Show HN: Restroom Rater. We take our crap seriously.
getrestroomrater.com
getrestroomrater.com
I do however see something like this in addition to the HN post 3 days ago of AirPNP (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7339963). I also thought that was a mock web application at first, but it seems they're serious. Maybe I'm getting too jaded that I don't recognize the needs of the marketplace.
I'm curious how many users you currently have in the beta, if you're willing to divulge the information. Best of luck with executing, and I hope you prove me wrong.
That being said, through various discussions & off-the-cuff mentions to quite a substantial number of people, it seems like people are interested enough to make it worth releasing.
It also has some real practical uses in some fairly common circumstances. For example, if you're physically handicapped, or you're in a city centre and need to go, but you know there is a high chance that the bathroom you visit will be really nasty. This is particularly the case around nightlife venues.
Right now, we are hosting a private beta in San Luis Obispo, as we're still in active development, but we'll be releasing to more in the next few weeks. We have a few hundred people signed up waiting for access.
This project is not our primary focus - we still have our day jobs - but we're enjoying working on it, there is quite a lot of interest & we believe that it could be a legitimately useful app which many people could use on a relatively regular basis.
To give the reasoning, I go by this simple rule: Show me your toilets, I tell you who you are. I only eat at places that have really nice toilets, not because I empty my tripes there (I don't do poopoo in public places) but it tells me a whole lot about how the people running the business view their customers.
If they don't give a crap (pun intended) about it, then they probably don't give a crap about me, and it's a no-no. It's not justified. The cost of building nice toilets is really low, considering the effect it has on people, and the fact it's there to last and not a recurring big investment.
If a restaurant/café has nice toilets, I instantly love it and become a customer. I tell everyone around me about it. I insist we go there, even though it has no practical utility for me. It's a screening tool, and I'm ruthless.
Good luck !
Keep it up, man..
Additionally, having to manually add the bathrooms can be a bit of a no-go. We've currently got Foursquare integration with some filtering to try and be smart about this.