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damirsecki 4
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No one has voted on this question yet :(
3 years, 5 months ago

What should we do to improve http://www.blabberstar.com

We have a great project and an idea but we don't have the resources to hire developers. So what is the best way to get the money to fund our development? I should also mention, that we are a small company in Slovenia, Europe, so to visit some VC meetings in US is too expensive for us (right now).
So, any good advice?
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adamfishercox's Avatar
adamfishercox | 3 years, 5 months ago
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Lighter design, maybe offer developers an ad revenue percentage?

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garaa of sahara | 3 years, 5 months ago
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anime are quite popular now days. i reckon you should open a website witch has lots of anime and so you get lots of people to use it every day.
ultimately that will hopefully make you some money to support your development:)

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gymclothes | 3 years, 5 months ago
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You could always try to hire a developer who would be interested in taking equity.

It might be difficult to find someone who would be willing to work for little to no money during this economic crisis (at least in the U.S.), but you can always try to find interns or people who would like to build their portfolio.

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jonceramic | 3 years, 5 months ago
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Normally, I have lots of feedback for websites. But, yours isn't bad. Clean focused page. Easy to navigate. RSS's on your fave celebrities.

So, I'll give you 2 pieces of advice.
1. Find your editorial focus. All of the other sites that do what you do are famous because they have a consistent hook. thesmokinggun.com is crime. Perez Hilton is gay "snap"s. Hot girls with douchebags is hot girls with douchebags. TMZ is trashy paparrazi. etc. etc.

Right now, your site is just generic news stories about entertainment. Every friggin' news source in the world has a generic entertainment/gossip section.

2. More pictures, less rank icons. People want to see their celebs. Your thumbnails are too tiny (or need to be cropped in to the detail.) The ranking icon looks nice, but is too big vs. the celeb pics.

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damirsecki's Avatar
damirsecki | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

I really appreciate all the feedback. It looks like I have still tons of stuff to do. But this is exactly the problem I am looking to solve! How to get developers. This is the main question so I cannot award an answer that doesn't cover that!

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coreycharette | 3 years, 5 months ago
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Not a fan of the purple tones and the images on the top don't seem to fit in (IMHO). Use text for buttons instead of images.

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djscram | 3 years, 5 months ago
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The design is terrible, and the ads tell people to go away. (which doesn't help in your struggle for cash). But I would start with a logo. Right now you have the name, in an odd font, with a star next to it. That says "amateur Web site." Logo first, then re-design the site around it.
source(s):
Experience in Web development.

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djscram | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

Sure. I don't know much about Slovenia, but when we were starting up, we had a number of very good interns, from Universities in the area, who worked for cheap as long as they could build their portfolios. We found them by contacting the schools directly, as well as advertising on Craigslist.

damirsecki's Avatar
damirsecki | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

Yeah, we have also a new name that is more descriptive and more appropriate for the true purpose of this site (social fans site). Although I love your feedback on the design and other stuff I would preffer if you could stick to the question...how to get developers or how to get funds to get developers

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cfinke | 3 years, 5 months ago
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Depending on your business model, you could open-source the software that runs your site and try and obtain developer participation via the open source community.

You'd have to contribute back any code you get, but it could be better to have open-source code than no code at all.

Other than that, I agree with the above answerer who proposed offering equity to a developer rather than cash. It's a hard sell, but you might get lucky.

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richardca | 3 years, 5 months ago
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I would review the mahalo greenhouse guidelines for web site inclusion for a search result. You would want mahalo to link to you would you not? I would look for a design a little easier on the eyes. As to getting a designer in these troubled times check out Elance or such sites that offer freelancers. Even better you might check out local tech schools. You might find a student willing to work for either equity or less money or nothing at all to build his or her portfoilo.

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xds | 3 years, 5 months ago
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Honestly it seems to be perfect just the way it is.

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hogan | 3 years, 5 months ago
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Not have click to enlarge buttons that just pop up a window with the same size image.... that drives me bonkers!

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cymri | 3 years, 5 months ago
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"When your nosy neighbor isn't informed enough" is kind of a cute subtitle, but as a first time visitor to your site it wasn't immediately obvious to me what the site is for. Perhaps if you had something like: "BLABBER (star) NEWS Network" up there. Perhaps that is not actually what you see Blabber as, but the point is "what is BLABBER, why is it special?" Is the content user generated or staff written? An About Us link describing your vision for Blabber would be very useful.

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mmoore | 3 years, 5 months ago
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Your search box doesn't work. I tried "alba" "cruise" and "bush" If you have a search box you should make sure that it works well. Many people don't want to navigate when they are looking for something specific. It's a good sight but needs some work to be a great site. Start with fixing the search box.

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sandblind | 3 years, 5 months ago
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How about contracting the web devleopment out to someone in trade for equity in the company. There are hoards of web guys willing to work for options or a percentage of revenue.

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bugsy's Avatar
bugsy | 3 years, 5 months ago
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Here's some advice for the site: get rid of that gray color. It's ugly, it ruins the rest of the design.

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damirsecki's Avatar
damirsecki | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

We have a new and more bright design in works, also for the second stage of the website (the true essence) - social fan sites.... but we still need to do a lot of development first! Thanks for the tip

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girmant | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

agree - design overall is kind of hard on your eyes - lighten it up a bit.

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mrhelmsc | 3 years, 5 months ago
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1. Lose the advertisments
2. Lose the girly theme
3. Make it more like http://www.mrhelms.com

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offthedome | 3 years, 5 months ago
8
You should definitely start an email list. People visiting celeb sites are real finicky, and you need something to keep them coming back.

I recommend monetizing your email list once you have enough subscribers, by finding an advertising network that will do email advertising.

I would also take off the "This is the alpha 3 version of blabberstar", unless you have a link right on it asking for customer feedback or members who are willing to help you develop.

I'd also set up a rewards system, where you reward the most active recruiter for your site with a monetary reward, something significant like $500. I would then add a link to allow users to send emails to their friends to let them know about the site.

There should also be a "bookmark blabberstar" link somewhere on the page.

Hope that helps!!

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jeffhoard | 3 years, 5 months ago
8
Unless I really trust, I generally never re-visit a website that has more than 1 advertisement on the first section of the page. But that's just my personal view. The horizontal add under your first story flashed, which was pretty distracting. I also agree with bugsy, gray doesn't seem work within that sidebar.

Keep plugging away though. Good Luck

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damirsecki's Avatar
damirsecki | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

Thanks for the tips. Yeah I know that advertisements are kinda intrusive, but we are struggling here for every $.... even though we are reaching 4k visitors per day

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bahlof | 3 years, 5 months ago
4
If you want to make money on your site, try google adsense, I use that on mine and you can make quite a bit of money when people visit your site. It's free to use to.
source(s):
www.google.com/adsense

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damirsecki's Avatar
damirsecki | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

and since we've tried many others programs like "Adult friend finder" and "Eventbee" (and they ripped us off for $1000 by the way :S )

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damirsecki | 3 years, 5 months ago Report

I can just sadly admit we already tried that (we got no more than 4$/day!!). But then GAS banned our site because we violated their TOS (we have published a photo from another blog that was a little too much explicit!) and even though we promptly removed the photo and apologized they never included us back :'(

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