Ask HN: In the beginning, should I improve growth or improve the experience?

Posted by fbuilesv on Saturday November 10, 2012 @06:26PM
from the ask-hn dept.

Hey guys. Last week I launched a side-project called makeitpersonal (http://makeitpersonal.co). My expectations were pretty low (10 people using the site was my bar for success) but it turns out that there is a a decent amount of people who want something like this.

I decided to spend a bit more time working on this and now I have a bunch of features that I'd like to implement. They can be divided into two groups:

1. Features that will attract more users. Stuff like sharing on social networks, an improved landing page and alerts for first-time visitors, etc.

2. Features that will make the system more "complete" and useful for the current users. Stuff like a WYSIWYG editor instead of Markdown, discoverability of other users, etc.

I don't know where this will lead yet, but if you were given a choice like this one, would you focus your attention on getting new users or on improving the experience of the existing ones?

( 6 comments | 7 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: In the beginning, should I improve growth or impr... by nhocki on Saturday November 10, 2012 @06:35PM (#4768148)

I'm in for more new users. Experience is important, but since it's a really new service, and you had your success, it can't be that bad.

You can focus on making the experience better after getting some more users and more feedback.

If someone is going to leave because of the experience right now, well, there's always more people not using the software than people using it... Make it attractive to new people first, and then make it better for those using it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: In the beginning, should I improve growth or impr... by acadavid on Saturday November 10, 2012 @06:44PM (#4768169)

Totally agree.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: In the beginning, should I improve growth or impr... by orangethirty on Saturday November 10, 2012 @08:10PM (#4768378)

You should focus on improving your testing and learning. Don't go chasing down rabbit holes. Find out what people want and build it. That will get you both grow and user experience. From your landing page, I could not figure out what your product is. Spent some seconds there trying to figure it out through the description. But did not find anything that explained what it is. Nothing. Maybe its there, but I was not able to understand your convoluted explanation. Your copy might sound reasonable to you, but it may be one of the things keeping people away. I suggest you start by explaining right at the top of the page what is it that your product does for me. Not what it does, but what it does for me.

Good luck.

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Re:Ask HN: In the beginning, should I improve growth or impr... by fbuilesv on Sunday November 11, 2012 @03:03AM (#4769037)

Thanks for the advice orangethirsty. Stuff like changing the text to something actually explanatory is what i meant by "an improved landing page". The current text was posted there on purpose but it's something we know we have to change if we want to get a lot of users.

I will be be working on testing what works and what doesn't :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: In the beginning, should I improve growth or impr... by brudgers on Saturday November 10, 2012 @07:01PM (#4768226)

PG's Startup = Growth

http://paulgraham.com/growth.html

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: In the beginning, should I improve growth or impr... by abbasmehdi on Monday November 12, 2012 @11:16AM (#4773386)

It's better to have a few people love you than lots of people kinda like you.

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