Your team is quite talented, and that is to be commended.
It's just sad that we're in such a deeply narcissistic society where self-glamorization is now so normal that nobody even notices it.
I learned nothing from your posting about much of anything except how cool and groovy you think you are. Granted, you are talented -- but that's not the point you should emphasize. In the end, it's not about you. But, is that maybe what you _do_ want it to be about?
All this said, I see you as victims of the society and times. You grew up in a world that values Fame and Attention more than anything else. It's important to note that despite that, you studied hard, learned much, and have applied it well. The last sentence and the first are what counts: Great job on a clearly very useful technology.
I didn't read it as self-glamorization. The writing was satirical, but not narcissistic in my opinion. If this article was supposed to describe their product, your concern over its content is valid. It seemed to be more about recounting their story rather than the product, which isn't inherently bad.
We started building an application to help students of Chinese better learn and remember their characters 12 months ago. This is the story of what we've been doing in the interim, some of the trials we've faced, the fun we've had along the way, and where we're headed in the next few months. It's a longer post, so feel free to skim. Hopefully we kept enough quirky details about our lives to keep people interested! If you have any questions, I'll be checking back here regularly.
I studied Mandarin for a few months, and this looks like a really cool service. Not sure if it would have a negative impact on handwriting - the repetition is really key.
I have to say that the writing style aggravated me. "We were but swaddled babes, greenhorns looking about ourselves at the vast and splendiferous plain of entrepreneurial possibility that lay before us." - this sounds like you are poking fun at yourselves, which is cool - but I don't think you are. Which makes it not cool.
This would largely be solved by toning down the thesaurus usage, I think. You used a lot of cool sounding words instead of their simpler, clearer alternatives.
Anyway, that's just me. I do think the product looks pretty awesome though. I wrote a few characters on the demo, and it went really well. It seems like someone who has zero knowledge of chinese wouldn't be able to use the demo at all, though.
Hey trefn, sorry about the flowery language. I've always thought that high Victorian prose sounded humorously formal and stiff, so whenever I'm writing for fun, I use that style.
The lack of a tutorial is something we haven't overlooked, it's just not done yet. You're right that people that don't know Chinese wouldn't be able to use it though, which is a fairly substantial problem. We need to fix that soon.
It seems that you and trefn both reacted similarly. I didn't really take into account a specific audience when I was writing it and I actually only posted it to HN as an afterthought, never thinking it'd hit the front page. Next time I post, I'll try to make it more to-the-point.
Nevermind - I just noticed the monthly pricing model. My apologies. Would be curious, if you don't mind sharing, what % of users convert to paid subscribers.
I wouldn't mind discussing it. Right now our conversion rates are fairly low, even considering our space: around 1-2%. That could be due to a lot of bad design we have on the front and try it pages, and the lack of a tutorial. All those things are the front burner, but it's just taking time. I think if we tweak it, we can substantially increase the conversion rate and our revenue. Right now its a sustainable business model though, which is great news for us because now our biggest concern is to boost revenue.
It's just sad that we're in such a deeply narcissistic society where self-glamorization is now so normal that nobody even notices it.
I learned nothing from your posting about much of anything except how cool and groovy you think you are. Granted, you are talented -- but that's not the point you should emphasize. In the end, it's not about you. But, is that maybe what you _do_ want it to be about?
All this said, I see you as victims of the society and times. You grew up in a world that values Fame and Attention more than anything else. It's important to note that despite that, you studied hard, learned much, and have applied it well. The last sentence and the first are what counts: Great job on a clearly very useful technology.