Just a brief feedback on usage of the website: I’m not sure I understand what clicking on one of the projects on the homepage does. It always takes me to the same profile site of some “Anonymous Lurker” (supposedly me?) with some text written in first-person. I find this flow a little confusing as it’s not clear to me what I’m supposed to do or get out of that.
I even set up an account. But the confirmation link in the email is broken
It makes me think the projects arent organic but placeholders, because how are people posting projects without accounts? I would love if the account creation process was fixed so people could post interesting side projects i could browse through
ah! darn it! i think my partner right now just tried to make the "confirmation email" feature so thats fresh of the press and probably doesnt work yet. sorry!
You cant post project without account, so the ones that are there were made before we now tried to fix the email confirmation stuff. we are on it!
Id give them a pass. Non professional development is already hard as is
If the problem we have with modern professionally developed software is that its become soulless and treats its users like resources to exploit rather than partners to work with, in exchange for dangling polish and convenience in front of their faces, then the alternative is this: hobby devs who sometimes mess up and rely on community feedback
To be fair, having worked on this stuff, it can be difficult to test features like email confirmation separately from prod. (Obviously in a big commercial environment you have all the infrastructure for that, but you don't necessarily have that here.)
Dont know, didnt talk to him when he was doing that. We're just two guys trying to make something cool that can change the world! But yeah, on the road to that we should test as well
very useful, thank you! ill have a look at this flow. my first thought when creating this that i thought was funny was that every visitor to the site could click what seems like an already created profile pic up to the right, and then they would see their profiles and see they are a "Proud rat" lurker as of now (until you commit more and make a profile). but i totally hadnt thought of that you also end up on the profile page after clicking a project when not logged in, and that of course feels weird. ill do something there, thanks!
Working on the side project is usually the best way to find a co-founder. This got me thinking, which of the most successful startups actually began as side projects…Maybe it’s worth to mention as a story in this website to inspire visitors.
Totally. During the last year of working in this space ive come to think everything starts on the side, either for five minutes while you think about it or for fifteen years as a "by definition" SideProject (one thats not meant to become anything else). Yeah ill have to share more stories like that. We also have some examples already of people meeting here and then starting stuff, so those examples are awesome as well. Im also thinking i need a marketing strategy, ive considered nerding on my SideProject wizard alterego and making content where he inspires to make things. Like i did here: https://youtu.be/K6aC6vFkiG4?si=b53SYSX8HRST4yTt
yeah indiehacker scene is booming, but my hypothesis is that the greatest coming startups still will be started by teams. so creating relationships is key
This sounds like a cool project and I may sign up. I think the idea of seeding collaborations with side projects vs something necessarily serious right out the gate is pretty solid/clever.
Edit: I do agree with others though that we should be able to see projects/profiles before registering.
thank you so much! yeah thats funny u should say, my initial thought was to keep everything open, because i think the real relentlessly resourceful will sign up and spend time and contribute, so its no need to hide content to "nudge" signups. i dont want to nudge signups, i want the true RR people to just surface naturally. so we might change that, good point!!
> business wise this is my passion project for life I feel
I am genuinely glad that you’re so pumped for it, and wish you the best of luck.
But I have to agree with the other comments, its current state absolutely killed it for me. There’s no useful information on the page and I’m not going to register just to check what little there is. Ordinarily I’d just have closed the website and never returned, though in this case I may check again in the future.
dude thats so good feedback and im very grateful you cared to share it. many dont understand that feedback like this is a gift. We are working on an "about page", and like i commented below im thinking we just as well could have the projects "open" versus closed, because i believe true relentlessly resourceful people will surface in the community by their engagement. so that the "rest of the world" is lurking without profiles is fine by me
good question! ive been trying to figure out what other similar stuff is out there, and reddit is pretty close to what im trying to achieve. although reddit is missing profiles and i think thats pretty important for my mission of letting people bump into each other. i want to lurk on peoples profiles before engaging with them!
I've been an indie founder since 2018, and I'm interested in better communities to connect with other founders.
You're saying that there are no projects like this because there are actually a lot of projects like this. The problem I see with them is that the communities that are beginner-friendly tend to attract the most desperate and clueless founders, so it ends up being a community where people don't want to help each other so much as just get one more backlink and have a few more people look at their website.
The communities I've seen that are successful are highly curated and small.
What does this site do to encourage people to contribute rather than to just leech from the community?
Just from browsing the site a bit, I couldn't figure out how it works. If I click a project, it leads me to an empty profile saying "I just want to lurk." I had to click a few profiles before realizing that was my profile auto-generated. Also, saying "I just want to lurk" implies that I can lurk, when it seems like I'm actually not allowed to lurk and have to sign up for an account to see anything.
