Show HN: Pvsh - A reverse Kickstarter (make feature requests for any product) | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Pvsh - A reverse Kickstarter (make feature requests for any product)

pvshapp.com

54 pointshollandale47 comments

The idea is not exactly new or popular (without proper moderation it inevitably turns into spammy, ads-filled swamp), and a request to log in to see more then 14 suggestions doesn't look all that inviting.

Also: Great, now we are moving from '-er without -e-' to '-v- instead of -u-'! I really hope it won't catch up. I mean, Romans were cool guys, but my brain constantly trips over unexpected V; it feels like noise, and not like a not-so-svbtle attempt at bringing in some Latin style. Sorry for the grvmbling.

@vitalique thanks for the thoughts on the name! It's definitely not set in stone though. As for the idea-- originality isn't really the objective, it's ease of use. If you can create one destination for all products, and make it as easy as a Tweet to do so, then users may just do so when they have those "Aha! I wish this product had..." moments. The challenge is, as you said, to separate the noise from the creativity. My hope would be that by incentivizing users with real stakes (either financial or brand-building opportunities) the power-user base might help with moderation and promotion. I don't know though, I'm interested to hear what others think/have tried!

There's no need to do the @-sign thing, we can tell who you're talking to.

I just finally realized what might already be a core facet of your idea.

This site could be used almost like a github or a dribbble for product design. Essentially, aspiring product designers can build a profile of constructive feedback which can be used to validate his or her skills.

Further, product designers can post concepts and prototypes to gather feedback from peers.

Building this community will be near impossible, but if marketed correctly it has great potential!

This could be really powerful if users could put up actual $$$ for feature requests so the site actually performs more like kickstarter. This would also help the quality of requests.

Once the company completes the feature satisfactorily they get the cash. Or perhaps even a situation where they can grab the cash to start the feature- but this is obviously higher risk- like kickstarter- but the risk could be managed and even help the feature development process.

PS- With this in mind, importing feature requests from other sites could help growth. IE: People see a GREAT feature THEY want and are willing to put in $5... as compared to coming to the site to submit their ideas. Another idea: Use ad revenue from site to 'seed' a user's initial ability to donate $$$. Perhaps require CC input in order to contribute this 'free money', thereby making it easier to give real money. I know the free money would have to be incredibly small, but sometimes little acts of giving something for free can really change a system. Just some thoughts...

> if users could put up actual $$$ for feature requests so the site actually performs more like kickstarter. This would also help the quality of requests.

Agreed, but I'd expect few people would put in money up front to fund something that no one's promising to make. It's hard to give it a hard date like Kickstarter since it's not the people doing who create the posts.

The best way I can think of going about it is having people say how much they're willing to pay (but no money changes hands), allowing someone to say they're going to implement and idea, and then it turns into a kickstarter project and emails all of the people who said they'd pay so they can enter their credit card details.

That way there's no risk for the backers (until they know someone wants to fulfill their dreams) or creator's (functions just like kickstarter for them -- except someone is giving them an initial list of interested parties). The websites whole purpose becomes facilitating new ideas.

To cut down on spam, you could charge people a dollar per vote (or microtransactions) and then promise creators a cut of that if they successfully "kickstart" a project (or convert a sufficient number of voting backers).

* To be clear: I'm not talking about using kickstarter -- then you'd lose all your revenue.

Edit: I expected pvsh to be about "I want this thing" instead of feature requests for specific products. It seems weird to me for Corporations to request bounties on features, but I still like the idea as a way to connect user's wants with entrepreneurs.

how exactly is this "A reverse kickstarter" No money changes hands in either direction, and nothing actually happens if enough people request something.

It's like saying "Come! Shout into this hole." We've placed a microphone in front of it to record your shout for all time... "Yes but... I'm just shouting into a hole right?"

"No no. it's a special hole. It's got a "reverse kickstarter" microphone!" ...

"You'll pay me when enough people shout into it about the same thing?"

"Er... no"

"So.... I'll have to build something if enough people shout?"

"No no."

"So, what you're really saying is. You've set up a microphone in front of a hole and have added the word 'Kickstarter' above it in in hopes that, despite the fact that you're not actually charging for a product you will make money? Or is it that you think that the current abundance of holes to shout in simply wasn't abundant enough and that by adding a brand new hole everything would be different?"

"Er... YES!"

While this was somewhat humorous, I don't think not charging on day one matters. In fact, Salesforce[1] has been offering a similar product for 5 years. You may have seen it in action on Dell's Ideastorm site, or Starbucks (not sure if that one still exists).

[1]http://www.salesforce.com/salesforceideas/

I like how startups ran out of regular words, so now they use V instead of U and we have a whole new set of words to go through.

I'll be the first to admit I did not realize it was a substituted letter and simply accepted it must a randomly created word.

Same, at first I thought it was an awfully hard to work out acronym.

The next step will be to use f instead of s

http://getpvfhapp.io/

You are a genius.io

genivf.io

genius

Finding a startup name is hard... I went through a list of hundreds of names for my project, and all the ones I liked were already taken (the .com domain name at least).

I'm not sold yet on using something other than .com for a consumer-facing startup, unless it's not web-focused (maybe mobile apps can get away with non .com tlds).

Why is the domain name so important? Dropbox didn't have dropbox.com until they could afford to buy it.

I'm making a service targeted to seniors. My very limited testing shows that they always assume it's a .com .

