Stop building apps no one wants
launchsky.com
launchsky.com
Of course I'm probably not your target market so my feedback is probably pretty worthless.
We have a ton of thinking/testing still left to do as we flesh out exactly what the product will be. Gaming/aggregating good vs. bad support ("I'd use it") is going to be crucial.
While traffic from said groupies would be nice, we'd like the actual feedback to be a bit more useful than a group of people marking "I'd use it". A reward system for making the right picks of apps that actually make it (whatever that definition of "make it" ends up being) is probably a worthwhile thing for us to think through.
I'm assuming you can only vote if you sign up? If so, the target sign up market for LaunchSky are devs/entrepreneurs/etc which are usually not the target market of the apps that are using the service.
(Did not try signing up because I totally agree with you.)
It's a demo / launch page. Sorry for the confusion, but I guess that means it's a decent launch page?
Now I don't think having an idea is the same as executing it well, but I could imagine people being hesitant.
Oh and because of the annoying landing page I vow to never to use your site, nice try.
I can imagine though that the kind of person who goes to networking events on eventbrite, who starts talking about his 'great and orignal' 'idea' to create an app where people can take pictures of food in restaurants and then let others search these pictures to see whats for dinner around them, does need this validation. (I have actually been to numerous events where more than one person at a single event had this 'idea'. )
I think when your idea is crap, you secretly know it, but after quitting your job and investing all of your savings, it becomes really hard to cut your losses.
I think it's essentially light-market fit testing but it actually kind of blew my mind that the site itself poses the same question it hopes to answer for others, "Would people use this?"
It sort of seems like a Quora-esque "you must sign up to see more" type of thing right now.
But for a product that preaches testing before building, wouldn't that be a little bit silly? :)
NOT SIGNED UP: likes/up-vote; something basic SIGNED UP: the above + "i'd use it" + feedback; still have to figure out how to effectively incentivize these users and keep them coming back for more.
On many occasions I've asked people if they wanted x or would it be cool if it did x and lukewarm would be the best description of their reaction. But seeing the live or real version of that x gave a totally different reaction.
LaunchRock takes a while. While you're waiting for DNS settings to go through, adding a favicon (still not sure why that's required), you could've tried out 10 ideas.
LaunchRock is an amazing tool, but it makes you bring your own traffic to your idea. In addition, it's not the quickest thing in the world.
We envision LaunchSky to be an outlet for trying out your ideas to a sea of evaluators who are ready for evaluating them (and signing up as early users).
I think it has its uses but ultimately to me, votes hold no value because they aren't inherently valuable to a user. I would back projects all day long on Kickstarter with someone elses money but I have never backed a project myself.
Think about how downvoting on StackOverflow works. It costs you karma or points to downvote somehting, it's not free.
I think I would probably use LaunchSky as a way to make sure people didn't think it was potentially the worst idea they've ever heard of but outside of that I couldn't place any real faith in the platform for big ideas. I would probably limit myself to posting ideas which I felt I could build in a few evenings.
The issue is why would people come to this site to click 'I'd use this' or 'I support this'. (Ideas will flow in no problem, they're a dime a dozen.)
So we need to provide feedbackers with incentive.
1. Reward them? Oops…nothing to stop them going around and supporting them everything and game the reward system.
2. Reward them based on their choices (and limit their votes)? Nope…these are just ideas. There's no way you can tell if the idea will be successful even with enough support backers. Takes much longer to develop etc.
3. Give them the option to back good ideas (put their money where their mouth is)? Nope…then it's just Kickstarter.
4. Curate the people evaluating the apps. Gather some people that have skills and well informed about their field. Tech/Design/etc. Then you'll be able to get real feedback from those who knows what they're talking about. It's not a guaranteed hit/miss but I think the result would be better than mass voting from randoms.
We definitely don't have the product figured out to 100% just yet, but the assumption is that people are quicker to support (and give their email if it's secured) than to pay (a la kickstarter).
The rest of the details, we surely have to figure out. That's why I've got the link here, for amazing feedback like the original comment we're both replying to :)
1. User X (a non-technical) posts an idea that gets a little traction, but not enough for them to feel confident enough to build it out, especially when it means finding a team to do so.
2. Named Techie sees the project, likes the premise a lot, and knows User X doesn't have the resources.
3. Named Techie's friends post their concept with beautiful mockups and a more defined description and Named Techie highlights the project and it hits the front page -or- Named Techie's friends just launch the site without needing the validation, and through their network are able to have a fairly successful launch.
4. User X sees this, rages all across the internet, and you get bad press (and more trolls to boot).
In the event that Named Techie has the advantage of seeing all of these new concepts coming in and the public only sees them once they're approved by him, that's going to spawn some conflict of interests.