So, I think I'm the target market for this product, but the blocker for me is that I don't see how it would provide value for me. It would be nice to connect with other founders who are similar to me, but I'm not that interersted in connecting with a bunch of people who have no idea what they're doing and just want attention on their own projects. Nothing in the pre-sign up pages convinces me that there would be value for me.
thanks!! i havent seen any sideproject communities with the focus of creating relationships between the "makers" so that new startups happen, but maybe there are some?
good question around contributing vs leeching, im not really sure yet. we are working on functionality now so that product leaders joining can tag their project with "need builders" and builders can sub to new projects needing builders, with hopes of creating new connections in a small way, that can grow into more
leeching right now is hard, if you just hang around and comment not valuable stuff, youre just ignored i guess. If u give value in comments and have thought through projects, then that will surface. thats my hope and vision though. Im also thinking gold rings around "verified relentlessly resourceful" people... like i know who in my community has actually shipped stuff, is ethical, is kind, and not just a "talker" or someone who wants to get rich fast without caring about solving something. so thats an interesting thought im pursuing. and also maybe silver rings on people that "might be RR", if youre recommended by a gold RR its pretty liekly you are an RR.
Stuff like that. Its still early days though, this is just almost an MVP, so we are optimising the flow for product leaders now (cause thats my pain, that i know very well), then we will look at optimizing for builders. In our slack where we started we have 220 members ish, this site is an evolvement from our slack (fenomener.framer.website)
Yeah i see its not intuitive that clicking a project shows your "not created profile page", ive noted that and we will do something with that <3. and yeah youre right, the site today doesnt really allow lurking, since u only see titles and oneliners of projects
anyways, really useful feedback! its so valuable with a glimspe into the first impression of a person like you, one that we 100% hope to capture in the future <3
ive met six pepole in here the last year, some never on a call or physically, that i now feel i "know" and can trust. thats pretty special <3
Yeah, I had the same problem: I can't view any projects without signing up. And I'm not going to sign up without being able to see if there's anything worth signing up for.
Just a brief feedback on usage of the website: I’m not sure I understand what clicking on one of the projects on the homepage does. It always takes me to the same profile site of some “Anonymous Lurker” (supposedly me?) with some text written in first-person. I find this flow a little confusing as it’s not clear to me what I’m supposed to do or get out of that.
I just came to say this. I think it means one must setup an account and login to see project details? But that sounds like a lot.
I even set up an account. But the confirmation link in the email is broken
It makes me think the projects arent organic but placeholders, because how are people posting projects without accounts? I would love if the account creation process was fixed so people could post interesting side projects i could browse through
ah! darn it! i think my partner right now just tried to make the "confirmation email" feature so thats fresh of the press and probably doesnt work yet. sorry!
You cant post project without account, so the ones that are there were made before we now tried to fix the email confirmation stuff. we are on it!
I mean this in all honesty, not snark: did you partner not actually test that feature before pushing it live?
Id give them a pass. Non professional development is already hard as is
If the problem we have with modern professionally developed software is that its become soulless and treats its users like resources to exploit rather than partners to work with, in exchange for dangling polish and convenience in front of their faces, then the alternative is this: hobby devs who sometimes mess up and rely on community feedback
I think this is healthy
To be fair, having worked on this stuff, it can be difficult to test features like email confirmation separately from prod. (Obviously in a big commercial environment you have all the infrastructure for that, but you don't necessarily have that here.)
:D
Dont know, didnt talk to him when he was doing that. We're just two guys trying to make something cool that can change the world! But yeah, on the road to that we should test as well
very useful, thank you! ill have a look at this flow. my first thought when creating this that i thought was funny was that every visitor to the site could click what seems like an already created profile pic up to the right, and then they would see their profiles and see they are a "Proud rat" lurker as of now (until you commit more and make a profile). but i totally hadnt thought of that you also end up on the profile page after clicking a project when not logged in, and that of course feels weird. ill do something there, thanks!
I was also confused. I think the copy just needs some revising
Probably intends to say something along the lines of “please login to see more, you can’t lurk a project beyond the homepage”
Working on the side project is usually the best way to find a co-founder. This got me thinking, which of the most successful startups actually began as side projects…Maybe it’s worth to mention as a story in this website to inspire visitors.
Totally. During the last year of working in this space ive come to think everything starts on the side, either for five minutes while you think about it or for fifteen years as a "by definition" SideProject (one thats not meant to become anything else). Yeah ill have to share more stories like that. We also have some examples already of people meeting here and then starting stuff, so those examples are awesome as well. Im also thinking i need a marketing strategy, ive considered nerding on my SideProject wizard alterego and making content where he inspires to make things. Like i did here: https://youtu.be/K6aC6vFkiG4?si=b53SYSX8HRST4yTt
ODF’s Solo Founders Programs seems to be running pretty good https://www.sfp.club
yeah indiehacker scene is booming, but my hypothesis is that the greatest coming startups still will be started by teams. so creating relationships is key
This sounds like a cool project and I may sign up. I think the idea of seeding collaborations with side projects vs something necessarily serious right out the gate is pretty solid/clever.
