Ask HN: What the ?#* do I do now? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What the ?#* do I do now?

15 pointsdookiemcbride11 comments

Lawyer by day, programmer by night. Attended Chicago's StarterLeague (Fall 2012) to learn to program. LOVED IT.

Decided to build a graphically intuitive web commenting system, having no clue how 'in over my head' I was.

Worked diligently this last year and, finally, a prototype:

http://74.207.237.99/

My problem? WHAT THE !?#*@ DO I DO NOW?!

My goal? To build a business of my own and find myself amongst a similarly-minded, avid group of programmers/entrepreneurs.

The issue of course is that what I've built is not really an MVP--it's more a concept. Yeah, it works, it's cool and close to what I originally visualized but still it's a concept.

So, do I move on to a more 'business-viable' project, being grateful for how much over the last year I've learned about Javascript, d3, programming in general, etc.

Or do I slog on and keep iterating on this?

Thoughts?

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Apart from some minor UI glitches, this is great (#1: when I move the mouse off an outlying comment, the whole tree vanishes. I should probably hang around until I get back within the core circumference).

On the other hand, it's sufficiently offbeat that it may not find my adoption for web operators to adopt.

Suggestion #1: make it into a browser extension that works with Reddit, HN etc. Downside: you probably won't make money.

Suggestion #2: make it a little prettier - bigger, smoother UI, color-on-black color scheme, make it work on HN, and then do a Show HN post that will make everyone ooh and aah a lot.

Suggestion #3: make it work on legal citations, build a proof of concept using the Supreme Court database (http://scdb.wustl.edu/), send links to Dean Katz at the CLS department of U. Mich, and then make Westlaw and Nexis duke it out for the rights while you rake in the $.

Feel free to email me.

Suggestion #4: Integrate it into a bug tracking tool.

I suggest you keep iterating on it. There will always be bugs to fix and improvements to make. You've shown it on HN and got some feedback, so show it to other people. See if they can understand how to use it or if you need to add some cues to guide them how to use it. If users need to watch a video on how to use something I think that might indicate a UX problem.

The first thing I noticed was what anigbrowl mentioned about moving the mouse off the branch. The branch should stay open even if the mouse deviates a little bit.

You should pretty it up a bit. I didn't understand the color theme. Seems like there are different shades of green but they intensity of the colors aren't aligned to the scale. Also the pin icon looks out of place.

Good work I like the idea. Just don't give up on it.

Get it out there and get people using it, then listen to their feedback. Personally, I found it a bit difficult to tell what the point of it is. It looks like an interesting "reddit analytics" tool, but it also looks like it would be very cumbersome and unintuitive for actual commenting.

Nice work. Although I must say that "visually intuitive web commenting and discussion" is not correct, at least not for me. I was a bit puzzled when staring at your UI. The introduction video cleared things up.

For sure you learned a lot in UI design and implementation. That is worth a lot when building your next thing.

"My problem? WHAT THE !?#*@ DO I DO NOW?!"

No idea, but I like the idea of introducing a simplistic visualisation of popularity/impact factor/etc of a post or comment.

Keep iterating on this. If you drop this for something else in a few months we're going to be right back to this point - you have a prototype, do you move forward or drop it?

This may have good commercial potential with digital marketing agencies. I would present it to them, try and get feedback on how this would make marketing better for them. See if they can give you pointers as to what type of data they might be interested in getting from this. The application may turn out to be an intuitive marketing dashboard.

I would iterate on this idea and start thinking about some new ones.

Catch up on this podcast StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com they have some good advice for what to do next.

Google and read/listen to Patio11, Brennan Dunn, Nathan Barry, and Amy Hoy. All have good advice for the direction you want to go.

The best commenting system is Disqus, and they're the best not because they have the best UI (the UI part is easy). It's because they already have a network/community and you can follow others and see their activity, get notifications when someone comments on your stuff, etc.

Deciding whether to fish or cut bait in such situations is difficult. I would suggest it's not 'either or'. In other words, you may want to continue to iterate on the app while also working on other ideas.

Wow, was away from the computer for a bit, came back and now all these great thoughts. I'm very genuinely grateful--thank you!

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