pghimire

Hang in there - you never know. Plus, I could not find a link to your app on your blog post. To say it in your own words: you aren't yelling loud enough. Keep hustling!

The site has been slow to respond. They are probably getting overwhelmed. Here are the direct AWS PDF Links:

- Tech: http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/RHT_SalaryGuid...

- Cretive Group: http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/TCG_SalaryGuid...

- Legal: http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/RHL_SalaryGuid...

- Financial: http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/RHI_SalaryGuid...

- Office Team: http://s3.amazonaws.com/DBM/M3/2011/Downloads/OT_SalaryGuide...

Looks awesome. How are you seeding the stories?

With Gmail's "new" interface, I am finding it more and more cumbersome to navigate around. I practically run my business through Gmail - so it's great to see another stab at this interface to make things more meaningful and practical. Goodluck with Fluent.

Hi there,

It might be a bit more helpful if you can explain what kind of people you are trying to connect with. A majority of HN has some sort of web startup experience.

I think this is where proper mentorship is extremely valuable. If the student was consistently coached from the get-go he might have pulled it off.

On that note, is there a community online where one can seek out mentorship. It doesn;t have to be a community of who's who - just some decent nice people with common sense and desire to succeed should suffice. I am at a stage where I could use some advice as well.

Do you have any suggestions? Currently the business model works like this:

1)A user from your target demographics signs up at your website (or install your app on her device) 2)Responds to a series of questions asked by you - and provides some actionable feedback 3)Gets paid $5/website or $10/app (we are charging $9 or $15 respectively).

If there is a way to create a better model, I would be happy to consider it. My goal is to cater to new startups and give them a number of users from their target audience so that they can get their initial testing done and get soem feedback at a comparatively lower cost.

I am basically trying to find out if there is an actual need for a service like this. Thanks for your input.

We created BetaUsersNow.com with the goal of allowing startups get immediate access to a pool of Targeted users and immediate feedback during their beta phase. During past 7 months of our own beta phase, we have been signing up users from all walks of life and have collected their detailed demographic information - including city, state, country, Gender,Birth Year, Yearly Household Income, marital Status, Web/Computer Expertise, Web Usage on a Typical Day, Areas of Interest and device ownership (iPhone, iPad) etc. This will allow a recently launched startup to directly go to a pool of its target demographics and test products out. In a nutshell, BetaUsersNow will provide you a pool of targeted users, that fall within your target demographics, who will signnup at your website, follow your instructions to use your website, app and give you actionable feedback.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Cogratulations to the LaunchRock team. Great product - like the look, feel and ease of use. It will be interesting to see how they fare once monetization begins.

Would appreciate any feedback. What do you think about being able to compare job summaries side-by-side? Thanks.

Founded of StartUpLift[http://startuplift.com] at the beginning of this year. Has been growing slowly but steadily. Revenue around $2k/mo. Recently introduced "Recurring Buzz/Feedback" subscription model that lets companies get featured, introduce their service/product to others and get feedback on a monthly basis. Also planning on adding "Startup/Small Business Deals" so that startups can offer deals to each other.

I think that's a great thought/concept. People could even have little badges displayed on their Ebay stores etc. which says "We are hanging out at Hangouts, come by..".

Wturner,

Thanks for your feedback. This is something we have been going back and forth with for a while. Is 'private' feedback that critical? Many have suggested we implement it, but there are equally others who are against the idea. Some have even suggested that "publicly" soliciting feedback shows that you care to your customers. However, you are likely to have completely different goals for public solicitation vs. private.

We have been helping startups out for a while now via our company StartUpLift. We have a very active community of feedback providers who will give you thorough, insightful, actionable feedback. More importantly, you will be able to guide the feedback providers so that you can get a more targeted feedback.

Here is the submission link: http://startuplift.com/submit-your-startup/

Goodluck! -Pete

Jonathan,

You raise some very valid points. I am struggling with the same issues that you mentioned as well. As you mentioned, I am currently working on creating some free credits to hand out to some companies (and asking for testimonial in return if they liked the service).

Just to share with you, I am the founder of StartUpLift.com which has slowly been gaining grounds since we launched a few months ago. However, StartUpLift has an almost similar model, but does everything in public. BetaUsersNow.com was developed after listening to feedback from many StartUpLift users and startups (as they requested if they could privately secure feedback in a fast, easy and inexpensive way).

Most of the feedback providers that have signed up on BetaUsersNow.com are the same users from StartUpLift, who know the process and know that they will be paid for a good job done. Hope that helps. I really appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks, I will have to check them out.

How do you suggest the business generate revenue? It's gonna be rather complicated business model. Charge entry fee? Charge for coffee?

