Show HN: Use Intercourse to improve your pitch – we'd love your feedback | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Use Intercourse to improve your pitch – we'd love your feedback

intercourse.io

15 pointsMurrayHurps37 comments

Because of the name, I would be embarrassed to mention this in conversation to friends or coworkers.

Hey, have you tried intercourse?

I tried intercourse last night with a group of people. It was awesome

Did it improve your pitch? And did you find any regulatory problems when attempting to use intercourse to attract paying clients?

I would totally pay for intercourse

Could really do with some better naming/choice of words; I read the title as "Use sex to improve your singing"

Intercourse, brilliant name. There are so many funny ways to market it, particularly in the US. In fact it doesn't matter what this app does, the name itself has a lot of potential (it is a cool app by the way).

-At the end of a pitch when users are asked to rate it: Was it good for you?

-Make it social: Intercourse with friends / Intercourse with strangers

-Make it spread: Viral marketing campaign called STD.

-Make it practical: Marketing campaign about using phone/apps safely: Practice safe intercourse.

-Best practices: Never drink before Intercourse or you may not rise to the occasion.

-Have rankings: Let people brag about how good they are at Intercourse.

-Voyeur mode: The feature that lets people watch other people 'Intercoursing' should be called voyeur mode.

-Inactive user message: It's been too long since last Intercourse. Use it to make sure it still works. Call inactive user mode 'High School Band'

-Too short of a pitch: Really dude? Done already?

-At events: Intercourse in public.

-Multiple participants: Group Intercourse.

-Call the intro video: The Talk

-Help/Info section: Learn more about the birds and the bees...

Ok, I'll stop now.

I completely disagree. 'Funny ways to market it' will instead be 'Offensive and inappropriate' in many settings. The average person on the street doesn't give presentations, so immediately you're trying to target an education or business market. Is that the audience that will respond best to a name that can be taken out of context or isn't easy to grasp? Simply choosing that name already gives you a steep hill to climb. Not every company can take a name like this and turn it into a viable brand. There aren't that many opportunities to be a Virgin Records and make it work.

This isn't a 'presentation' app, it's not PowerPoint. It's a 'pitch' app. In this context, who gives pitches? That's right, a younger, more casual audience, not 50+ execs.

Besides, contrary to popular belief most people have a sense of humor. It's OK to laugh at sex jokes, it really is. I know there's been a wave of political correctness around here lately, but this is a bit much. It just makes me picture a bunch of boring people with zero personality too afraid to laugh at anything, and thus too afraid to connect with their audience because they just might offend someone's sensibilities.

This is realistic way to make Intercourse go viral (teehee). You need to take advantage of opportunities like this. This was serendipitous, but great marketers sometimes can't even create opportunities like this on purpose.

> This isn't a 'presentation' app, it's not PowerPoint. It's a 'pitch' app. In this context, who gives pitches? That's right, a younger, more casual audience, not 50+ execs.

A pitch is a very popular term in the financial and investment banking(IB) industry. Granted the people making pitches in finance are relatively young, but the audience is usually older. Pitches are usually paired with pitch books[0].

Now it's true that people have a sense of humor. But in these settings you have to let the person being pitched usually make the first move to open the stage for humor or animated language. The risk of offending the people being pitched is usually too great (even in a non IB setting).

I know quite a few teachers/professors/etc. who like using interactive tools who would love this app. Most have a good sense of humor, unfortunately I doubt they would take risks of suggesting intercourse in their classes either (I'd have to ask 'em to confirm).

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_book

Even the top-level domain was chosen carefully: IO often means input/output

The more likely reason is intercourse.com is taken and .io is the new, favorite non-standard TLD in the tech and startup world. Just like .me was a few years ago.

DOA. This service will not get of the ground because of its name. I suggest you change it. There are so many other names that you can pick that do not have such a strong double meaning. You are unnecessarily hurting your startup, it is a challenge you do not need.

Unless you are on the level of Richard Branson, in which case you should immediately start purchasing a fleet of huge pink dirigibles.

You may want to consider using a different name if you're marketing to customers in the United States.

Prepared to reconsider the name if people actually object to it, but quietly hoping we can reclaim the definition of "communication or dealings between individuals or groups".

Fingers crossed...

No man, this name is awesome. See my other comments in this thread to take advantage of it.

Definitely reconsider the name. Intercourse would work great if it was an app targeted to the general public, but definitely not in the education/business market.

The app is a great idea, and definitely has good potential.

The name is not worth risking the future of the app.

On the contrary, I don't think it's a bad name.

However, one thing which is certain is, that it will definitely draw attention :)

I think Americans will cope. There are towns in the US called Intercourse.

Ok picture this. Susan is in her cube. Nick, the office's resident smarmy dickhead walks up.

"Hey Susan, want to try Intercourse with me?"

Now Susan is extremely uncomfortable and Nick the dickhead gets to claim he was just talking about software.

It's cute what you're trying to do with the name but it won't work. Just look at the joke threads already in the comments here. It's all the proof you need.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gwXJsWHupg#t=2m37s

What a good, WOODY, word. ;)

Using this at startup weekend / hackathons to involve the entire audience in the judging process for peoples choice would be amazing

I tried a similar idea last year. The gist was

1. Post a 60 second pitch about your startup/project 2. People provide feedback

We ran out of steam after a few weeks, it was difficult getting people to post their videos (chicken & the egg thing), plus we got distracted etc.

You said it's a part of a bigger project, so I wish you luck! (funny, I'm also based in Sydney).

Fascinating to hear, would love to discuss further if possible. info@intercourse.io if you have a spare moment :-)

Sigh. Yet another useful word that's been thoroughly misappropriated. ('Gay' is my other huge annoyance.)

L. intercursus, a running between - inter, between, cursum, to run.

An equivalent word is intercurrent. Same etymology, without the modern connotation.

At first I thought this was a new teledildonics app. I was let down when I found out it wasn't, although I guess this could be useful too.

Teledildonics: here's a word that means what you think it means.

This is a step up from ToastMasters.

Having heard myself on recording before, and seen myself on camera, I will be waiting for the Android Version 0:-)

Was expecting this to be some kind of couples' therapy. Name may be an issue for North American audiences.

I was disappointed this wasn't something that would help me sing in tune.

Usually you already need a good pitch to have intercourse.

I just get a blank page on chrome for mac :-/

Current homepage requires JavaScript. This will be fixed shortly, but if you have noscript or similar installed it might explain it.

interesting idea - keen to use it on some pitch practice

It's been fascinating to see the difference between normal pitch feedback, and the feedback we get when people can comment anonymously.

Would love to hear how you find it.

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