Advice going forward needed
Hi Indie Hackers,
I've been working on ireview.net for the past months and I'm direly in need of some advice from more experienced people.
It feels like my website is not getting any real traction, some few users have signed up but so far not really many have posted anything, it seems like noone wants to be the first.
Is there something obvious that I'm missing or is there just no need for a platform like this? I thought its a great opportunity for everyone looking for feedback on their products, big or small.
It's a little discouraging to be honest.
I've thought of a way to grow the userbase by allowing other independent web shops to display reviews hosted on my site on their website, it would be a win win situation as they'd look more serious as they have more reviews and i'd get more reviewers by their emails. I'd develop an API for this but I can't think of a pricing model that would make sense.
Thanks for reading!
Most web shops have already a built-in review system. It would cost me much more to connect to your API and build my review system based on your service. If this is your goal, maybe start with a really easy Wocommerce-plugin (this would keep the costs low for your clients). But I really would recommend first talking with a few shop owners before you build anything like this.
From the view as a shopping user, I mostly check reviews directly on Amazon (or in your case Digitec etc.) and they are mostly good enough to make a decision if I buy the product or not. Every once a while I also google the products, but there you have a lot of competitors out there.
So what I would suggest is focus on a niche and work hard on SEO to attract some users. What also could work (not sure about the legal situation) is to build an aggregator for reviews.
Thanks for the advice Ben!
it looks to be a huge market, why not start with a really small niche. like all the businesses in your city then gradually expand.
I think the biggest issue is you don't communicate what value your platform provides.
I wonder why should I use your platform. Why should I invest time and effort? What is the return?
If you can't answer these questions and communicate it effectively you will have a hard time.
You are totally right, i will improve on explaining the benefits. Thanks!