Group-O-Matic (My Startup Launch!) | Hacker News Reader

Group-O-Matic (My Startup Launch!)

groupomatic.com

15 pointsepi0Bauqu19 comments

I am launching my startup today. All comments/questions/feedback, however harsh/cynical/insightful, will be greatly appreciated. Short version: free site to help people form local groups for regular events. Even shorter version: free alternative to meetup.com. There has not been a private or public beta. Group-O-Matic has been released with a minimum feature set I thought would be useful. I'm coding message boards right now, to be released shortly.

Open articleView on HN

This is a nifty idea, one that I could see myself using if it became popular. Unfortunately, you've got a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: there are currently no groups or events in my zip code (Boston), which means I'm not likely to visit the site regularly. I know that others will have the same reticence towards regular visits, so when I have an event or group, I'm more likely to post it where people are actually watching. I know that group starters will reason that way, and so I have no reason to keep visiting the site. And so on. It's all game theory.

You've gotta break the cycle somehow and make this useful to small groups of people that are already in close contact with each other. Maybe you can convince people to organize the next news.YC meetup on it. Or maybe you can feature in some sort of asynchronous time-shifting: let people indicate their interests now, and then as groups and events appear, give them notification.

A couple specific comments/suggestions:

I like the design of the site. Clean, minimalist, and directs you to things you can do with it.

It's really nifty that you go straight from search results to a "get new results by RSS" link. But add an e-mail option too! It may seem hard to believe, but not everybody uses RSS, particularly outside of tech circles. Keep the UI simple - just have someone enter an e-mail address and it'll email you when a new group appears in your location.

It'd be nice to be able to filter searches/subscriptions by keyword as well. For example, I'm interested in startup & programming groups in Boston. I'd like to be able to say "Show me all the startup organizations in Boston", and if there are none, I want to be able to type in my e-mail address, get notified when new ones appear, and otherwise forget about the site.

If you do this, you might want to show off popular subscriptions (location + keywords) on the front page. Aside from indicating that people are listening for new groups, it also could show people what interests are hottest. This could be a good signal for which groups people may want to start.

I personally would not care all that much about message boards, at least not until the site gets a lot of traffic. Then it'd be nifty, but not essential.

Rename the Help link to Help/Feedback or Help/Contact or just Contact to indicate that you're receptive to suggestions.

Thank you for your feedback. I agree there is a major chicken and egg problem with this site. I am working on reaching out to smaller niches as you suggest. First I'm trying to interest political candidates for the upcoming 2008 election cycle. Their group organizers are generally spending their own money on meetup.com, which could be used for other things, e.g. signs. And I'm sure there are other organizers who would create supporting political groups if they knew there was a free alternative. I just need to reach them now, somehow :) As for news.YC meetups, to all out there, please consider it!

Yes, I need an email option! Working on it.

I'm working on doing message boards because the political people asked for it as their users are using them on meetup.com. I'm keeping it dead simple though (modeled after news.yc).

I will rename that Help link now. At first it was Feedback. I think you are right that Contact is better as it is more inviting for suggestion. I am of course receptive to suggestions!

About finding people to sign up...

First off, if you happen to live near a big college, maybe you could plaster up some fliers, like, "Schedule your next party or club get-together at groupomatic.com!" I know when I was at college, I would have appreciated knowing where the parties were at, finding out the the school had an anime club, etc., in some other fashion the stopping to read every flier on every notice board I passed on the off chance something was there I'd be interested in. Maybe you could work something out with whatever department oversees student activities / clubs?

*Edit: Also, what about communities that are known for get togethers of most likely not necessarily wealthy people (the folks you are trying to poach from meetup)? Off the top of my head...LUGs, Demo Sceners, Furries, Flash Mobbers, Movie Fans (how cool would it be to arrange for a bunch of serious movie fans to all hit the same theater early so the place would be full of people who know better than to be obnoxious?), Gamers (LAN Parties, etc.). These types of folks often have forums with get-together sections or 'advertising' sections you could use. The draw is for cases where either a) the community is spread over many forums (they could all centralize on you for get-togethers) or b) members of multiple groups (say, gamers who are also interested in Linux).