Not to mention I'd rather see a replaced letter and have to tell friends "It's Push with a v instead of a u," instead of "It's called Dweeblr!"

I'd like to claim the invention of the use of V in the software domain. I have a pet project called Bvckup that dates back to 2009 and I am pretty sure I was the first one to mangle a software product name that way. Otherwise the medal goes to the Italians for Bvlgari.

It was a half-joke, but the name stuck and now I wish I picked something else. The problem, obviously, that it's unpronounceable. As "online" as the life is right now, people still communicate in person and the name like this is a stumbling block. Though on the other hand this is what makes it memorable. So, all in all, V-mangled names may not be a bad idea, but only for as long as yours is the only one in its respective domain.

Actually Bvlgari is the brand/logo (or better the way they design it using the V latin letter for U) but the name of the firm (and the family behind) is Bulgari: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgari

This seems apropos: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~choh/german.htm

Idea: let companies/brands create accounts and commit to implementing features. Give them report cards based on the number of features they commit to and actually implement. Maybe include pages for individual products, and grade them individually. This could be a really useful tool to find out which product lines are actually getting love from makers.

Came here to say this. Also if you could use the requests to put pressure on companies to make specific changes, I'd assume they would be receptive to you helping them get feedback.

@smurph, definitely something I'd love to implement if brands really find the feedback useful. Here's a question: Do you think this tool would be most useful to brands--as a consumer research tool? Or to 3rd-party producers who are interested in seeing what market exists for new products/feature requests?

I think your first heavy users will need to be people who are putting brand new products on the market and have no idea how they are going to get feedback. People who have been making iterations for years will have a bunch of work in the past that they won't get 'credit' for, so they might not be fans of starting with a blank slate. Maybe if you had a way to import or track feature requests from other feedback sites, that would get you more users.

It's worth noting that you are competing with other bug tracking / feedback web sites, and there are some established players there.

What a cute little startup name. How the hell do I pronounce it?

as it's spelled

"puvush"?

"pivvsh"?

pshh

@bdcravens You don't spell it! You use it! ;) I'd love to hear your thoughts on the service though.

*pronounce

Is this aimed at consumers or manufacturers/creators?

As a consumer, this doesn't strike me as something I would want to browse, which probably means a lot of people only post there if they want to vent about something.

It could be an interesting alternative to a GitHub Issues/Pull Request system if it's easy for creators to subscribe to requests for their brand or products, though.

But I still am not sure what the incentive for consumers to post this would be. Maybe some sort of reward structure should be in place for the first few months to give it traction. Just gamified badges and stuff to kick things off.

This seems to have a huge chicken-or-the-egg problem: the site is only valuable to consumers if they know their requests could have some influence, but companies will only listen to requests from Pvsh users if there's a critical mass (say, thousands or millions of votes for one feature).

Is there some way to re-jig the concept to get around this? Perhaps by focusing more directly on one particular product category and expanding outwards? Or by working with particular companies that are actively soliciting feature requests (in which case I'd know I'd be listened to)?

My product management team is looking for a product that sort of has some of the functionality you have in this app. What we would like is a way to keep track of feature requests and then have a way to keep track of votes for/against the feature request so we can use it to inform prioritization. So not an exact fit, but that was the first use case that I thought of when I saw your app. We won't be using it but this looks like good stuff. I wonder what % of customers will go to the length of making suggestions.

Sounds similar to uservoice. The utility of it really depends on the quality of the users. For example, if they're entering bugs and voting on each others' bugs, it can be useful.

But if they're suggesting things for which there are difficult tradeoffs without considering the implications, then it's not very useful. For example, requesting that stripe make their credit card processing free is not very useful feedback, but you can get a lot of these 'I want a pony' kind of requests.

This could become a rich field of great new startup ideas (http://www.pvshapp.com/#feature_requests/50b6b9796b411f9c000...), or it could become a vast wasteland of stupidity (http://www.pvshapp.com/#feature_requests/50bcf7d5e4ca239c000...).

For everyone criticizing the app name, you are aware that domain names are a finite resource that cost very little to sit on forever, right? Often naming your company comes down to what memorable domain name you can snag, even if you have to commit a spelling/grammar crime to get it.

Indeed, tumblr is a good example

The e doesn’t really contribute in most accents, anyway.

I really hope they come through with the Chuck Norris API

http://www.pvshapp.com/#feature_requests/50bcf99ee4ca239c000...

ahhh ffs, I drafted out my own vision of this concept just yesterday. Nice work none the less :)

That's cool, post it! I'd love to hear your angle on it

oh, really? Okay...

There are many projects that the wider web community want to fund but are not able to.

Example: There's a demand for the adobe creative suites on Linux, but this wont be happening any time soon.

Adobe wont create a kickstarter campaign as they just wont.

Instead, people should be able to make their deposits to a third party that will release the payments when conditions are met.

Example: groups of people submit their demands and each person submits their micro payment. The conditions on the payment being released to the company of concern must be measurable... otherwise the intended reciepient will recieve their cash payments prematurely.

This would mean that you're acting as an Escrow... something I've only just learnt about.

McAfee Enterprise proxy server white-list thingy blocks this site as being a "medium risk" - So my comopany proxy server blocks it :(

At first I thought you were talking about John McAfee's exploits. McAfee is really screwing up the brand he created. :)

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