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Re:Show HN: I paid an engineer $4k to build a dating site by wiseleo on Monday July 07, 2014 @05:09PM (#8001435)
Congrats on getting it done to this point. You underestimated how being on HN affects your traffic so it's a little sluggish. ;)

You have too much tiny text. Your signup form is not distinctive. Even adding a class of "bg-success" to your div with the id of "signup-form" (that will give it a greenish background) would be somewhat helpful. Spend some time reading http://getbootstrap.com and you'd be surprised how much you better you will get in a few hours once you understand which classes are available to you. It has a lot of decorator classes that will transform your colorless UI instantly.

Since you provided no test user credentials and I am not willing to skew your metrics by registering, I can't evaluate how the site functions for a registered user.

You featured a blog post very prominently and wrote it in a self-deprecating style. While I appreciate the creativity, that does not help in increasing conversions.

My biggest concern

I am not sensing product direction besides your innovative mailbox that filters by intent. This feels like "I wanted to try building a dating website and didn't think about a unique hook".

I agree that traditional dating sites have abysmal messaging. This can be a good hook.

Re:Show HN: I paid an engineer $4k to build a dating site by ngm1985 on Monday July 07, 2014 @05:33PM (#8001577)
Thank you, wiseleo. I actually didn't think this post would do too well. As usual, I was wrong!

Appreciate the UI feedback. We'll do some touch ups to liven it up a bit with the help of getbootstrap.com.

I'm a little bummed about the blog post not making at least a decent impression. My humor is all I have! (the blog post referenced - http://blog.percodate.com/we-built-a-dating-website)

The hook without a doubt is the messaging. The goal is to give women relief and men more time back/focus on who to message.

Thank you again!

Re:Show HN: I paid an engineer $4k to build a dating site by wiseleo on Tuesday July 08, 2014 @03:13AM (#8003350)
As-is, this is not an MVP. V stands for "viable" and right now I don't get the sense that it is so. You have a skeleton running, but it doesn't feel like a product yet.