How is Wix Lounge? I have never been there before, but will definintely check it out. Yelp seems to have pretty good reviews. http://www.yelp.com/biz/wix-lounge-new-york

Thanks everyone! I'll definitely check them out.

Looks good for a first website. If you are planning on offering professional services, you might want to look into more "professional" looking wordpress themes. I would also create a simple logo and include actual pictures of the management team.

No.

When you pay, we email our user base which is always eager to participate (as long as there is an incentive involved). We have never had anyone who has paid not receive feedback. You can take a look at the following to see the paid amount and the number of feedback submissions received: http://startuplift.com/category/cash-award/

I am a bootstrapped guy. I wish there was a step-by step guide that one can follow before and after launch. Despite the target market,etc. I think the basic things that any new startup needs to follow is pretty much the same. A guide will be tremendously helpful that lists a few things such as:

Pre-Launch: - Contact blogger/journalist a,b, c and d, to give free beta invites and coverage during launch - Do ....(twitter, facebook) etc to engage with potential customers and start building a community that will end up becoming your first set of customers. - ... I am sure there are plenty of things a startup can do (and is applicable to any startup across the board), that will help build anticipation and buzz around the product/launch

Post-Launch: - Immediate steps that can be taken to get your first set of customers - Startups desperately need traction and attention now that they have launched. PR is critical. What are some of the strategies that can be applied here? For instance, going after middle level bloggers. You are not ready for TechCrunch yet, or you do not have the right contacts. No-name blogger will not give you any exposure (however, I should say that any mention/link helps) - but you need to find the right balance to get maximum realistic bang for your efforts. - Some strategies to monetize. If product/service based monetization - what are some of the important things that need to be done? Ditto with advertising based model. - Despite the amount of time you've put into development, you will need to listen. Do you have proper feedback channels in place? Based on this feedback, you might need to completely change your business model, or at least think about tweaking several things including better user experience / smooth user-flow.

I just wanted to say a few things to get a conversation started. You have started ene of the most critical and much needed conversation topics here. Let's here from others. In today's world with all the tools and more or less the same paths that users take to grow their startup, A "Startup Handbook" would be an asset.

Need pricing suggestions. StartUpLift is a feedback-oriented service where we feature startups and help them solicit feedback from our community of users. The site was launched with the help/suggestions from HN users a few months ago. I am coming back to the HN community today to help me structure pricing correctly. What are your thoughts - is it too much, too little? What can I change in what I say on the pricing page? Currently there are three options - Free, $35 and $50. Free option simply gets a startup featured (no feedback guarantee). When you choose a paid option ($35 or $50), we invite our users (currently about 1,800) to submit their feedback. You will then be able to select and reward top three or 5 entrees respectively (out of many received). Competition helps maintain the quality of feedback. [Note: the URL in Title above is page 2 of the submission process, i.e. users are taken to this page after they submit details about their StartUp. Here is page 1 in case anyone is interested: http://startuplift.com/submit-your-startup/.

Thank you!

Is there a demo/preview page? It's rather hard to give you feedback without getting a feel for the product. A superficial prototype should suffice if you do not have anything functional to show. If you have a working link, or anything else that you can share with HN, please post it here and I'll try to give you some comments. Right now I am drawing blank.

Any thoughts on possible monetization strategies/revenue model?

There are so many places. Given that you are limited on your budget, be prepared to contact anything tech-related you can find and submit your site. [Self - promotion - we'll entertain you - and feature you if you would like to submit yours at StartUpLift.com].

Goodluck with whatever you are building!

Feedback from VCs/Epxpert would be an interesting perspective. However struggling startups would probably be more interested in hearing from potential users.

Shameless pitch:

We, at StartUpLift.com, are trying to build a very cost-effective (and often free) way of letting startups get feedback from users. Here are some examples of some great feedback received by offering small incentives to top feedback providers: [Ninja Post - Offered $5 each to top 3 feedback providers]: http://startuplift.com/ninja-post-forum-software-for-a-web-2... [Tom's planner - Offered $5 each to top 10 feedback providers]: http://startuplift.com/toms-planner-surprisingly-easy-projec...

Our goal at StartUpLift is to help startups get some exposure and solicit feedback. Often times, the startups featured cater to a niche and not everyone can provide a meaningful feedback. In this case, we have featured SeqCentral which is seeking feedback on its API page. I am asking HN community to participate and provide some feedback.

I, for some reason, cannnot fall asleep if I workout at night. I get so pumped up that sleeping becomes impossible. Working out in the morning works the best. I feel energized throughout the day and byt the time bedtime comes around I am wasted.