Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

11 pointsmikegreenberg11 comments

Hello HN!

Every once in a while, I like to offer my time to help other passionate people be a little more successful with their goals. If there's anything I can help you with, just ask here. No strings whatsoever. I've done this before a few times now, and it's worked out well for everyone. Check out some of the previous "No strings" sessions I've done to get an idea of how I can help. (http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mikegreenberg)

A few requests: Be specific about what you're trying to fix/solve/accomplish. The more details you provide, the better I can help you out. I will try to help all requests made before the end of today and will attempt to complete by the end of Sunday. Be patient and check back. Please keep requests to tasks I can do in ~15 minutes. I'll spend more time willingly, but smaller requests lets me help more people! Thanks. :)

Cheers!! Mike

PS: Quick thanks to fameoflight who I thought did a really great job last time. He opted out of the book, so I donated $25 to the EFF in his name. Thanks again!

PPS: Last month, things got hectic with the holidays and I didn't get to answer everyone's inquiry before the thread locked down. As always, I attempt to help those with the most need on a first-come-first-served basis. Apologies in advance if I can't help you within the thread. If for some reason I missed you, please don't hesitate to email me directly. I'll do my best to give you SOME sort of helpful response. (my initials) (at) nobulb.com.

PPPS: Pass this on if you know someone who needs help.

Hi Mike,

Great offer, I'd love to take you up on it. Our new startup, HiringThing, is moving from closed Beta to launch in the next couple of months. While our application is shaping up great, one of the major things we need to focus on before we launch is signup and onboarding.

I'd love for you to take a few minutes, sign up for our public beta on our website, and provide a few suggestions on what you think would make the signup experience great. We KNOW there's work to do, but an outside opinion will help us down the path.

Thanks,

Josh, CTO/Founder, HiringThing.com

Hi Josh, Here are my thoughts as I go through the onboarding process with HiringThing.com.

- Registration and confirmation seem pretty straight forward. However, the screen after setting my password is a lot of information with many different steps to move forward. At this point, you might either want to offer a split walkthrough... an option to introduce the new job listing area with a brief walkthrough on ways it can be personalized or an introduction to creating new job listings.

- Good job on the "University" aspect of the site. Education on proper use of the site will certainly help your improve engagement on your site.

- Creating job listings on the site could be improved. Currently you require all of the information the listing requires upfront without much thought put into the presentation. You may find it easier for your users if they have a step-by-step process which gradually requests the required information. Not only will your users be able to save their progress as they go, but they won't be overwhelmed with the large about of information they'll need to provide for a listing. This is called the progressive reveal...and can be useful anytime you have a lot of steps to cover or a lot of information which needs to be conveyed to the user at once.

- In customizing the look and feel of the listing page, consider a preview of each of the preset color schemes.

- Spend a little bit of time thinking about how you're laying out the elements in your website. At this point, it's just large blocks of text that the user has to swim through to find what they need. It's most noticeable in the welcome screen/dashboard where you suggest to the user some tasks they could take.

- I couldn't go through and post listings and apply to them and see how the rest of the workflow is, but think about the most important and most repeated tasks your users will take and put that front-and-center on the dashboard. It might not be clear to me right now, but when I'm welcomed, there is a lot of suggestions to customize my company page instead of posting listings (maybe more important?).

- You have some nav buttons on the top, a dashboard/create a job tab, and then each view sometimes has a few sub-views beneath that. Tighten up the navigation and layout of the pages. The Dashboard, Create a Listing buttons can be groups with the Saved Applications, Account Details and Logout. Consider which buttons you choose for actions, could these features be organized elsewhere in the site to improve how quickly users find what they're looking for? Maybe have just "Dashboard", "Account Details", and "Logout". Your dashboard can then hold your listings and saved applications. Account details will hold everything specific to the account. Might simplify things greatly.

Hope these thoughts are helpful for you. :)

Definitely helpful. Thanks for taking the time - there's nothing like an educated outside opinion to firm up priorities.

Hey Mike, I had a question. Do you know anything/are you involved with Gazelle Labs? Just trying to do some due diligence as an entrepreneur. They have been really great toward me the last few months, retweeting my stories/posts on tech.li and have felt a great rapport with them. Just wanted to see if you had any info being in S. Florida? Thank you for the time.

I'm afraid I don't have much information as Orlando (where Gazelle is located) is about 3.5 hours from me. I don't get up that way too often, but I know a few people who are. If it's helpful to you, I can put in a quick call and get a feel for you.

From the one article I read about them, they seem to be very welcome in the area and have the right people running things in the background. Can't say more than that, at this point.

Everything I have read and experienced with them so far has been tops, I really like that. There is never any promise to get into these kinds of things but based on a feel I have, it is at least promising. Don't put yourself out on a call for me unless you happen to be calling already. I do appreciate the time you have taken already. Thank you.

Time for no strings!

Like last time, I'll piggyback on Mike's thread and offer help on any type of statistical, machine learning, or econometric problems. I can also offer help with Python, as that's my language of choice.

You are most excellent, Alex. Thanks.

Should've mentioned above: if it's no longer Friday, just feel free to reach me at the email in my profile.

Hi Alex, Thanks for your much appreciate offer, I just sent you an email with a help request and all the details, please to take a look.

No problem--just responded. Good luck!

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