My startup makes jellyfish aquariums | Hacker News Reader

My startup makes jellyfish aquariums

43 pointsandon1129 comments

Thanks to the immortal jellyfish and the mortal will smith for the recent jellyfish plugs...

My startup breeds jellyfish and makes specialized aquariums for displaying them.

www.jellyfishart.com

The first jellyfish exhibits opened in public aquariums in the 90s and scientists have been making achievements in breeding and displaying jellies since then. The exhibits are hugely popular and now jellyfish are found in virtually every public aquarium. Jellyfish Art uses proprietary tank designs and new breeding techniques to commercialize jellyfish aquariums with the same success they have achieved in public venues.

We started last year by making large custom aquariums, but we're building a website now to launch a line of plug-and-play desktop tanks.

Staring at a jellyfish tank beats staring at a computer screen I promise

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Lose the splash screen and the "enter" link.

I already typed in the URL, of COURSE I want to enter!

You've only got one goal with people visiting the website: get them to buy one.

With your website, what's my next action as a customer?

It should be "enter my credit card, click submit".

I can forgive you for not having an ecommerce solution set up yet, but failing that, what's my next action?

To get on your mailing list, so you can pitch me with interesting articles, discounts, etc.

...but you're not collecting email addresses.

Well, failing that, I guess it's to call you on the phone.

What's your phone number?

It's the absolute last thing on the page, in the smallest font on the entire page.

"Call Us (415)-810-3343"

should not be a footnote: it should be the POINT of your website.

(at least until you can get a mailing list set up, or better yet, an ecommerce solution).

I agree with that for sure. Also, this photo has a problem:

http://www.jellyfishart.com/cyltank.jpg

There's a guy in it.

Wait... what guy? ;-) http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/5822/cyltank.jpg

tjic is correct. This is your storefront, or at least one of them. The fewer steps in becoming a customer, the better.

You look like a small outfit, so you may only be able to handle so many orders at a time, but it's better to turn down customers than beg for new ones.

agreed, flow on site is non existent

we're developing two new sites: jellyfishart.com will sell the custom (expensive) tanks with better pictures, video, and information pages. the objective is enticing qualified buyers, giving them the information they need to decide if they are serious about buying, then allowing contact with us. jellyfishsupply.com is in development. it will be an e commerce site selling plug-and-play tanks, jellies, and accessories.

I think that ought to be communicated a little better. It was immediately obvious from the site that you were selling something related to jellyfish tanks, but it was somewhat unclear who you were actually targeting with this. After a closer look, it seems that you are targeting mediumish businesses that already own and maintain a saltwater tank. I think that it would help if that target audience was more obvious right from the start.

Put your own tanks on the front page. Make your own videos with jellyfish in them, and use those. The videos you offer don't tell me anything about your product.

You also need more content. I want more from your Website than it offers. I'm genuinely interested in your product but can't find enough information about it on your site.

Consider adding a FAQ to cover basic questions.

Call to Action! Call to Action! Call to Action!

Echoing what has already been said, your goal is to get them to give you their info so you can make the sale, or to get them to order online.

Also while I totally love Vimeo, you need your videos to autostart. If Vimeo can't do that, get them hosted elsewhere so that you can. The motion is what will draw people in.

And kill the splash screen. It's very 1998 and annoying.

I suspect you did it for SEO, but you need to work on your content. The better SEO help is adding more content to site with multiple pages. Give me a page about the Jellyfish. About your aquariums. About the history of jellyfish as art. About jellyfish mating. Etc etc. Don't spam the site up, have logical navigation, but the more content on a site, the heavier it is weighted and you're going to be going against scientific sites for terms like jellyfish. So you're fighting an up hill battle when it comes to SEO.

splash screen is getting the chop.

anyone have a favorite video hosting site other than vimeo?

Checkout using a site that allows you to upload to multiple sites then tracking stats behind views such as tubemogule.com

This is a complete breath of fresh air, and certainly very different from what we normally hear about here.

I never realised that you could get jellyfish in tanks, and I want one!. It's a very cool concept.

But as the other posters have pointed out, the site definitely needs some work. For this particular niche it probably doesn't need to be all flashy and ajax-like, but if you follow some of the advice in the other posts it will definitely help your sales.

The one thing I would add to the conversation is: More pictures, videos and information. I want to see more jellyfish, what kind I can get, what colors they are, where they live, how they breed, how I keep them alive. Some wikipedia articles and names.

