressions:
- name: 2 words, elephant that never forgets but why spicy? longer to type
- registration: faultless
- no favicon: with tabbed browsers favicons make it easy to find
- demo: no video demonstration OR quick visual demonstration from front page to show canned demo how app is better
- clean urls: yes, but where is clean url on say popular? ~ http://spicyelephant.com/decks?direction=ASC&order=popul...
- feedback: google group (good) no twitter, blog. Would have thought a twitter account and blog was a good idea for features and latest new decks?
- loading: no check for javascript block
- layout: readability reduced by lots of text. cull text.
- New deck: there is no easy way to create new deck once registed (ie: need a big easy to find button for people with really big thumbs so they do not have to hunt for it). Link to create deck should be off front page. When user is logged in "Make new deck" should be at the front page not just http://spicyelephant.com/profile
Now most of these are pretty trivial. The app works. What about marketing and getting feedback from users to improve? The only real things I'd suggest would be:
- add "make new deck" to front page easier to find
- add a demo walk through with story with pictures and text showing how the app is better
- add blog and twitter support (more feedback & data push).
One feature request I'd really like to see is a widget I could add to a third party site linking back which allows other companies to create information, test and show users results.
- Contact form fails
jase
Aw gee you didn't have to. But I'll see how I can make use of it. One idea I've had is could you use the flash cards as a sort of measurable help system? Anyway thanks. Keep up the features.
I think you need a clear pitch of what you're offering users. Something that can leverage word of mouth: short, easy to grasp, exciting. (Of course, maybe through following supermemo's seeding the geek market, you don't need it for us)
The offer is to "help them to learn stuff, by ... ", how? The first part is clear (cute: elephant=memory), but "how" it helps is not clear.
"2. We intelligently organize when to study"
That doesn't give me a sense of it (sounds like "in the morning"?, "after exercise"?, "at night"?) It's cute having your info as the first scheduled training, but maybe more effective to also have that info available before trial. :-) It's probably just me, but (though cute), I found scheduling that a bit pushy.
I'd also feel more comfortable having a clearer sense of when training will occur: what's the scheduling for this deck? I don't think it's needed for the learning task; but it would make the user feel more informed and in control; and not at the whim of a machine (users don't like that).
But I think you could have something really successful going there.
thanks.
It would be nice to know which each deck is scheduled when (just different colours and a key) - ie, the visualization you suggest.
But you've basically answered my issue - actually, the basic schedule you have now is very important, because you need to know, so you visit the site when the next learning is scheduled. One way is (optional) email alerts, to remind people. (Of course, a serious user would be at the site every day anyway).
BTW: somehow, the info on train and profile pages seems a bit confused to me... maybe there's a better principle to organize it by, in terms of what the user needs, in their work flow. (but I think it's OK as it is - this is just a refinement).
Don't know if any of that helps, but thought I might as well pass on my reactions, just in case they do.
The "content is king" meme exists for a reason.
Hard-core users seem to obsess about making their own decks, thus the available content is there as a hook or gateway to becoming a more involved user.
The hardcore users will be more likely to already have bought Supermemo, have lots of Supermemo decks and be unlikely to switch over. I think you could end up with a larger, broader market than that. But I think the concept is good.
thanks
I think the idea behind Spicy Elephant might be a bit abstract for most consumers, but the site came out well. The name doesn't help people to understand what it is...but I like it any way =)
I wish you guys the best of luck with your future projects and I can't wait to see what you come up with next.
But sometimes, memorability is more important than meaningfulness... (eg. all the weird IT names we've gotten used to, Red hat, Apache, Mozilla).
it would be really cool to have a cute/humorous story to explain the name (and the business), so that someone mentioning the name would be asked to explain it, and get to pass on an interesting story. eg. Ycombinator. Easy for me to suggest - but coming up with such a story is harder. :-)
A parent company that creates other companies as its namesake suggests ... "a higher-order function which computes a fixed point of other functions" ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_combinator
The only thing that made me wince was when you put your source repository on your server. Probably a bad idea, as you found out. You really want your production server configured and streamlined to do one thing -- make money. (Or provide value to users, to be more precise) Think of it as a big cash register. Try to keep it as clean as possible.
"The one caveat was that each project must have to have a clear and realistic path to monetization (for example: subscription, not advertisement)"
I don't think an advertising monetized startup is unclear or unrealistic and it means that you discount a lot of ideas from the start.
You'd think everyone on Reddit created their own million dollar tech startup based on those comments.
It's definitely something that's in the cards, pun indended :)