Edit: I do agree with others though that we should be able to see projects/profiles before registering.
thank you so much! yeah thats funny u should say, my initial thought was to keep everything open, because i think the real relentlessly resourceful will sign up and spend time and contribute, so its no need to hide content to "nudge" signups. i dont want to nudge signups, i want the true RR people to just surface naturally. so we might change that, good point!!
> business wise this is my passion project for life I feel
I am genuinely glad that you’re so pumped for it, and wish you the best of luck.
But I have to agree with the other comments, its current state absolutely killed it for me. There’s no useful information on the page and I’m not going to register just to check what little there is. Ordinarily I’d just have closed the website and never returned, though in this case I may check again in the future.
dude thats so good feedback and im very grateful you cared to share it. many dont understand that feedback like this is a gift. We are working on an "about page", and like i commented below im thinking we just as well could have the projects "open" versus closed, because i believe true relentlessly resourceful people will surface in the community by their engagement. so that the "rest of the world" is lurking without profiles is fine by me
How does this differ from /r/INAT ?
good question! ive been trying to figure out what other similar stuff is out there, and reddit is pretty close to what im trying to achieve. although reddit is missing profiles and i think thats pretty important for my mission of letting people bump into each other. i want to lurk on peoples profiles before engaging with them!
Cool project!
I've been an indie founder since 2018, and I'm interested in better communities to connect with other founders.
You're saying that there are no projects like this because there are actually a lot of projects like this. The problem I see with them is that the communities that are beginner-friendly tend to attract the most desperate and clueless founders, so it ends up being a community where people don't want to help each other so much as just get one more backlink and have a few more people look at their website.
The communities I've seen that are successful are highly curated and small.
What does this site do to encourage people to contribute rather than to just leech from the community?
Just from browsing the site a bit, I couldn't figure out how it works. If I click a project, it leads me to an empty profile saying "I just want to lurk." I had to click a few profiles before realizing that was my profile auto-generated. Also, saying "I just want to lurk" implies that I can lurk, when it seems like I'm actually not allowed to lurk and have to sign up for an account to see anything.
So, I think I'm the target market for this product, but the blocker for me is that I don't see how it would provide value for me. It would be nice to connect with other founders who are similar to me, but I'm not that interersted in connecting with a bunch of people who have no idea what they're doing and just want attention on their own projects. Nothing in the pre-sign up pages convinces me that there would be value for me.
thanks!! i havent seen any sideproject communities with the focus of creating relationships between the "makers" so that new startups happen, but maybe there are some?
good question around contributing vs leeching, im not really sure yet. we are working on functionality now so that product leaders joining can tag their project with "need builders" and builders can sub to new projects needing builders, with hopes of creating new connections in a small way, that can grow into more
leeching right now is hard, if you just hang around and comment not valuable stuff, youre just ignored i guess. If u give value in comments and have thought through projects, then that will surface. thats my hope and vision though. Im also thinking gold rings around "verified relentlessly resourceful" people... like i know who in my community has actually shipped stuff, is ethical, is kind, and not just a "talker" or someone who wants to get rich fast without caring about solving something. so thats an interesting thought im pursuing. and also maybe silver rings on people that "might be RR", if youre recommended by a gold RR its pretty liekly you are an RR.
Stuff like that. Its still early days though, this is just almost an MVP, so we are optimising the flow for product leaders now (cause thats my pain, that i know very well), then we will look at optimizing for builders. In our slack where we started we have 220 members ish, this site is an evolvement from our slack (fenomener.framer.website)
Yeah i see its not intuitive that clicking a project shows your "not created profile page", ive noted that and we will do something with that <3. and yeah youre right, the site today doesnt really allow lurking, since u only see titles and oneliners of projects
anyways, really useful feedback! its so valuable with a glimspe into the first impression of a person like you, one that we 100% hope to capture in the future <3
ive met six pepole in here the last year, some never on a call or physically, that i now feel i "know" and can trust. thats pretty special <3
Yeah, I had the same problem: I can't view any projects without signing up. And I'm not going to sign up without being able to see if there's anything worth signing up for.
Yeah good point. No point of us hiding the goods. We will look into that!
Nice.
thanks! just making things up as we go but it feels like we are nerding on something close to a powerful thing
[flagged]
huh, leadsapp? the CRM thing? https://www.leadsapp.com/? this must be some bot-comment or something! :D