Host me in California | Hacker News Reader

Host me in California

hostmeinca.com

323 pointsjurajmasar101 comments

What I think he did well:

    - Strong, direct message within first view (he out right tells you, the visitor, what he wants)

    - He takes you through his expanded 'executive summary'.

    - This sequence: What, why, who, how. Many startups get this wrong and do Who, What Why, How.

    - Nice CTA at the bottom

    - A modern design

Things I think he didn't do so well:

    - No close. Everytime I see these sorts of design, if I don't see a CTA or a close on each panel, I make a note of it.

    - No close. Seriously. Even at the end, the CTA wasn't trying to close at all.

    - Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag

    - The site was designed for smaller screens. I don't think he expected screens with higher resolutions.

EDIT: Formatting.

Can you give an example of a good close for him?

He was indeed closing. I count 6 different places where he did. They are not direct closes, but nudges towards getting you to contact him. Can't really do a big close on such type of situation, because nobody (well, Brad Pitt might) will bring a kid from miles away without knowing him a little first.

By the way, he is using the compassion close.

Don’t decide now. Please write me and we'll see how we get on with each other...

He is aiming right to your heart and hitting.

Much better copy than most startups out there. I agree. Which brings out an important point. If you want to sell something, you better be convinced and believe 100% in it. Otherwise, your copy is going to be bad.

That page causes Chrome to lag.

I would also say that if that page was any longer or any more information dense then it wouldn't work as a thing. It only works because there is so little content.

In general it depends what you're trying to sell. I've never actually purchased from one of these "flow" pages, but I have purchased a lot from more boring product pages like this:

http://www.linode.com/tour/

The OP's sales page is definitely in fashion right now, in fact it looks like every current startup's page. But just because it is in fashion doesn't mean it is actually effective, and I've seen no evidence (and the OP supplies none) that it causes higher conversions than a "boring" sales page.

Website loads fine (no lag) on Chrome Win8 for me.

Do you not get scroll-bar lag? When I try to scroll up and down the page there is a very noticeable lag and upon initial load scrolling is inconsistent.

Chrome on Xubuntu is perfect too.

Page loads just fine on Chrome on Ubuntu as well.

Chrome 23 + Win7 here, page was fine and had no scroll lag whatsoever.

Chrome and Firefox work fine, no lag, over here (Ubuntu). Must be a specific problem on the GP's machine.

I don't think OP's intent was to elicit a comparison of this young man's landing page with that of other established businesses, rather he chose a headline in order to bring attention (and HN upvotes) to Marek's request.

I'm inclined to agree with you. In fact I personally prefer the boring sites where most of the important content is presented on screen with minimal scrolling. However I also started building websites in the early 90s when bandwidth dictated design.

That all said, I want to take anything away from this guy, he's done a fantastic job and deserves recognition.

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to bash the kid. I like his site, and he makes a great sales pitch.

My comment was more aimed at the OP's assertion that this sales page is "better" than other sales pages.

I wasn't meaning to imply you were bashing the kid (though now you've mentioned it, I can see how my post may have read that way). Sorry for the confusion :)

HN readers are so polite!

For those that are confused about this thread, the original title of this link was 'This 16yo boy from eastern europe has a better sales page than you'

This 16y old boy builds a sweet website – good enough to reach #1 on this page – just to push his goal of a year in CA and you offer an introductory "… causes Chrome to lag". Come on, that's better stuff than I see from some 'professionals'.

Webpages changes fashion with a rather steady rate.

Before this growing style, white "clean" pages with minimal content was in style and is still in favor. Before then, extremely detailed "photoshopped" pages with a bunch of flash was in style (and menus, menus, menus). Before then, geocity and frontpage style, with blinking animations and sound. Before then, Spreadsheet style and link tables.

I wonder what this style should be called. I do like the name "flow style".

I've always found it quite fascinating to see these 'trends' appear, and wondered which ones have been before. I think I would have described something similar as you did up to geocity, and before that I wouldn't know, but it's nice to get a feeling from that time from how you describe it. Would be nice to see this visualised some time.

The new style of sales page is not about flowing downwards - its about having one message (getting to school in the US), emphasise what the purchaser will gain, filter out those its not going to benefit, and be consistently repeating the message.

The kids page does this - it sells his sponsorship needs really well.

Everything else is noise.

I cannot point to any research but I am pretty sure that a sales page that

has focus, one message, filters out its non-target audience and clearly and simply repeats its message

is better

than unfocused, off message, vague sales pages.

Whether they flow downwards or not is of secondary order.

