Ask HN: Review my startup - Find the top solar installers near you | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Review my startup - Find the top solar installers near you

ohmji.com

14 pointsjhouck24 comments

1. Horrible name, you have to have a name that's SEO friendly for something like this. You aren't in a type of business that spreads through word of mouth, you are in a type of business that gets found through google search.

2. You should add a way to input the user's city/state automatically. And make that function a lot more prominent. A big, giant, search box would do wonders for you.

3. Too much white, you should bring up that footer image higher. Because right now it's below the fold, so all a user sees is a boring search box on a white background.

4. Add a solar power related header image.

5. let users sort results by price and # of installs

By number: 1) Name was a tough one. In the end we opted for something that didn't have solar or green or anything 'eco' in it. It is unbelievable how many companies in this space have names so similar they are indistinguishable. We hoped this difference might be memorable. And it may be... 2) Do you mean adding autocomplete in the search text field? 5) Sort is coming.

Re: 2), I think he means "use a geolocation IP database to pre-populate the city/state that the visitor is in", similar to how yelp uses geolocation to point you to the right local yelp.

When you come to a city that isn't found it still tries to display all the metadata in the sidebar, but it's all blank.

I searched for Kamloops.BC and the averages were there with no numbers.

All in all it seems like a pretty cool service. You just need to work on the search and get more data.

It works exactly as I thought it would. ZIP in addition to city/state works, which is nice. I trust you get referral fees for your revenue model.

One note: the play on OMG is cute, but probably not a good brand fit for what you're selling here, though.

All in all, very well done.

Ohmji is a really awesome startup name, but I agree not a good fit for this market.

Why so little data for Austin, TX?

It'd be nice to add some more educational information that explains the benefits of solar in my home. How much do I save in X years? How much do I reduce emissions by?

How about incorporating ratings and comments on each company? I'd rather just ask for a quote from the top company.

I like the radius/shaded region that indicates the area of service.

Also, this might not be very important, but the name ohmji isn't very obvious for some people. It does make for a cool resistor logo though :). I understand since I studied electrical engineering, but for someone who isn't familiar with units of resistance it might make sense to call it something plain and boring like "solar finder".

We've begun with California data only. Texas is on the short-list of places we'll target next, Austin especially.

Are there specific things you would like to know about solar installers or about what it's like to install solar that you would want to hear from solar owners themselves in reviews and comments?

Personally I think you are too early.

Solar power has such a poor ROI that you would only do it if you don't do the math. It's not even good for the environment, since it takes so much energy to make a solar panel.

Basically you have almost no market.

If I could suggest something else, add ground source heat pumps. Those have a great ROI, but are not very common, and it's hard to find installers.

Not sure why this is getting downvoted, this is a valid point to keep in mind while determining focus, and a review of a startup should include its core focus, no? I personally agree that "Solar Panel Installer search" is too narrow a market to make a decently sized business out of.

There may be no PR buzz to be had in Heat Pumps and insulation, but it's much lower hanging fruit in terms of ROI and carbon emissions reduction.

I would personally try to broaden the site to include all manner of energy saving tech, with installer search being a key part. I do think there is a market for that, and if you can drive referrals, I think there is revenue potential. Let solar installer search be the press sizzle, and throw in some steak.

How about combining the "Solar Cost Estimates" with a local estimate of sun-hours to give an estimate of how long it'll take to recoup the installation cost? That's the sort of feature that'll land your site on feel-good morning shows.

And what's with the name? There's no association to sun in it, and there's no way I'll remember it.

Features that highlight solar payback are planned

"St. Louis, MO" is not found "Saint Louis, MO" is, though you have no data.

No one from St. Louis would type it out.

Is there a compelling reason not to drop in Google's geocoding service and just do a lat/long proximity search? (I'm assuming you have the locations of the installers in lat/long form)

Usually it is dollars. If you are going to Geocode more than a handful of locations they need to be paid.

The free limit is 15,000/day/IP - if your users use your key using the GMaps javascript library, I don't believe that counts against your server's quota, since it's coming from a distinct IP per request. 15k/day is a lot of installers...

Edit - And my reply wasn't meant to question you, you just illuminated the issue well.

my understanding was that this would violate google's terms (unless we are willing/able to pay), but maybe i'm mistaken. we use google's geocoder when we display data on maps, but i thought it was prohibited to use the geocoder for other purposes (e.g. geo-based data at ohmji.com/solar/san-francisco not rendered on a map).

search for "san francisco" and it looks like you don't have any thing in "san francisco".

1) Have a helper message: "you forgot to include a state"

2) or give a list of cities called "san francisco" in different states

This may seem dumb, but I put my mouse in the search field- I saw "San Luis Obispo" (from past searches) and clicked enter. For a second I thought you guys just don't have my city covered.

You're right. We'll be enabling city-only search soon. I didn't realize how many people would blow by the 'city, state' hint without pause...

How do you stop google maps or other databases from pulling all your data?

Thanks in advance for your feedback. -Jason

Jason,

Congrats with the launch!

Well done, too narrow.

by narrow do you mean you want to see more features, a broader thematic focus, results for more cities?

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