Even if all entries are public, you'll run into what we see on Show HNs.. like the one for 2u.fm yesterday where some idiot thought it would be a good idea to reply to as many people as possible who liked the concept to tell them that it was a complete ripoff of some other site (which it wasn't) or all of the people that constantly hate on the fact that someone would even think their project was a good idea.
Additionally, most of the concepts on the site aren't going to be exclusive to the person that's posting them, and having to deal with trolls or 'ownership' wars isn't something I'd want to bother with. Trying to fight this by only allowing members with some form of 'clout' to comment creates the issue I have with Kickstarter, where until you've put money into the project, you can't ask a question about it publicly.
I'm also concerned that too many people will place too much weight on the feedback they receive. The idea may very well be game-changing, but there's no way to know unless it's fully fleshed-out. Knowing how people react to having their dreams shattered, I just don't think this site is a good idea. If you really need validation, use a site like Reddit with a broad enough userbase (or a specific subreddit) to get the feedback you need.
I got this saved for the team to look through and digest.
I also tried to find your email/contact info to personally say thanks for the feedback, but I failed at that. Hopefully this will do.
LaunchSky is "Hacker News for Ideas Not News"
I've dreamed of having something like this before, and I would love to see LaunchSky do it. I think I would go there often enough to see other people's ideas and provide my own.
I think this is best aimed at the same people that like Hacker News, NOT the general Facebook population.
I'd like to think the same, but from a numbers standpoint -- we're probably going to need a fairly clear incentive for the "reviewer/early adopter" side.
It's going to be a balance of quality vs. volume of reviewers, but these will all be some fun challenges to figure out and tackle.
edit: Your comment (after re-reading) made my day.
I feel like, after reading your comments parent and your reply that I'm replying to, I feel that it might be beneficial to have each user on the site have a weight calculated from various criteria (that probably doesn't exist yet).
Firstly let's assume that submitted ideas have a lifecycle, something like this:
Inception (posting to the site)
Green-lit (threshold of submitters required Yes votes)
Lack of Interest (threshold not met)
Released (product launch)
This solves one side of the problem for idea submitters. They should be able to view something like an "Interest Index" which takes into account the weight of users who have stated they would use it.
Eventually if I clicked "Yes, I'd use this" on 40 projects and 20 of them reached release and yet I never followed through with using them, my vote might not count for squat any longer.
Just a thought.
It may complicate the initial product, but we could always keep this less exposed to end users (or at least the voters/reviewers).
Thanks for the awesome feedback / insight / thought -- I really appreciate you taking the time to think though it for us!
1. It's a community, there's give & take. Who knows one day I may need HN's help. I want to be treated the same way others treat me - golden rule.
2. This place is full of smart people. I'd listen carefully to what everyone has to say. If it's just mass voting from randoms, it'll get nowhere. Hence my 4th point in the original comment.
3. Being part of the community, actively, builds connects and networks. If LaunchSky is going to be community oriented, I think that'd be a great avenue to explore.
So I'd disagree about how there's no incentive or reward for me to comment here.
The other perk to this is that idea-submitters get a home-grown email list for their new app.
1 steve jobs :)
Vlad (at) DarwinApps.com for details.
It seems that entrepreneurs these days are concerned with "building something awesome (to also make money)", and that's not what Steve Jobs did.
Only the successful ones. It's one thing to create a product that answers an existing need (and that may already have competition). It's quite another to create a product that people don't realize they need until they see it.
The classic example is the personal computer. Steve Wozniak tried and failed to interest HP (his employer at the time) in backing his personal project, a small, one-board computer that anyone could own. HP didn't see the potential, so Woz was allowed to carry the idea away from his employer and pursue it on his own.
As Jobs often said, it's the difference between evolutionary and revolutionary.
Don't get me wrong -- I personally never got along with Jobs and couldn't work with him, but in this respect, he was often proven right.
I agree with your point, but Woz and Jobs convinced both -- they convinced both financial backers and the public. I'm just saying it's possible, and such stories often accompany noteworthy technological breakthroughs.
Thats called "being a great entrepreneur". And yes I agree, few people share.
> So suggesting to bad entrepreneurs that their product is possibly failing because they haven't convinced people why they want it yet, is a bad idea.
When said this way, I don't see why it would be true. You don't give illiterate people different advice if they want to write a book: you tell them to read lots and lots of books. The fact that they can't, simply means that they can't, if-and-until they change themselves so they can.
Similarly, the fact that bad entrepreneurs can't convince people to want something, simply means they fail as entrepreneurs. They don't get a handicap lane to execute in; there's only one market. If they want to succeed, they don't need a crutch; they need to become better entrepreneurs.
