iamjonlee

I don't use close.io, but here's what I'd also recommend if you haven't done them already:

1) allow the user to enter their phone numbers in whatever format they want: 4081231234, (408)123-1234, 408-123-1234 and format it after they click 'save' to (408)123-1234 or however you want it.

2)Cache the domain of the email address for autocomplete suggestions if they enter a website. For example, if you type in [email protected] for the email, I can already suggest http://close.io if you start typing in a website address.

Thanks! Part of the reason why it was quick to develop was because of past experience + existing site files. About half a year ago, we were reiterating so much that it made sense to just start building a custom template for ourselves that we could tweak and improve so we could reiterate faster. This prototype is quick even for us, but this time we had a really clear idea of what we wanted to build, and how to get there, so this prototype is the first step.

We wanted to pivot into something else and decided to just start building last night. It's far from what we have planned, but hey, I think it's pretty good work for 10 hours.

I've been there done that, so I get the frustration you went through. Lesson # 1 What people say is cool doesn't mean that it's something that they'd use. Just because you say you're building the next Facebook will get you some "that's cool" responses but doesn't mean they'd actually use it.

One of the most useful things I do to validate an idea is to actually use YC's application- if you can't answer all the questions about your idea without any doubts, you're don't have a solid idea yet. And validating your idea means to follow up at the very least with the people that said it was "cool". Forget the stealth startups, be completely transparent in what you're building and have beta users follow you from day 1.

Good luck with your next thing!

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Thanks for the reply! It's true that these reviews might not help immensely to get us up in the charts, but they have worked for us in the past imo. We've had some of our most loyal users coming from those review sites so we're currently happy to stick with that list as our initial list to use.

I agree 110% on building relationships and finding well-known bloggers to write about your post as well as reviews on Gizmodo or TUAW being worth 10x more traffic on the list currently provided. You might've missed the last part where I mention that the list is incomplete though because we usually do end up delivering a better pitch to the mentioned top level tech news sites after a week or two.

From just our experience, we've found that doing a blast of 50+ generic "resumes, cover letters" AND posts by the top companies is a perfect combination. Not to mention, it really doesn't hurt to post to the 50+ sites either way.

Well, if you look at it that way, there are overlaps with most social networking services- Facebook also uploads photos, shares with friends, and people comment on them.

What we'd like for Persona or at least how we use it is a way to share our personal interests and connect to people through them. Sometimes when I pull in front of a starbucks in my 87 mr2, people stop me, pull out their phones and show me their mr2s as we talk about cars. I'm attempting to mimick that real life conversation by posting photos of what I'm passionate about, or what I want to talk about on my Persona, a visual diary of my life. People respond using photo comments that shows me their perspective of that shared picture.

It might be a far-fetched goal, but I hope that people all over the word would be able to bond and share a connection over a single photograph that you post. Like a real life conversation when you first meet someone, I want people to be able to recognize and find a common point of interest as a topic to converse upon.

This might be subjective, but from how I use Instagram and how I see most users use it- it's to post random pictures that you encounter, more to showcase your photographic skills rather than to show what your life is about.

Actually, it's because it shows the logo effectively.

http://www.snopes.com/business/market/clockhands.asp

I guess the old copy is showing up for everyone. It was updated last night but changes weren't saved. It'll be fixed later today.

It's not so much that people won't use it. If they won't use it or don't find use for it, you won't even get signups in the first place. I am only strictly speaking from experience but if you have a product that people don't want to try, they won't sign up for it. I've done this before- the question is- why are people signing up for it but only want to try it out in the app store?

Yuriniyazov makes a good point- maybe they're afraid of downloading it anywhere else besides the App store due to possible malware/security breaches. I'm definitely willing to take that as a strong possibility although it's just a little off from what we expected before with grooovy.

We do it via hockeyapp download link. We didn't think it was a problem considering the fact that Grooovy's beta test went well and everyone else using it currently is doing the same thing.

But I think you make a really valid point. I think your reasoning so far is the best I've gotten so far to explaining this odd trend that's never happened with us before.

Hm, for some reason, you're viewing the old copy on the site. It was updated last night but I guess something happened and the changes didn't go through. I'll have this updated shortly.

I get where you're going with this but we don't find the need to fully list out all features/functions at the point with a landing page. The purpose of the landing page was to obtain signups, which we're getting successfully. The issue is that all these people just want to wait for the stable version in the App Store. I had someone email me just 5 minutes ago telling me that he doesn't like betas because they crash. What do I say to that?

When we are ready to launch, we'll have a full site letting people know what we're about. We won't do it any earlier because there are some key features to making this app work but we don't want to disclose until we're almost ready to launch.

Agreed. To each his own.

The reason why we enforce the description of the photos is because it's usually the meaning behind the photo rather than the photo itself that matters.

If you tell people you like gummy bears, they don't give a crap because millions of other people in the world do. But when you tell them that you eat all the white gummy bears last and you have to eat them headfirst, you've provided a very intimate and personal bond to which someone else can relate to. Anyone can take a photograph, but only you can tell people the story behind it.

Thanks for the links! I'll look into it.

That's true. But at the same time, there has to be at least 1 user out of 386 signups now that would beta test right? And a lot of them are saying they'd want to use it but just want to wait till it's out in the App Store. Is it the new norm to only start using apps that's already stable and in the app store?

Friends of Friends who've used this app are still using it even now and it's slowly expanding through word of mouth. So we know that there's a market for it, but we're just not sure why our signups are unresponsive when it comes to beta testing.

I think that there's potential but the current layout of the homepage doesn't appeal to me. Just because of the homepage, I'm not inclined to continue using the app. I know you guys aren't designers but there are a few improvements that I can see.

1) Your tagline on the bottom of the homepage tells me more about your service than the copy with the "Have the best vacations humanly possible". Lists are boring, especially without visuals. Because the homepage is the most important page, I'd focus on only getting them to try search first then find out about all the other features you offer.

2) As many have mentioned, the video thing is really annoying. I click on the video to expect something to watch, but it's blank. If you don't have a video, don't put a placeholder image there yet.

3) Where do you want to go and when? default text in the searchbar. The less the user needs to type, the better. It's also MUCH more convenient for the user to select the When from a drop down list because they usually have pretty precise dates they want to travel. Because there's this extra option, I didn't know what to type at first. I had to search 3 times to realize that you do City, State and Country.

4) Because your site doesn't have any visuals, your featured lists actually take most of my attention. Those should never take away from your search bar which is your call to action.

I'm no expert on design, but I'm just listing out what I've learned the past year (my homepage for a past startup was very similar to what you have now).

I took a few minutes to make you a sample homepage mockup that incorporates a lot of the stuff I mentioned above. Design is a really subjective matter; everyone will think differently of the mockup below, so it's up to you. Just my two cents.

LINK: http://www.grooovy.me/Adioso.jpg

I applied late, and from a comment PG wrote a few days ago, they haven't started on the late applications yet.

Well, the problem that I mentioned is that you no longer have the opportunity to actually set your goal to 100% language awareness if your startup had made it BIG. You don't have the time to do that when you're managing a startup like that. Also, it'll cost your team more time to debug and fix your problems than for the programming wizards on your team. Your comment, although appreciated, didn't really respond to the post.