is my app too controversial? Need help

[Mike Stoian]

Hello everyone!

I've been working on an idea for a while and finally launched it in January this year. It's a politician review website. Think IMDB or rotten tomatoes but for politicians.

Vhoice: Politicians rated and reviewed

Not sure who to vote for? Find Ratings, Reviews and quality discussions on any politician.

vhoice.net

After a few posts on reddit, it got about 40k visitors a month for the first 2 months but people don't hang around for long. Also, only around 1% of visitors have made accounts and contributed their reviews or added politicians on the site.

As a summary from my learnings and user feedback:
- users either love or hate the idea.
- users are put off by bad reviews
- users don't like when the ratings don't reflect their own personal beliefs


I've been struggling for a while to figure out how I should proceed with this but I'm starting to think it might be a really bad business idea.
Could use your advice. Thanks!

 

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[Skroob]

I can't say I'm too surprised that you launched this on Reddit, based on the reviews.

What you've made is effectively a way to semi-anonymously trash politicians. It's always fun to scream into the void for a little bit, but what exactly is going to bring people back to your site after the first visit? They put in their 0.5 star for Trump, their 5 star for Bernie, then what?

I'm not going to say it's a bad idea, because I think nearly anything could work. But you're going to need to find some type of real value to deliver, besides just giving 14 year old Reddit socialists another place to bitch.

 

[Johnny boy]

Okay now sell credits to increase your vote

 

[Johnny boy]

Hello everyone!

I've been working on an idea for a while and finally launched it in January this year. It's a politician review website. Think IMDB or rotten tomatoes but for politicians.

Vhoice: Politicians rated and reviewed

Not sure who to vote for? Find Ratings, Reviews and quality discussions on any politician.

vhoice.net

After a few posts on reddit, it got about 40k visitors a month for the first 2 months but people don't hang around for long. Also, only around 1% of visitors have made accounts and contributed their reviews or added politicians on the site.

As a summary from my learnings and user feedback:
- users either love or hate the idea.
- users are put off by bad reviews
- users don't like when the ratings don't reflect their own personal beliefs


I've been struggling for a while to figure out how I should proceed with this but I'm starting to think it might be a really bad business idea.
Could use your advice. Thanks!

Can you put me on there?

 

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[Johnny boy]

What you've made is effectively a way to semi-anonymously trash politicians. It's always fun to scream into the void for a little bit, but what exactly is going to bring people back to your site after the first visit? They put in their 0.5 star for Trump, their 5 star for Bernie, then what?

They have to register, you get subscribers for a list!

 

[Moon Child]

As Skroob said, after users rate a politician there isn't anything that will make them visit again can you create a news section where they can read and comment?

Kind of like coming for the tool(Rate and Review) and staying for the engagement(News and Comments).

Also, check out Andrew Chen's book The Cold Start Problem, he went into detail on how to kick-start and scale network effects.

 

[Roli]

Turn it into a game, like reverse stocks. So people can "buy" politicians, but the worse they are the more credits they get.

Just off the top of my head, sure you can do better, or improve the idea.

 

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[Kevin88660]

Hello everyone!

I've been working on an idea for a while and finally launched it in January this year. It's a politician review website. Think IMDB or rotten tomatoes but for politicians.

Vhoice: Politicians rated and reviewed

Not sure who to vote for? Find Ratings, Reviews and quality discussions on any politician.

vhoice.net

After a few posts on reddit, it got about 40k visitors a month for the first 2 months but people don't hang around for long. Also, only around 1% of visitors have made accounts and contributed their reviews or added politicians on the site.

As a summary from my learnings and user feedback:
- users either love or hate the idea.
- users are put off by bad reviews
- users don't like when the ratings don't reflect their own personal beliefs


I've been struggling for a while to figure out how I should proceed with this but I'm starting to think it might be a really bad business idea.
Could use your advice. Thanks!

It would provide value if it can predict opinions better than MSM.

I remember working in a prop trading shop where almost everyone, including me, was betting that Trump will lose to Hillary and global indices will rally after the election result is out.

Of course things did not turn out well.

Fast forward in 2020 MSM was still cheering for Biden, although more cautiously.

Bloomberg was the establishment consensus. Too bad he is too centrist for the polarized leftist youth crippled by students debt and trapped in hustle economy. Just look at the Medium popular base and it is easy to tell. Biden was the last ditch favorite to beat Sanders, and that didn’t look easy, almost looks harder than his victory over Trump later.

2020 result was the surprise to the Trump/Republican supporters who didn’t see the inevitable natural decay of the demographic crisis of their party. Plus the fact that Trump is not the favorite candidate in the opinion of the party establishment.

And good political analysis before election better than MSM will gave immense values. Trillions of dollar move in financial markets before and after elections.