In New York City alone, hundreds of horses died in the street every day, and the owners simply unhitched their carriages and left, resulting in streets clogged with horse corpses. Horses generated over a hundred tons of manure daily, which, combined with the dead horses, was a sanitation nightmare that led to typhoid, cholera, and dysentery.
I hear this misattributed quote so often on Hacker News that it makes my head spin. :-)
Nothing will stop this from happening ... especially when the cost of build/deploy <= cost of comprehensive research
In regards to the site ...
Asking someone "yeah, I'd use that", vs getting them to download and use (ignoring pay, but that's also key :)) is totally different
you REALLY think so? I agree with your first few points, but I disagree on that last (quoted) bit entirely.
Building/deploying something of real quality (and potential viability) can be very costly.
The point of the app is to make that "cost of comprehensive research" negligible in comparison to what it is today. Either you pay a ton to do it right or train yourself forever on how to do it cheap (which is a cost of time). We want to lessen that burden exponentially.
Per your point of disagreement, and depending entirely on the type of app, I stand by my point. You're anchoring the disagreement "quality". A down and dirty "test the waters" app is a lot less expensive than a "quality" app (ignoring apps that can't really have a down and dirty, like complex video games or something).
I would agree, that on average, a "quality" app would take longer then a down and dirty "test the water" app. However, so long as you can get a down and dirty out the door so easily, we will see crap in the app stores.
1. The most obvious: how do you prevent your ideas from being stolen?
2. If your idea is vague ("A site where people can post Hipstamatic-like photos, but easily share them!") then you will get a lukewarm response, even if the actual idea (and implementation) is great.
3. If you spend the time fleshing out your idea into something that excites users...then you've committed enough resources to not need a site like this. Also, see #1.
In other words, users are at a catch-22 here. Your site wants to keep them from launching half-baked ideas by providing them with audience opinion. And yet, in order to get validation, a user will have to show off a well-baked idea.
Hopefully we can refine the product between now and launch as best as we can to combat all 3 of those concerns. We've got our homework (and assume, test, analyze, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat) to do here.
Edit: I just realized that "If you sign up now, you’ll get to submit your first idea free" implies you're monetizing the entrepreneurs who use the site -- so all content is paid content.
Our hunch is to charge a minimal amount for each idea submission; something significantly less than the money/time/effort for a splash page / domain / launchrock / ads. The early adopters would never pay; we instead need to figure out a clear way to incentivize them to come to each idea, the dashboard of ideas in general, and back again.
We're trying to build the same model, but hoping (and assuming) that people are quicker to give their interest, and sign up as an early adopter for an idea if its built, than to open up their wallets to new ideas.
As far as giving away their idea, we're definitely going to try to do what we can to protect those posting from a legal side, or at least offer a VERY convenient way to say "hey! this was mine on this day"
Don't you generally have to show something off (as in hey, look what I'm in the process of, care to join?) with those to get backing? This is just pitching an idea, right?
Not to piss on your parade, but you can't protect anything.
So all that "hidden" content may or may not be real. I'll never know. It looked real though. But at this point I'd probably never use the site again. Felt like I was taken. At least you got my email address, I guess :).
That's all constructive criticism. I know it's hard to decide exactly how to roll out some of this stuff but hope it helps.
The product isn't there yet, so our goal is the email drop -- so that we have a way to contact a user-base once the product is built.
But your concern is definitely heard, and we'll be sure the real product never evokes that kind of emotion out of the users. Promise :).
Think: Angel investors, but with their likes/sign-up instead of money.
Still, this won't be an easy one to crack, but we're committed to providing feedback/support of actual value, as well as a pool of potential users, to people coming with a new idea.
1. No reward for participation (bad for users)
2. No promise of a finished product (bad for users)
3. Users have no personal stake in anything they "support" (bad for developers)
4. Highly biased and narrow audience (bad for developers)
What people think they want and what they'd actually pay for are often very different things. Contrary to your title, this seems like a great way to encourage developers to build even more crappy apps that no one will ever buy.
It could even evolve into a competition where apps are being developed for the stuff that people want, plus the web site would give exposure to the apps.
Maybe this could be a section of LaunchSky?
Just an idea.
Certainly some ideas are different and exciting enough that you wouldn't want to audition them publicly. But for the most part, it's execution that matters. This site seems like a good idea to gauge reaction to those ideas.
How are you planning to get a good volume of user feedback on these ideas? That seems like a pretty big challenge.
Rather than a "yay or nah" style, I'd rather if the feedback were more open ended. Such as: "What do you like about this idea? What don't you like?"
