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Show IH: I just released aboutdevs.com, a website builder for developers
By
André Pena
February 22, 2018
AboutDevs - The Software Developers Database
You should put more energy into the ProductHunt Launch - it can generate quite a bit of traffic so you should try to get featured today!
First of all, congrats on launching. It's a cool idea with potential that can lead to interesting use cases. Having said that, here's some critical feedback:
Hope that helps, good luck!
Thank you very much for the time you've put into this answer! This was the best feedback I had.
First, about the PH release.. What do you mean by putting more energy on it? It was a poor launch day.. I only got 6 upvotes =/
I'll comment your bullets with numbers.
1 and 2) I see what you mean. If you look at the landing page of https://about.me/, it's exactly what you're proposing... Something that actually presents the benefits of signing up. Better than a simple button as I did.
Also a good point. The search means nothing if noone signs up. The focus should be into making devs sign up.
Apparently you've had a better experience with BrandMe.. Did you continue the project? About your point.. The USP should be a website builder for developers and a search engine like, clean page, doesn't convey that idea.
All in all, after this poor debut I don't think it has a chance of reaching market fit... Even if I change the landing page as you suggested.
Again... I really really appreciate your feedback.
What I mean is that you have to get people to upvote your product - only with more upvotes and comments you have the chance of getting featured on the homepage, and that's where the traffic gets interesting (I shared my last ProductHunt launch stats here: https://twitter.com/emilkabisch/status/956555899702824961). So when you launch a product on ProductHunt, don't simply post it and expect people to upvote, because no one can see it. Reach out to people, post it in different forums etc. There's a good launch guide from ProductHunt, follow those rules: https://blog.producthunt.com/how-to-launch-on-product-hunt-7c1843e06399
Most importantly, you have to generate the first few upvotes and comments yourself in order to get featured on the homepage. You can see if your product got featured once the badge shows "Featured 1 day ago" instead of "Posted 1 day ago".
I'll take some more time to reply to the other points tomorrow and share my experiences with BrandMe. Also feel free to reach out to me on Twitter anytime in the future if you want more detailed feedback and thoughts on your idea.
Hi. Thank you very much for the explanation. I did not know I had to impulse the PH page myself, using other social media, in order to have a chance getting to the top. I'll also read the manual you posted. I'll do what I think I should do to make it viable, and I'll come back more prepared next time. Thank you very much.
This comment was deleted 9 years ago
Cool idea! I can definitely see the use of not rolling my own site. Do you support having a custom domain for your profile?
Hi. I really appreciate your feedback. So, supporting custom domains was one of the things I had in mind but unfortunately after this poor debut on PH I'm bearish about the idea. =/ I'll give it sometime and shut it down if it doesn't work. I have points to improve as @emil mentioned. But probably improving the said points won't make aboutdevs.com to market fit =/
Don't let that demotivate you straight away - ideas take time. Yes, it's always important to assess reasonably and not try to go through a wall. But a failed ProductHunt launch doesn't mean anything, you might have to tweak a few things and keep trying. My suggestion would be to try to validate the idea with your target group. Work on your landing page, and once you get that right, generate some traffic and try to attract developers to your platform. Only that will show you whether it is useful to users or not. Don't forget to speak to people and collect honest and critical feedback. Ask potential users whether it's interesting for them - or why it isn't.
You are right. I'll do as you suggested. I'll first try to validate the idea and then, if I think I should, I'll tweak the front-page and other stuff I need, and give it a second shot. Thanks 1 more time @emil. You've being super helpful.
As I said, I think this is a cool idea and can see me using it if it a) saves me time b) gives me better opportunities/traffic to the profile. I basically have a CV for my personal website (clone of the Linkedin data) so if I wouldn't need to update at two places that would be GREAT!
My benefit is the thing above, being searchable by people looking to hire is more a fear (being happily employed atm) than a selling point so to @emil 's point I agree that shouldn't be prominent on the landing page.
Thanks for the reply again. Now that I've moved from Brazil to Germany, I understand your fear. We got tons of spam from IT recruiters already. We don't need more.
As for your point on not having to update 2 places.. I'm afraid that's not quite possible because 1) LinkedIn only allows access to your full profile if you apply for a special API key, which they didn't give me yet, but that's possible. 2) I'd have to disable you to edit your information on your aboutdevs profile and constantly ping LinkedIn to keep both in sync. But I totally understand that this is a better selling point than proving a way for IT recruiters to find you.
After further thinking. I thought of simply creating a CLI tool to generate a static website that you can host for free on GitHub and link your own domain, but then I realized that this is exactly what https://jsonresume.org/ is for.
So, I think I'll just shutdown AboutDevs. I don't see people adopting it.. =/ Sometimes that happens. We have to deal with it :).
Thank you very much for your time again!
Hey. I've been working on this project for almost 600 hours now. 1 minute demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKfc_RTBU6A. We're on ProductHunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/aboutdevs. Any feedback is really welcome! Thank you!