@mimurchison What's your outreach like beyond user forwarding? i.e. I have a request regarding plumbing. Let's assume nobody on the network has that skill or knows anyone, do you reply to me with a sad face / fail whale style interaction or are there plans for an alternate hunt? leveraging craigslist or other platforms, etc.
(similar to @eriktorenberg's question, but more from the user POV...how do you keep them past that first fail?)
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Maker
@thejulielogan great question!
On Volley, no member's ask will ever be ignored. One of the reasons we're invite-only is so that we can really focus on this.
Interestingly, with our prototype, what surprised us how even the most peculiar requests were fulfilled, which reflects the diversity of peoples' networks. For this reason, we satisfied over 1,300 successful introductions with over 85% of the requests posted being successful fulfilled. With this new release, we're aiming even higher. 100%.
Volley really plays upon the whole 6-degrees of separation phenomenon -- only that today, with our online networks, it's probably closer to 3 degrees!
@mimurchison One of the greatest moves by Quora/Medium was the creation of their best-of newsletter email. Skip the search and go straight to discovery...finding an article you didn't even know you wanted to read.
How much have you played with the user journey of someone who doesn't know how to frame their question, may not even realize it's a question they should be asking, but want's to explore your site for an answer? Likely this is out of your current purview, but it's an interesting part of the problem you're trying to solve: asking the right question to get the useful answer.
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Maker
@thejulielogan this is a great comment (really shows the value of the PH community).
Re: best-of newsletter: great suggestion; we've got something planned where we'll be sending a volley request or two in your inbox, which we hope helps keep Volley top of mind. Would love your feedback on this when we ship it.
Re: helping people frame their questions: this is something we've learned a lot about, and will continue to improve upon. We've learned that requests that clearly state the skills or experience of the person they're trying to connect with, and further explain why they're looking to connect with that person have done best on Volley (e.g. I'm looking to chat with a UX designer to get feedback on my app's on boarding).
In regards to your point about "going straight to discovery", I should note that Volley is not a place where one can browse other people's answers. Replies are private on Volley because they serve not as the solution or answer to the member's question, but as the first reply in an extended conversation (one that often continues through other mediums like Skype or even in person). This reflects the quality of connections were focused on facilitating through Volley, and
Thanks for taking the time to comment, Julie. I've just sent you an invitation. Would love to continue the conversation after you play around (I'm at mike@volley.works).
Agreed, fantastic point, @thejulielogan.
@mimurchison On a related note, sometimes users need education and inspiration. When you first open Mindie, a feed of the best 10-second (hand-picked) music videos are presented, encouraging people to create and demonstrating what's possible. It may be useful to show the top questions and answers on the site or in a weekly email.
Great landing page but I want to see more! :) This looks like a mix between Jelly and CoffeeMe. It's smart that you're focused on entrepreneurs -- they constantly have questions and need help and thankfully the culture in startups (in general) is very giving.
Can you share more about how it works, @mimurchison?
A little late to the party but nice to see this being worked on. I was telling someone the other day that there are 2 professional products I'd like to see. One that expands your network (CoffeeMe) and another that helps you utilize that network (Volley).
Also like the switch to invite only for obvious reasons :)
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Maker
@hsukenooi couldn't agree more. The dominant professional networking products of today were born in an era where networking itself was largely analog, taking place at conferences and events - where we connected first in person, and later online. These events are no longer the primary networking vehicles for the new generation. Today, it's far more common to connect digitally first, and in person second. I think it's this shift that has resulted in professional networking demands of this new generation differing from that of the previous one, and products like coffeeme garnering such attention.
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Hunter
The guys at Volley are relaunching today as an invite only community and are re-onboarding all the previous users at a new home (http://volley.works/). I got a sneak peek inside the product and they completely redesigned the experience. See previous hunt of the beta: http://www.producthunt.com/posts...
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Maker
Thanks @rrhoover. Sure!
Volley is a web app that lets you connect with purpose through short, actionable requests. On Volley, you may:
1. Create requests to reach people with relevant expertise beyond your current network
2. Reply to requests to help community members with your experience
3. Volley requests to knowledgeable connections within your network
Happy to answer anyone's questions and would really welcome everyone's feedback
@mimurchison 1) how are you focusing on acquiring user? which channels?
2) how do you plan to monetize?
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Maker
@eriktorenberg 1) We'd like our user acquisition to be very community-driven. Any member of Volley can volley (forward) a request to a contact of theirs that they think is best suited to help. Once the person offers a hand, they're automatically extended an invite to join Volley. We're focused right now on making sure this initial group of people identify with what Volley is all about: paying it forward. People like yourself on producthunt seem to get this :)
2) We've got some ideas such as paying to ensure that the right people see your request, and paying to anonymize your request but aren't sure yet.
I was spammed by this startup on email (address that I don't use here) and then Twitter @'d for "requesting access" on PH. yeah, I didn't do that. bad mojo for PH and something to consider fixing somehow @rrhoover.
@rrhoover oh dude, totally know that. I just wonder if there's a way that you can make sure folks don't use the PH name in a way to solicit users. that's the part that could be bad mojo. that's kind of what happened on Twitter after an unsolicited email yesterday. honestly I hadn't even looked at this hunt before today.
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