Our "chicken" in the equation would be the entrepreneurs who post. We need to incentivize them to post to a safe platform that they get something out of, but in a way that saves them time and/or money (otherwise they'd use their own launchpage + adwords and/or the launchrock-esque services).
Our "egg" is the volume of (quality) users for feedback.
Then how do you get more chickens who make more eggs?
There might be a tiered posting service. Maybe one free, one cheap (feedback + full share feature + meta tags for SEO), and one more expensive -- but includes targeted keywords that you choose and targeted feedback from a group of users. Too early to tell at this point, but with enough awesome feedback like this, and eventually some initial users, I'm sure we'll get this figured out.
What's in it for the user giving me feedback on my app idea?
You could pay them, but then that would make it really expensive to run and end up with people gaming the system with low-quality feedback.
The best thing I can think of (and I'm not sure it would work) is to have the developer pledge, say, 20 promo codes to you. Then if someone reviews the app idea, they get the promise of a free copy once the app was released. I would be willing to do this, but I know other developers are more reluctant than me to part with their promo codes.
Giving the reviewers something of value is going to be a challenge. Not impossible, but a challenge.
I think this project is a good idea and look forward to seeing it live.
How do you plan to make money?
Cool idea in any case.
For people posting: quick, protected, easy, elegant, keeps early adopters so that you can reach out them if it's built.
For those evaluating an idea: Their absolutely needs to be a clear incentive. We'll get this figured out. Maybe a field for "early adopter perks" or a ladder of incentives for how soon someone supports an idea. In any case, this is definitely something we have to nail.
It's the classic chicken/egg problem (posting ideas and actually evaluating them).
Based on feedback (from this post, for example), we'd like to figure out exactly how we incentivize that "egg" side of the equation.
One idea was to have people post a (optional) perk with their idea (i.e. how we're letting anyone who signs up post a free first idea), but this may be hard for ideas that don't exist yet.
Another idea is to have a ladder of "I'll build X if Y sign up" so 1000 users interested gets you a basic web app, 10000 is iOS and Android, etc.
Outside of that, we're going to gauge the interest in the idea and translate that buying up traffic initially.
The last thing we want is a repository of awesome ideas and no one to evaluate them. Addressing that is a top concern for us as we build out the actual product.
Developer A posts there idea, and utilizes their social network to get feedback.
Developer A's social network looks at Developer A's project, then comments etc. then is forwarded to Developer B's project.
You will lose a lot of conversions between A and B, but it would add value to have completely outside people evaluating ideas and signing up for the email list.
You could create a system where the more people come through a link created by developer A, the more referrals they get. That would incentivize developer A to not be a free rider.
If you're trying to get a lot of user opinions in the US from normal people who buy stuff, that phrase at the top of the site is not going to go over so well if its also displayed on the public comment page.
We're trying to marry the two.
Full disclosure: My team needs this product. We've built apps no one wants. We don't want to to do that again. We're hoping others are in the same boat.
You need 2 things: Landing page to describe product/etc and a community to support say yes/no
BTW did you see http://www.startuprocketlauncher.com/ on HN today as well?
For the second, no I didn't see that until now. Hmmm. I wonder if that's somebody being clever to prove a point of how easy ideas are to steal? If so, kudos for the irony :)
Prototypes no one wants can be costly AND devastating.
We're currently gauging that interest with the HN community.
If the interest in this product is there, we'll of course invest in the right legal grounds to do what's possible to protect some of the ideas being posted. This can get pricy, but if the interest is there, it's definitely something we're willing to invest in.
If not, it'll simply be a tool for "build it or not" without the legal backbone (at least initially).
Just the worry that I/another user might share a game changer idea and someone else builds it before I/we do.
You'd be really surprised the "ideas" i've seen some throw my way after making me sign an NDA.
Ironically enough, I guess I can't talk about those...
one thing though, i tried clicking the area outside the 'pop-up' box there countless time trying to get rid of it and see whats behind it. I initially even entered my email in hope to get rid of the pop-up before realizing how stupid I was.. maybe this is intentional, but still, confusing.
I'd love to hear feedback/criticisms/advice from the HN community!
Why did this get downvoted? It was #2 on the front page and is suddenly gone.
Can you please let me know what happened?
It could be used to find out if an idea is worth persuing and if it is, you could then go to kickstarter... that's how I see it.
Seriously, though, I don't see how that's not already handled on Kickstarter. If there's not enough interest in your idea it won't reach its funding goal. What's the point of a pre-screening step?
We'll be investing in the traffic/exposure of those visitors and entrepreneurs, and hope this launch page can help get the creators there.
Thanks for the kind words! people like you (and like us) are exactly why we're building this product.
If you have any feedback, feel free to email me directly --
Vlad (at) DarwinApps.com