Introducing myself and my product

[phub]

Hey everyone

My name is Mark and I am currently working with a team of 3 to get our startup off the ground. This is my second startup project in 3 years and me and my team have dedicated ourselves to it full-time. After 9 months of full development and all the headaches that come with running a startup and web development we have completed the Beta version of a our website. Home - A site dedicated to sharing stories on family related humour.

Although it has been a difficult road up till now, I believe that the worst is yet to come. We are currently in the early stages of expanding our reach across the web. This project has been completely funded by me and my partners.

Please check out our site and give us some feedback or better yet join the community and start sharing!

Appreciate it all your opinions.

 

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[Alana]

Love the concept. I literally found myself chuckling out load just from reading a few blips on the homepage. I do wish the site had an obvious area that had Q and A (such as guidlines/rules) and an "About Phub" that gave a clear cut description of what the site is, who it is for and what it's main objective is.
Because I'm a smart a$$ myself, I personally like the sarcasm that comes with your site. However, I'm wondering if you're missing out/alienating other customers from partaking; folks that just want to share fond, heart warming stories about a family member and/or experience, or even a family experience where the person learned a very valuable lesson and wants to share it with the world.
I only had a few seconds to check out the site and write a quick response, so maybe I'm missing something. Then again, you will only have a few seconds to suck in a potential customer. Hence, at this point I would suggest you have a benefit statement that immediate sums up the site as soon as the person logs on (you know, you're site's catch phrase).
I'll be taking a closer look later....

 

[brob742]

Like Alana said, is super imperative to more clearly depict your value prop to a first-time unique visitor.

Just on first glance, I understand that I can share funny family stories, but it doesn't make it very easy to do so. I do see the little tag on the left to share, but since that is the primary purpose of the site I would personally make it more prominent. The circular thing in the middle is kind of hard to navigate and you have to hover over each one to figure out what it is. Just takes a lot of time for the user to go through and, like Alana said, you have a very short window to grab their attention and clearly explain what service you offer and how to actually share.

I always like the "How it Works" type of example on the homepage as it usually clearly depicts the user flow and the value prop all in one.

Hope the feedback's helpful and best of luck.

 

[phub]

Hey Alana & brob742

Great feedback, thanks very much - we are still trying to make the site better day by day so this kinda stuff is really valuable to us. Once you get some time to check out the site more Alana please let us know if there is anything else you'd like to add to your already great list.

Cheers.

 

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[hlopez22]

This site is everywhere. My first impression was "What is this? Social Media? Blog?" There is no clear understanding as to what the website is for. That is the best way to push people away. If it is a social media site then look at twitter.com and facebook.com and see how they explain, even if it's in a sentence, the purpose of their website.

 

[Alana]

I’m going to stick with my first post and say that the site’s lack of clarity/information/guidelines is the biggest flaw sticking out at me right now (and it seems to be echoed by the other folks on this thread….).

Echoing off of my first post: I think the site is too limiting and needs more categories. For instance, you have on the home page the options of “Better Half”, “Naggers” and ‘Sibs”. What about my hilarious 92 year old grandfather and all the wacky stories that come from his many adventures….where would I put him? What if I don’t have someone who is a Nagger but more ‘suffers’ from 1rst Born Syndrome? Do you get what I’m saying?

Another example of how the site is limiting: the Gotcha Last section. I don’t even know what the game is, but I can think of about ten different games that I played with my brother back in the day (or games I forced him partake in….guess who suffers from 1rst Born Syndrome in my family…….). I’m sure a thousand different people had a thousand different games they played with their siblings. Don’t limit it.

Again, having guidelines will help keep your users from turning your site into just on big area to complain about everything and everyone. Ex: I found a something posted on your site by Victoria Reznov titled “Overseas Depiction of Aussie Girls”. I clicked on it and was left wondering: what does this have to do with family?

Clarify the site. Clean it up. Make it limitless in family stories but keep everything and anything in that theme: FAMILY. Otherwise you'll loose your objective and hence your uniqueness.

 

[Talisman]

Good start - speed+ for doing.

I emphasize "start". Good concept, the left to right layout is right, top down something is missing. Need something better along the top, and your big selling point needs to be on top of the picture (I like the picture and the way it interacts though - if you can make it spin around when I drag it, you win, haha).

And, change the title of the page from "Home". Tells me nothing.

Keep at it - go hard.

 

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[phub]

Hey everyone

Thanks so much for the feedback, we figured that this could be an issue and that we were lacking a bit of focus for the front page of our site. I love constructive criticism so much so I want more..MORE! is there anywhere I can post our site that you guys know of where I can get MORE? Also yeah we are taking all this great feedback to heart and are gonna go back to the drawing board and see what we can do to make the site clearer. Big thanks to you Alana for taking extra time to view the site twice.

Thanks all, appreciate it.

 

[Alana]

Pleasure is mine. There are tons of Progress Threads that folks start up on this forum (simply look through the posts and you'll find them...big hint: they start with "PROGRESS THREAD"). It allows you to update the forum on the happenings of whatever it is you are working on. AND/OR: you can 'friend' folks on here and if they are nice and you're not greedy (in that you only contact them when you want something), then more often than not they'll be happy to put in their input. Lastly, you can join a group (they're found under the 'Community' section)...there is even one for Australian entrepreneurs mate!

 

[Clayton]

is there anywhere I can post our site that you guys know of where I can get MORE?

UserTesting.com or any of the alternatives. We use UserTesting.com for our web development business. You can set some demographic settings and ask some questions or ask them to perform some tasks. You'll then get a video of them using your website while they think out loud.

 

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[The-J]

That layout makes my head spin.

Honestly, your concept is cute and I could see it going viral pretty quickly (I suppose that's what you're aiming for). However, I don't see anything wrong with the current 'social sharing site' layout that's being used by many websites today. Your layout just causes confusion, at least to me. I get there and I don't know what to do.

Also: don't make me log in just to view more content. That's not optimal for Web sharing. Change it and it'll be easier to share these all over the Web.