Maybe, but the style invariably turns on my shuckster-dar. But what you're saying is that perhaps that's the intent: only the easily persuaded proceed and the jaded bounce.

I must be getting old. Is the example "boring" page really out of style? I've always found that icon bullet point presentation to be great at conveying all of the up-front information I want in a compact and easily parsable way.

The Prey Project website (http://preyproject.com/), to me, is one of the best designed product pages I've seen. It uses the "boring" style, too..

I think the difference here is knowing what you want. Generally you'll go to Linode because you know what a dedicated server is, you know you want to buy one. You get a comprehensive list of the features because it assumes you know the domain.

I think the newer, 'trendy' flow pages tend to be marketing a solution to a problem you didn't know you had - stuff that's less defined than 'I need a dedicated server'. Perhaps you need to be won over to the idea that you need the product in the first place.

Chrome 23 on Mac - no issues with scrolling.

Same with Chrome on my MBA. The site looks pretty good, actually.

You shouldn't blame the webdev for you using a slow browser. There are plenty of other browsers out there that are faster if you are concerned about speed.

This seems very vague:

  I need you. A loving family that will take care of me during my school year in CA.

Does he only need an address and a room, or full service including meals, financial aid, school tuition, etc.

He wants to be an exchange student in high school, but instead of doing it through a program like AFS or Rotary, he's arranging things himself and put up a website to find a family. With programs you don't get so much say as to where you go, often not even the country, much less the state. Since he's a techie, i'd imagine he wants to end up in Silicon Valley or near by. Seems like a smart tactic to me. That said, he probably needs a follow up page or something for folks who are serious about hosting, which includes what it's like and need to host him as a high school exchange student.

A host family does not pay for its student's tuition. A host family will, in exchange for monetary compensation, provide a student with a bed to sleep in, meals, and a means for transportation to and from school and school activities.

However, Marek's use of the word volunteer - "I'm looking for volunteer host family in California for the next school year." - leads me to believe he doesn't want to pay the host family for room and board. We could clear up the confusion by emailing Marek.

I think 90% of commenters here would benefit from making an effort to remove your heads from your own asses. "Chrome bug?" "sales pages"? "incentives"? Give the young guy the benefit of expressing exactly what he wants without any reservations. And share a few of his talents along the way. I am sure he'll get to CA soon!

He's done a great job and presented his information quite well. As an adult and a father I'd say that I represent his target market perfectly and he succeeded in: a) impressing me with his ability and determination, b) delivering to me the kind of information I need to know and c) delivering to me a sense of his maturity.

Not only do I think he would be a great guest but I can see him being very successful with whatever career path he chooses.

So is it a better sales page than you? Yes indeed, information delivered.

Design aside, does something like this work? I notice he's starting with just an idea (he has no place, no visa) if he can find a family willing to take him in for a year is that the hardest part, or will it be difficult for him to also get a visa and a place in a school?

Why is everyone criticizing his website? He isn't here looking for a website review. He is here looking for a family to host him. Reading from Ireland here, if I lived in CA, it wouldn't be an issue.

I wondered this, and I suspect the title of this post used to be something different, before being changed by a mod to what it is now.

Correct. It used to say "This 16 year old from Slovakia has a better sales page than you". I think somebody posted it because they thought it was well executed and wanted HN to see it, but the title change makes it look like the creator of the site itself is pestering HN for accommodation.

I like the way HN's policy on titles prevents Reddit-esque editorialising, but it has backfired pretty badly in this case.

My read is entirely the opposite. I think people have been responding defensively to "[...] better [...] than you" and sympathetically to "Host me in California".

He appears to have made zero sales. By most metrics, this is not a "better sales page".

The cost of hosting someone for a year is pretty high.

If you become a yacht salesman, are you expected to sell one on the first day? Are you a failure because someone else sold a hundred hot dogs?

I wouldn't be a failure, but I certainly wouldn't be claiming (as the original submission title did, now thankfully fixed by the mods) that I was a better yacht salesman than you if I had never even sold a yacht.

I always thought that one of the hardest thing to sell must be fighter airplanes. A (normal) country only buys new ones maybe once every 25-30 years. It is a long selling process!

You do not yet understand the role of bribery and corruption in the sale of fighter planes.

He is the product, so he only needs to make one sale to succeed. Quantity of sales is a poor metric for high-priced goods.

For example, a Walmart needs to turnover the equivalent its entire inventory every week to be profitable; a Lamborghini dealership or Saks can be profitable selling one item a month.

See my response above. This was originally submitted with a title similar to "This 16 year-old from Eastern Europe has a better sales page than you".

I was responding to this title by pointing out that this is not obviously or demonstrably true, and also arguably untrue.

