Show HN: My Start-up for managing roommates | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: My Start-up for managing roommates

goodmate.co

18 pointsrschmukler28 comments

I guess I'm going to sound like a Debbie Downer* but this feels like a great example of when talented software engineers have too small a universe of personally experienced problems, and end up building solutions for things that don't really need to be solved.

Dealing with roommates is no doubt a venerable problem to solve, but is there really a 'market' here that people will pay to address? There are so many lucrative and important issues out there, solving roommate management seems way down the list in terms of building a viable business. I base that last bit on the fact the OP describes this as a "startup" not a project.

I would emplor the OP to get out into the world more and find better problems to solve.

* = I use the term "debbie downer" after the recent HN post about searching for the weird terms people use in their comments. Debbie Downer was one of them.

ha ha dotben :). I had the same opinion, but I refrained myself thinking that these might be some students who are pretty excited with their school project or something. Ofcourse I second you, but if this was a way to test twitter bootstrap, or just checkout their own capabilities with web development, then great. As far as market is concerned, I have never felt a need myself, because I never stayed with roomies.

The problem itself may be small but the number of potential users is fairly large. The majority of Americans live with other people. This would probably be more useful for people living with friends rather than for families, but that's still quite a large number of people.

Utility = Size of problem solved * Users

Do you have a good plan for how to get users other than counting on TC and virality?

I'm not sure if I buy that.

If a product or service solves a small problem, what would make users transition from what they're currently using to solve that problem to this new product? There has to be some sort of incentive because inherently, we're all lazy and don't want to go through the entire process of switching existing systems.

Honestly, a simple group messaging app (or even email) + using Billmonk solves most/all of these problems. That's what my three roommates and I are using and there haven't been any complaints. As well, the more roommates, the bigger the need has to be in order to convince everyone to use this new system. The smaller the number of roommates, the even less necessary it is to have a new platform to manage all these affairs.

I think this is a cool weekend project, but would I call this a startup? I don't think so (at least, not by the definition Eric Ries uses in The Lean Startup).

The utility formula is a fact of business.

Utility = Users * Size of Problem, just as Revenue = Volume * Price

Except that utility isn't always measured in pure revenue, as you can have ulterior revenue streams (advertising, selling data, etc.).

Whether or not users make the transition from the status quo to the new product is independent of size of the problem. It's different in each specific case.

I wasn't making a statement as to whether or not this was a good idea or can qualify as a "startup". I was reiterating the true statement that solving small problem for millions can be equivalent in value to solving one single large problem.

I appreciate the feedback! We are still playing with the idea of how viable this is as an actual business. For me this gave me an opportunity to escape from the more standard tasks of freelance development and a chance to implement all the new toys (MongoDB, Backbone, CoffeeScript, Bootstrap, etc.). That being said, I think there are some interesting ways that this could become quite profitable. If not, it's still a great way to put my name to something when applying to incubators on other ideas

I agree there may be no 'market' making money from students who have to live together, but the problem of 'shared ownerships' applies to much more people (even incubators themselves!).

Maybe adding some screenshots of the app could help people sign up.

Good idea. Will add something to the home page.

Please add another type of login.

I would rather say, a 45- 60 secs max, video with a screenplay, would be just awesome. If you can tell the pain of whiteboarding the tasks, or roomies arguing over the tasks, and then the advantage of using GoodMate. This is a pretty simple idea, but a damn needy one.

Cheers!!

Splitwise (http://splitwise.com) also has a roommate bill-tracking tool, of which I'm the co-founder. We have Android and iPhone apps that sync with the cloud, and you don't need to connect with Facebook to sign up. Doesn't do chores or to-dos though, if that's something you want in your roommate site.

Let me know if you'd like to meet sometime @rschmulker, I'm based in Cambridge MA and Providence RI. You can reach me at hello@splitwise.com.

Nice work. I like the logo and its a great idea. This space seems to be getting crowded, I feel like I've seen a few apps in this vein recently, most notably RentShare (http://rentshare.com), which a few of my friends in NYC use.

My biggest question to you (and anyone else here): What's your strategy for differentiating yourself from others in the market?

One thing we are looking into is building a sort of roommate resume. We have data on how much you borrow from friends, how long you take to pay back, how often you do and don't do your chores, etc...