Just my random thoughts.

I like it. It's fairly clean and simple. Did you consider making it more Web 2.0ish? I am guessing that you'll add more search features ~ like search via activity or suchlike? When you click on location maybe open a new window so I don't have to use my back button. I think it would be cool to use Google's Maps API and have a "pin" where the groups are located. And one more thing ~ maybe a link to "learn more" and then give details about Group-O-Matic.

Thanks. You mean colors, icons, and buttons aren't enough to be called Web 2.0? Just kidding--I hear you. I am looking for ways to make it more fun (a proxy for Web 2.0?) while keeping it simple.

Yes, I figured I'd hold off on search by term until there were a bit more groups, but it is definitely on the list.

I've been messing around with the Google Maps API, an am in fact using it presently to geocode cities outside the US. I like the pin idea. That would give it a more fun feel certainly.

I'm conflicted about the opening public group pages in a new window. Originally, I had it like that but I wonder if it confuses people who are used to using the back button. Jury is still out.

I certainly should have a learn more cool with screen shots, huh :)

Thanks for the suggestions!

As far as the open new window ~ I meant once you clicked on a group and are viewing the ABOUT GROUP box; if you click on location it opens up Google maps in the current window. I thought maybe the location should open in a new window. Just a thought :)

Oh I thought you meant something else. Right, that makes sense. Changed.

I like the design. It's refreshing to see a startup that's not gradienty/shiny/stripy. :)

To anyone near King of Prussia, PA, I created an Internet Startup Hackathon Club: http://www.groupomatic.com/haqsm3vj

Just curious, how is it different/better than say MeetUp.com?

The big difference is that it is free for group organizers. Meetup.com charges group organizers a significant monthly fee: http://www.meetup.com/help/organize/#org_cost I wrote a post about the implications of getting rid of this fee here: http://groupomatic.wordpress.com/2007/08/14/why-we-dont-char...

Other than that, I am trying to be simpler, more private, and add features that lead to events actually happening. I made a few departures from the meetup.com feature set already. First and foremost, I made a group scheduling feature where members help select the best date for an event. (I believe meetup doesn't have this, but I could be wrong.) Organizers can also email specific members, like those who haven't yet RSVPd or provided feedback.

Second, I allow the username space to be group specific. This is a subtle, but important, difference imo. This allows for each group to have a "Mike," "Joe," etc., i.e. it lets people use the handles on-line that they are using off-line within their local groups. It works seamlessly to the user as they just provide a handle for each group they join, which will probably be the same name each time.

Third, everything is private by default: email addresses, profiles, etc. Members can send private member and group messages that get emailed but don't display addresses. Replies forward through us seamlessly. On meetup I was put off with the fact that my name and profile information was almost immediately indexed by Google and available to the public. Maybe no one else cares about this, but I do.

Start offering free groups to everyone and anyone you know. Hopefully within a couple of months it'll get some natural traction. Good luck.

Good itch I wanted scratched. I started a group.

Thanks! Keep 'em coming!

Nice work! I had not associated you with your username here until now.

Hey, thanks! I didn't know you were on here either. I need to pay closer attention... Yeah, when possible, I have been choosing pseudo-random usernames (via pwgen) so that my accounts aren't obviously tied to me if I later decide to leave services and they don't have good removal functionality. As you may have guessed, this has happened before :)

I understand. A lot of services tend to make too much information public by default. And I think you're correct that meetup is too public. This factor hinders adoption of social services beyond the young and the extroverted.

When I see you I will show you what I've been working on.

Good. Simple and straight fwd. You will see a 15% growth once you add other features (maybe Gmap, Google calendar syncrho, etc...) and you will see a 90% growth once you read and apply this http://particletree.com/features/the-importance-of-design-in...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com