Damn it. I came in all skeptical ready to fire away and found out the site is actually very nice. My trolling has been thwarted. Good job!

Slovakia is in central Europe.

But us Western European people think of everything at the right of Germany and Austria as "Eastern Europe" because of the Iron Curtain and all. I suppose it's culural.

agreed, I think this is a pretty common belief ... not only of western europeans.

Yes, pretty much like South America starting in Tijuana or the Far East being west of California.

It is just a case of a relative description used as an absolute description, which is often quite convenient. Being capitalised is an indicator of that.

It's been more than 20 years now since the Iron Curtain lifted, so I guess people might as well start getting used to the idea that old divisions no longer make sense.

There are still significant Economic and Cultural differences, though.

(no, I'm not generalising, talk to a Czech citizen about their Soviet-era banking sector...I imagine the Slovak system is in a similar shape.)

They probably do not know much about the banking sector, as most of the banks (I would say 95%) are branches of Western European ones, like the French Societe Generale, Austrian Erste Group, or the Belgian KBC. The way they bought/privatized/stole them in the 1990s is a whole another story.

It's not really clear where Europe ends. Some people argue geographical Europe ends at the Ural Mountains. I guess currently Europe ends politically at the western border of Russia, rendering Austria a Central European country by your vague definition.

The old divisions make a lot of sense because they are still reality. Both in an economical and a cultural sense. Looking at Google Maps makes me consider Cuba to be kind of North America. :P

Except the effects of it is still there, as evident in for example this map: http://wiki.dickinson.edu/images/8/85/Europe-GDP-PPP-per-cap...

It's cultural for the last few generations. From a historical perspective it is rather inaccurate.

Let me just scratch the surface of the history of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It is much more complex, but I hope this simplification will be enough for getting a feel for it.

Czech lands, which are east of Germany and Austria were a part of the same Holy Roman Empire for roughly 900 years until the beginning of the 19th century and then part of Austria-Hungary until the First WW. The influence is clear in trade, culture, education.

Slovakia is a bit different story. During the same 900 year period it was part of the Hungarian Kingdom, which was again a Central European entity. Both countries sort of met in Austria-Hungary in the 19th century. Post WWI they formed Czechoslovakia, from 1918 to 1938. It was democratic country with strong ties to the West.

The most intensive period of Eastern European/Russian influence was from the end of WWII to the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The time where the term Iron Curtain comes from.

This and the "slavic connection" with Russia are probably the sources of confusion. The languages are similar. In the period of "romantic nationalism" of the 19th century, part of the so-called intellectual elite was intrigued by the idea of Pan-Slavism and wanted close ties with the Russian Empire. This was always more of a romantic idea that comes back every now and then. When the real decisions have been made (formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, Velvet Revolution in 1989, joining the NATO and later the EU in 2004), they were always in a "westward" direction, in terms of both economy and diplomacy.

Not everything. They think Sweeden and Finland are Western Europe despite the fact that those countries geographically are more eastern than for example Poland.

I know, I'm Slovak myself. "Eastern Europe" just sells better.

I'd say most geographical classifications aren't sensible, Slovakia (just like Poland) has an uncertain position in Central or Eastern Europe depending on where you are.

Perhaps some classifications aren't, but this one is: It's referring to east/west of the iron curtain which not only divided europe geographically, but culturally. This divide is still quite visible, and I don't mean that in a sense derogatory to the east.

Funnily, the UN takes a stereotyped approach to this classification rather than geographical one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe#UN

There, Slovakia is classified as Eastern, East-Central more concretely.

The westernmost countries of Europe, Spain and Portugal, are not classified as Western by the UN. The CIA considers them Western Europe though, and Slovakia is Central Europe for them.

I have to say that the CIA classification makes a lot more sense to me, the UN one seems to take a perceived cultural/economic approach that's both fuzzy and stereotyped.

So are high schools in the US actually of higher quality than in Slovakia?

Yes.

I was graduated from high school in Slovakia 2 years ago. In my town (about 45,000 inhabitants, 12th largest in Slovakia) there are 11 high schools (with 50-1000 students).

I was actually attending 8-year grammar school - a special school that merges elementary and high school, allowing me to finish my studies 1 year sooner than standard education. This was intended to be for "smarter" kids. (It isn't.) However in terms of quality I think it is similar to most of the high schools.

Out of about 11 classes I've taken every year, only 7 actually required some effort to get an A. Some teachers did not even care about "cheating" on the exams - it was pretty common for me to solve all variants in 20 minutes and then distribute it in the class. At the beginning of the school year, we got about 20 textbooks chosen by Ministry of Education. Half of them were never used, some were 15 years old. We paid only for few textbooks.