I find as I am transitioning out of college, I am about to move again to a new place and now I'll need to find new roommates. I personally would pay a fee to have access to good roommates to choose from, especially if its backed up by some sort of tangible history (badges, analytics, etc.) There's also a lot of opportunity here to make a game out of something not fun. Game mechanics are perhaps a bit over done, but none the less, it could be fun to compete against roommates for the title of best roommate. Hell, we could even incorporate something where all the roommates take a pool ($10 each for example) and the roommate with the highest points at the end of the month gets it.

I'm not sure if this is a product that will become profitable soon. I am quite sure that you did learn from building it (and you did a good job!), so that may be worth more in the long-run than what this may end up being worth.

It takes guts to launch, more to show them on HN, and even more to keep launching until you strike gold (but you still keep on launching...)

The best of luck!

Thanks for the praise!

Would love any and all feedback. Ideas, features, UX problems. Whatever you guys have I'd love to hear!

i doubt this audience is going to be receptive to a site that requires a facebook login. it's probable you have other demographics in mind though.

Yeah, the facebook authentication is kind of a double edged sword. We want it because it will make it easy for users to invite their roommates, and more importantly, it allows us to have the concept of an "identity" to tie actions to. Going forward this could let us create a sort of roommate-resume tied to your identity.

Instead make it really easy for one roommate to create everyone's accounts, then you reduce the conversion requirement to just 1 person (though you do slightly increase the friction on that one person you radically decrease it on the others).

As a hacker, sure, I'd rather not have this potentially spam my wall with posts. But as a college student living with other college students, it's the perfect choice. This could prove to be really useful, I'm looking forward to trying it.

We never post to your wall :) We should make that clear though, thanks for the tip!

I was going to try it out, but the Facebook log-in deterred me. I know my roommates would not use it for that reason, so it's a no go.

It's funny, I was talking with a friend about making something like this since I might be moving into a place with almost 10 people. I won't be able to use it for real for a few months, but it would be nice to test out the system without having to invite someone. The overall design looks very nice and clean though.

Edit: I can't see what my house name is when I'm logged in. Is this because I haven't invited anyone yet? I invited a friend and they entered my house name but it was not recognized.

Thanks, it's mostly Twitter bootstrap based. We definitely think that this application gets way more useful as a house has more roommates.

The problem with letting you browse around before inviting is that all of the tasks require some other user. I am very open to the idea of doing something so that people can somehow get use to stay dedicated so they don't forget about us while they wait for their roommates to join up.

Any ideas? Maybe a little preview video or something?

Video preview would definitely be nice. A useful video would be something like "Hi I'm John, I live in a house with my three buddies and we manage our house chores/expenses/etc with GoodMate. I make sure my rent is paid using x feature. I check what chores I have to do here...", etc etc. I'm very curious as to how everything works so a video would be great.

fantastic idea. I'll work on something just like that!

Greetings, having lived with 2 roommates for a good time period, I was very interested checking out how you are trying to solve some of the issues surrounding it.

Here is my immediate feedback:

1. Overall looks good, professional enough to trust. (Personally, not a big fan of vanilla Bootstrap 2.0. But I'll hopefully be one in thousand users who even know what that is)

2. Awesome, a clear call to action! However, I was hesitant because besides a bunch of icons and paragraphs of promises, it's not tangible how it works and how you are solving issues better than a bunch of magnets, a fridge and small pieces of paper. Add a walk-through or at least a few screenshots.

3. Login with Facebook only (as noted by others) makes sense but I'm not a big fan of this being the only option. Case in point, one of my past roommates did not have a facebook account.

4. Join or create a "Room" -- Errr... This naming made no sense (to me) whatsoever. Why are you replacing 'shared residency' or 'house' or 'apartment' with 'room'? To me, this is silly and - in my interpretation - seems like an overly clever play on the words 'room' and 'roommates'. Unless of course, you think we all sleep in bunk-beds in the same physical room (which, if you live in New York City is a possibility).

Okay, so I am now on my dashboard, I understand that my other roommates need to be invited. Okay. Instead, I'd like to poke around a bit first. I'd like to schedule/add chores, some existing bills, todos etc. so that, when they join, there is something to use/look at. Hm, that doesn't work because of some before_filter requires me to have them join first. That's a no-go for me.

Right now, I still have _no_ _idea_ how this thing works, what kind of forms/options you are going to give me and if they apply to the specific real-world situation (since there was nothing to be seen or checked-out pre-registration).

Because of the requirement of invitation, I can't move forward checking out what it does, so I'm losing interest quickly and am bound to leave and possibly never return.

Keep up! Looking forward to the next iteration :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com