Comments for Genotrope Journey

Comment on Y Combinator Feedback: it hurts so good by TS

TS — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:55:35 +0000

thanks coward and Brad:

I hear what you are saying, and that is why we put ourselves up for the scrutiny. But I think that it might be the opposite when you ask for comments and critique on YC News.

General users are more concerned with what can this site can do for me ? instead of, this site is not ready for the public, you have a typo or I don’t like the colors. Don’t get me wrong, we took all comments seriously, but like a musician listening to a guitarist, the average person hears the song while the musician is wondering if that is drop D tuning.

But we got what we asked for, and now we are making good use of the feedback to improve and iterate.

thanks for the input. ts

Comment on Y Combinator Feedback: it hurts so good by Brad

Brad — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:42:10 +0000

Hi, I just came from new.yc. Your point about being disappointed by the fact that no one looked past the design to see the features and business model is a key one and shows the importance of putting a good coat of paint on a site.

If a group of hackers can’t look past the design to check out the application, do you really think the general population will?

Comment on Y Combinator Feedback: it hurts so good by Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:48:51 +0000

A tips for improving the images.

The images looks “unfocused”. Try to save them as PNG instead of JPEG.

As a rule:

JPEG for photos
PNG for graphs/drawings

Comment on Registration Restricts signing new Users? by “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” « Genotrope Journey

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:02:00 +0000

[...] to the man behind the curtain” Published December 4, 2007 Business Yesterday a comment on this blog made me realize it was time to come out of stealth and let people know who is behind [...]

Comment on Registration Restricts signing new Users? by Rem

Rem — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:06:40 +0000

Hi Anonymous, Sorry for seeming suspicious, I was just waiting until we were fully launched before associating my name with Genotrope.
Hopefully January 08. Your point is well taken and you did a good job of finding the information you wanted. I will make the changes you suggest.

Regarding the marketing avatar, it was an experiment. 10 minutes 18 connections and now a network of 3 million+. It states that the profile is a marketing avatar, not a real person.

Since the success of Genotrope rests on the trust our users have in our service, we will do a better job in the future. Looking forward to our Boston Launch.

thanks for your input sincerely, Tom Summit

let me know if you have any other feedback or questions summit@genotrope.com

Comment on Registration Restricts signing new Users? by anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:11:38 +0000

To nail home my point (I hope you publish my first comment, will understand if you choose not to make this one public), I dug a little deeper to check you out.

A LinkedIn search for genotrope just shows a lame avatar [which I thought was against the LinkedIn TOS?] That makes me think genotrope is even more dodgy - better not to find anything than something so obviously fake.

Google provides the information I’m looking for… a google search turns up Tom Summit who apparently is a real person. According to LinkedIn I even know a handful of people who know you. Your credibility shoots up.

I don’t see the downside to a consumer-oriented web startup allowing their end-users to know who’s behind the curtain. It makes the company seem more real, credible and trustworthy. As google has just shown, not providing any information doesn’t guarantee the founders a greater degree of anonymity if someone’s determined to find out who they are; it just unnecessarily shuts out the innocent and harmless.

And, in any case, Boston is such a small town that asking around would quickly yield answers

Comment on Registration Restricts signing new Users? by anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:53:12 +0000

By asking for [presumably valid] email addresses you not only want to know who your users are, but you then have the power to spam them. This begs the question - who are you?? There is no obvious visible information about the people behind genotrope on any of your sites.

Getting users to give up information requires trust, and that hinges on the requestor’s credibility. Established brands (e.g. Amazon) might be able to get away with a corporate identity, but the credibility of startups comes down to that of the founders. I have no idea who you are = I don’t trust you.

This comment is deliberately anonymous because 1) I don’t know who you are and 2) it might provide a taste of “who is that?” right back at you