Students were bored, teachers were bored. Only few took their job seriously, only one was doing more than required.

During the classes like Biology, Geography, Chemistry, History and Slovak literature, the teacher dictated what we should write. During the next class, one was chosen and graded based on how good he/she memorized the notes.

The more students the school have, the more money it gets. Every school keeps as many students as possible. Even if they do not pass the entry test.

The last year was by far the most wasted year of my life. Student chooses 4 subjects from about 9 possible for the state exams. We were however still obliged to take 12 subjects. All teachers stopped teaching the other subjects, because it "was not required for our state exams" and "gave us time to learn the important subjects". They were simply lazy. Sometimes they didn't even attend the class.

Today I remember almost nothing except Maths and English.

On the other hand, free WiFi. And a lot of time for personal projects.

I'm not sure you understand how bad some USA highschools are.

even if they are not of a higher quality, it is much easier to apply to a good american university from an american high school than a slovakian one.

They are not. I am not from Slovakia, but Albania (a neighbor country) and I can say that the average public high-school in the US is not any better than most high-schools in south-eastern Europe.

But, graduating from an US high school gives you much higher chances to get accepted to a US college, and get a scholarship (if you have top grades).

Talking this from experience: I came in the US for my senior year of high school as an exchange student (lived with an american family), and then got a full academic scholarship from an american university. I was taking mostly AP classes, but still found my self running circles around most students in sciences (math, physics, chemistry) etc, and I found generally much easier experience than my classes back in Albania (even with the language handicap I had at the time). But still, that year in the US was very valuable in learning language, culture, making life-long friends, and getting me into college with a full scholarship.

Since when is Albania a neighbor of Slovakia? Nearby maybe but it's not an neighbor. This being a bit of off-topic, now the main part:

There are a lot of high schools in those countries. So you just CAN'T say the high-schools "are better", "are worse" or something like that. Which high-school do you mean exactly? Which course? The questions go on ...

So going deeper in that struct -- being one of the brightest in your Albanian high-school, could make you one of the good ones in some of the USA high-schools ... but sorry that is just not enough to say, that the Albanian educational system is better compared to that of the USA.

We had some problems in that part of Europe and sadly the education suffered a lot ...

I'm getting a Service Unavailable page.

What sort of legal implications or liabilities would someone take on by hosting this person? For example, if the child got hurt or in a bad accident, would they have the legal obligation to pay for him? And would this child fall under the hosts' medical insurance, or would he have to pay for his own medical insurance?

"Exchange student" programs have existed for long time. Usually the exchange students are required to buy at least "catastrophic" health insurance, and they might have to pay the tuition for the high-school they attend (even if it is a public school, since their parents are not us citizens and haven't been paying taxes).

The family is required to provide food, shelter, and some basic transportation, but that's it. Students are required to have some money aside for monthly expenses.

I never have heard bad stories from the family side (i.e. they end up with a bad students) as the students themselves are well filtered. Most horror stories I have heard is from the students, where they go to a family and then they find themselves they have to babysit or do other stuff they are not expecting to.

Hi Marek, a fellow Slovak from Presov here :). Great job on the website. I would suggest being more specific on what you actually expect from the family in the US. Do you want just a place to sleep or do you expect them to provide food, transportation, pay your study fee (if any) etc. Good luck!

Wow, neat idea and nice looking web page. One comment comes to mind: Think about applying to school and getting in first (that what I recommend, in fact). You will then find a place to stay even if you have to do it after you arrive in Cali for school. Sure, you might have to work out a temporary solution, such as crashing on a couch or short-term rental, but being on the ground and meeting people and seeing places will be best, IMHO. That's how I've done it and that's how thousands of students do it. I did it myself like that when I was a student and I've hosted multiple students in my home now that I am in a position to do that. Have fun and best wishes! Cheers :)

What is the incentive for a family to host this boy?

I understand the value that someone in his position gets from being able to live and study in California. But you have to give value to take value right?

it seems this is more of a "charity" than a "business". also it may be possible to take back your expenses when he graduates.

The host family gets to help someone to have a better life, and has the opportunity to get to know a creative and optimistic young man from a foreign country.

Say what you want but I know people in their 30's that can't put something together this creative. I love the idea. Very creative. I hope he finds a family.

Can anyone with JS debugger experience (I am learning to fight the Chrome debugger now) tell me how to identify what is causing that terrible lag

Partly it would be nice to let the poor kid know, partly I want to know how to fix such issues as they inevitably crop up for me. (CPU measures seem not to point to anything useful)

(If the answer is take stuff away till it works, well, why have a debugger?)

