Should i build a community or stick with the 'no login' approach?
Hi IH!
I built this website (https://remotehacker.com) which connects makers with other like-minded professionals, as a way to find a co founder or someone with a talent that your project or startup might be missing. I had this idea that I wanted a service with no logins (no registration, no password to remember) and complete anonymity. So far I have received good feedback, and paying users have told me they found new people to work with, which is exactly what I was trying to do! But, I still don't know if the approach I took is the best one. So my question to you is: should I scrap the whole 'no registration' approach and try to build more of a community instead, with profiles and visible communication, comments, and so on? What do you think?
Good one. I feel like the simplicity could be an asset that you do not want to water down (more so than the anonymity aspect). "Partner Up" ... just like that sounds pretty powerful.
Are you asking because the growth trajectory is not very promising at the moment? If that is the case I would at least consider adding more broadcast-style (no dialog) features that create an even more helpful directory. Making the projects searchable (I don't think they are currently ... right?) and categorizing them comes to mind ...
From a functional perspective community features would make more sense as a separate service, maybe with some syndication ... mostly pushing projects from the community service to RemoteHackers ... less in the other direction.
That said, if you have a somewhat sophisticated vision for a transition towards a community centered service, please share more details.
Thank you,
you make a lot of great points there. I'm working on the search and filter features as we speak. As for the vision, I was basically thinking of registered users with profiles and pics - all the basics. With that in place I feel like more transparent communication would make sense, maybe a question section to each projects so that a visitor can ask a question to the project owner, which would be visible for all visitors, etc. But that would be to incorporate the community features directly into the site, and maybe destroy the simplicity as you point out.
The reason for doing this as far as I can see would be to create more trust in the platform. Not that I know if that is even a problem right now, but could be. Other than that, I'm not sure.
I like the idea you bring up about a separate service for the community features, I haven't really thought of that before.
And yes, I am asking mostly because the growth has been a little bit slow since the initial launch hype.
I can see how it makes sense to go slow now and make sure the Growth Motor is working, to use "The Lean Startup" terminology.
Common wisdom would say that you want to grow a mailing list and own the relationship with your customers, but it does seem like the wrong approach in this case.
The relationship between project creator and talent will probably be taken to a collaboration tool asap, so facilitating the introduction is where it value is at.
The relationship between you and the project creator might hold some potential ... but what content would you broadcast? Just sending reminders that your service exists would seem a little spammy.
On paper, the key to better growth should be attracting more relevant eyeballs. If you can think of content that provides value for professionals with sharing functionality and a broadcasting approach directly on remotehacker.com that would probaly be a great solution. The growth aspect probaly needs a tweak in the marketing / outreach department ... not just additional features.
If you cannot think of a way to augment the site directly, maybe that separate service could be a Mastermind Group management site (more than just a registry and with some community aspects) that sends talent (not just project creator eyeballs) to remotehacker.com?
People looking for Mastermind Groups should be a good match from a positioning standpoint.
(I remember being disappointed that there are Meetups at IH but no mastermind groups to look into ...)