A problem that needs a solution
OK so I'm a now down a bit from the high of yesterday. There's one trend that I want to nip in the bud - people signing up and cancelling. It hasn't happened a lot, but there have been a handful of people who have cancelled after a day or two. There are two possibilities as to why:
At first I thought the second one had to do with the user's ability to query the system, but I've gotten some feedback that they really are looking up cards that we don't have a price for. Personally, I want to say "if it's not being sold online than how would ANYONE go about getting a price? Some things just won't have a price" - but I know better than that. They'd rather get an estimation than nothing.
Here are the possible solutions I see:
//UPDATE
After discussing this with my partner Mike, we've decided to go the "Web 2.0" route and allow the community to contribute prices. eBay's API looks like a pain in the ass, and from the test queries we ran there's actually not as much of an improvement in the amount of data as we suspected. This makes sense to a degree - if it's not being sold now then there's a good chance it hasn't been sold in the recent past.
The community pricing aspect is unique and not really done at all other than on forums.
Now comes the question - how do I go about managing my time. Do I go balls out and try to implement this feature? Or do I stay course and do a lot of the marketing and get to the feature in a few weeks when I planned my 30 day upgrade?
I'm leaning toward getting it done ASAP, but I'm one biased by the "perfection" of my product and I feel like I always need it to be the best I can make it. I'll probably do half a day of marketing and half a day of programming for a week or two so I can launch sooner rather than later.
- They have looked up everything they wanted and saw no further use with the premium account.
- They aren't getting values and think the price guide sucks.
At first I thought the second one had to do with the user's ability to query the system, but I've gotten some feedback that they really are looking up cards that we don't have a price for. Personally, I want to say "if it's not being sold online than how would ANYONE go about getting a price? Some things just won't have a price" - but I know better than that. They'd rather get an estimation than nothing.
Here are the possible solutions I see:
- We research and enter prices for every collectible ever....based on our best guess, and if there are no values returned we show this value (not very scientific, or a very prompt solution in my mind - it would probably take years to complete).
- Integrate eBay's historical data, using their API. This might take a while, but would give us substantially more data points and help with establishing trends.
- Allow users to post their own prices. This is the "Web 2.0" solution - the community is allowed to post prices of what they think it's worth based upon what they paid for it, what they saw it for sale at a show for, or what it's priced at in a magazine.
//UPDATE
After discussing this with my partner Mike, we've decided to go the "Web 2.0" route and allow the community to contribute prices. eBay's API looks like a pain in the ass, and from the test queries we ran there's actually not as much of an improvement in the amount of data as we suspected. This makes sense to a degree - if it's not being sold now then there's a good chance it hasn't been sold in the recent past.
The community pricing aspect is unique and not really done at all other than on forums.
Now comes the question - how do I go about managing my time. Do I go balls out and try to implement this feature? Or do I stay course and do a lot of the marketing and get to the feature in a few weeks when I planned my 30 day upgrade?
I'm leaning toward getting it done ASAP, but I'm one biased by the "perfection" of my product and I feel like I always need it to be the best I can make it. I'll probably do half a day of marketing and half a day of programming for a week or two so I can launch sooner rather than later.

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