He's using the jQuery Waypoints plugin to fire events when a visitor scrolls to specified points on the page. Probably that.

I'm on my phone so all I can see is a jquery mobile-based site but, given some of the comments, I assume he's probably overloaded the scroll event. That event fires _a lot_ so if you load it up with too much logic or attach too many listeners, you get some nasty lag (think "New Twitter"). You're better off attaching a single listener that does some light action like setting a variable (`didScroll = true`) and an interval timer (every 50ms is fine) that checks that variable and performs some logic as a result.

John Resig wrote up an article about this very probably several years back. If curious, I can dig it up.

John Resig article circa jQuery 1.4.4 but still relevant: http://ejohn.org/blog/learning-from-twitter/

He has a video too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQsaCXJeoDY

But not a better host :p

He's in Slovakia, man.

Just think about that for a few minutes. You're complaining about the hosting quality of a page that is being HN'd from a _kid in Slovakia who put up the page to try and appeal to Americans to host him as he studies in their country._

Can't the novelty of this new era persist for even a few years?

I was just making a joke relative to the title that was something like "This guy has a better sale page than you" while the site was rendered 403 by the HN effect.

I see the title has been changed and the page is available.

This 16yo boy from eastern europe has a better sales page than you (hostmeinca.com)

503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

It looks like a cruel joke.

Any page with that little information on it and forces users to scroll is a testament to over-design.

I didn't even realize you had to scroll down. I saw some bouncy text and images with no navigation hints whatsoever. I clicked around, went 'eww' and closed the tab. Once I figured out that you had to scroll down, I admit I found effect pretty cool. I think adding an arrow pointing down on the main page would help.

AdBlock Plus and Ghostery do not only kill the Trackers, but also kill the design/css.

Not quite sure, why that is, but site doesn't really look good.

Non the less - hope this guy has success...

I think it is because the site is under heavy load. Reload and it looks fine again, or give a service unavailable error...

link to the cached version, as it looks like HN traffic killed the site. :) http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hGI4ggM...

Yes.

When I was 16 I had lots of free time for projects like this, too.

Are we implying that everyone who reads hackernews should have a page like this? Because if so, then this page is a _terrible_ sell for a hacker.

It is very nicely done, but I think that "Eastern Europe" as a synonym for "Borat" is a trope that, while never accurate, has run its course.

Huh? Who mentioned Borat?

Why else mention "from Eastern Europe"? Would "from France" or "from Sweden" be seen as remarkable? It's a great page from anyone, 16 or no, but the fact that he's from Slovakia isn't germane.

Well, GDP/capita in Slovakia is quite a bit lower than in France or Sweden, and that is a common trait across Eastern Europe. As he is asking for hosting, money enters the equation.

Well, it was implied. Why else mention 'Eastern Europe'? Do we ever mention geographical location in other articles, as in "this startup from the Eastern US has..."? Nope, we don't.

Here, "Eastern Europe" seems to have been included (in combination with "16 year old") to evoke an image of an inexperienced youngster in an underdeveloped, backwards area that is nevertheless outperforming you.

So no, no-one mentioned Borat, but the imagery associated with it was certainly implied.

See kriro's comment, but to address your question:

Do we ever mention geographical location in other articles, as in "this startup from the Eastern US has..."? Nope, we don't.

Yes we do. We say "Northern America". For the US we also talk about the West Coast versus the East Coast, and the Midwest.

How would you feel if it was "this 16 yo african american" ?

To talk about a 16 year old African American? Fine? Why wouldn't I?

I believe his point was that calling attention to someone's race (or location) is extraneous information that's not necessarily important. One might mean it as simply clarifying ("that young african american kid, not the long-haired kid next to him"), but it's easy to misunderstand that as some implication that it's notable that they're a ____ person (poor, female, foreign, different-colored-skin) rather than that what they did is notable in its own right.

In this case, I think it's very interesting that this young man has had the creativity to make such a site, and prepare his message so well. I admire the degree of preparation he's put into this: he clearly seems to understand the visa process. I like his "let's make sure we are right for each other first" message, as well.

Borat -> Kazakhstan -> Asia

"Eastern Europe" != Asia

But the actual Borat movie (the parts outside of America) was filmed in Eastern Europe (Romania, I think), not Kazakhstan.

I think you read too much into it. Everyone calls that area of the world "Eastern Europe".

And yes, you do hear "Northeastern US", "Southern US", "West Coast", "The Midwest"... people refer to large areas of land using compass points.

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