Some things I would like to know:

- Your price for the tanks

- More info on the tanks. Dimensions etc.

- Market prices for Jellyfish (or your prices, since you sell them right?)

- Some links or even self-hosted information and guides about owning Jellyfish and tank maintenance.

Yeah, it etches sketchy when you don't put your prices up.

Also, the Untitled 6 page title for the team page isn't helping either...

You definitely want to put up a more professional face for your site. It doesn't have to be cutting edge, but sharper lines and cleaner/more interesting design will give people visiting a better first impression of your company. Like others have said, this is your company's virtual storefront. If web design isn't what you want to spend time working on, you might want to consider hiring a contractor to make a simple e-commerce site for you.

I just love the idea!!

But the site is confusing. Kill the splash page. Put a call to action - nobody will know that you're actually selling something - it looks more like a fun little site showing off jellyfish in aquariums. And although it's great that you have videos, I would suggest you also put yourself in them with real tanks - and show your passion for what you're doing.

Your product is great, and I'm sure you'll have no trouble making sales.

However, the two pictures on the "Tanks" page looked a bit tacky, and I thought the splash page was unnecessary. Also, three videos on the home page seems excessive. Might I recommend a more modest approach (perhaps one video on each page)?

Otherwise, the site speaks for itself. And I like it.

For your tanks, how do you do water changes? Where's the protein skimmer? the carbon filters? How will people make sg 1.025 water in their office?

Saltwater tanks are a LOT of work. I'm just curious if jellies are somehow easier (like having a Betta in a bowl)

I'm curious about the filters too. My uncle works for these guys:

http://www.spectrapure.com/

which I guess get a lot of business from fish people. I'd be happy to put you in touch if it looks like something interesting. Oh, yeah, I know, the web site is not very pretty - I didn't have anything to do with it.

saltwater isn't too difficult. not as easy as betta in a bowl, but you only need to check on it every other week.

You should clarify that saltwater is easy if your tank is FISH ONLY. Reef tanks ARE difficult.

You could use more pictures and some rough indication of how much it costs. Or is it the kind of thing that, if you have to ask, you can't afford it?

What kind of commitment does a customer have to make other than money? Do you have to learn a lot, constantly monitor pH and temperature, etc, or just sprinke some fish food in every few days? There is no indication on the website.

Along the same lines, do you guys maintain the tank or does the customer? If you do it, is your service SF only?

Also, aren't some jellyfish fluorescent? That would be cool. I understand that green fluorescent protein doesn't just come in green anymore.

I think you need more photos. Some possible inspiration:

http://www.amanotakashi.net/portfolio/nature_aquarium/index....

I like the idea and would be interested in a desktop tank (assuming care and feeding isn't expensive or time consuming). You might consider updating your website to include some information for potential customers, like what kinds of jellyfish are available, what's involved in taking care of one, average lifespan, special concerns, etc.

the jellies require feeding and some water changes, but they're about as hardy as any other aquarium fish.

so far we've been doing large custom tanks with automatic feeders or technicians coming in every day to do the feeding.

as we launch a line of desktop tanks, I wonder if customers will dread feeding the jellies 2x/day like brushing your teeth, or look forward to it like watering a houseplant. Personally, I don't like brushing my teeth and never kept a plant alive for more than a week. thoughts?

If feeding could be partially or completely automated I think you're sitting on a goldmine (and I'll be waiting patiently for the IPO). If it absolutely needs to happen twice a day and has to be done by hand then there's no way I could have one of these on my desk at work (because lets face it, I'm not going to sign up for anything that has me driving to the office twice a day on the weekends and lugging a fish tank to and from work on a weekly basis is scary compulsive behavior) and I really REALLY want one of these things on my desk at work.

I could definitely see something like this going viral (sea monkeys 2.0) in short order if things progressed to a stage where they're relatively inexpensive, customizable (flourescent jellies ftw), and don't require a tedious amound of upkeep.

Reminds me of a sushi/teppan yaki restaurant that used to exist in the Bellagio called Shintaro. Even though the sushi was overpriced (though excellent) I used to eat at the counter just to watch them. They had a few tanks with rotating colors of backlighting, that somehow was simultaneously trippy and relaxing.

How do you breed the jellyfish? I always thought you just catch them in the wild.

those are sweet. i want one.

We can help to design a website. Contact me at jparicka(@)gmail.com.

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