nbd

Hey bigsassy, congratulations on launching! I saw your presentation at the Hacker News DC meetup last month and was impressed then as well as now.

I really like how you've set up easy feedback for those features that haven't been implemented yet ("how disappointed would you be"). This seems like a nice way to get some good feedback on how prospective users would rate different features even if they don't want to send you an email. It might be nice to add a simple textbox to that popup to allow for additional comments as well, at least optionally.

One minor nitpick - you spelled "dissapointed" wrong :)

I also saw your demo at the HNDC meetup last night - nice job, and kudos for being brave enough to get up in front of a room full of critics.

Some feedback:

- Without seeing the demo, I'm not sure I would easily get what the site is about from a quick glance at the home page. You have some nice wording -- "A free and enjoyable way to learn about investing" -- but it's part of a scrolling animation and doesn't jump out at you. I also don't see the word "game" anywhere on the front page. It seems like your two key themes are "fun" and "learning" and those don't quite stand out enough.

- The actual game mechanics are a little confusing - why would users actually care about being the "executive" of a company? As an investor, I might care about learning more, or being exposed to good advice, but to assume that people will be motivated to win a game just because you created it seems like an overreach.

- Why would StockYoyo picks be better than one of the million other investing sites out there? For that reason, why would it be better than the ultimate "wisdom of crowds" valuation -- the market itself?

I could imagine that one of the numerous self-managed investment sites out there would benefit from having a compelling, easy to use game where aspiring investors could learn but then also easily transfer their picks into real money when they are ready. I'm thinking of the online poker model -- a .net site to learn with play money, a .com to use the real stuff. There might be some significant regulatory hoops to jump through to get this working but I can see real potential there.

Nice idea. Here are a couple of thoughts:

- How about showing the beginning of the message in the tweet? Something like:

Hey @Recipient, someone sent you a secret message: "Start of the messa....", read the rest at ...

This could be optional when creating the message, or you could let the sender pick out a phrase or few words they want to be displayed publicly.

- Does the actual message being sent have to conform to Twitter's 140-character limit? It's a little unclear on your site. If so, maybe add a Javascript counter that counts down available characters as you type. If not, this is a nice feature of your service (send longer directed messages to Twitter members) that you might want to list.

- The quote you are using ("Secrets are made to be found out in time") is cool, but implies that the service isn't really so secret.

This makes little sense, and the article notably doesn't include any real evidence of a trend of emerging musicians wanting to limit their audience. Maybe it's not "indie" if fans are able to google your name, but this sure seems like a sure-fire way to prevent yourself from actually getting any exposure.

Very nice. I have to ask, though, aren't you concerned at all about the NFL taking issue with this? They're pretty agressive at policing their trademarks. Using the term "Super Bowl" and images of the teams' helmets is probably a no-no, even if you're not making money off of this.

Great site! Thanks for putting it together. It's great to have one common site for all of this information.

Something I've been looking for but didn't see either on the site or the wiki was a list of local legal/accounting resources for startups. Can anyone recommend good DC people/firms that are familiar with the tech scene and can help with things like incorporating, trademark/IP issues, etc.?