1) Well done for shipping! That is a huge achievement!
2) (For future projects) IMHO It's not advisable to work for "years" on a project without showing it to end users. It's basically a big guess. For best results make sure to start building your audience from the start. Even before you code anything. When you pick an idea to focus on, if you can't build some kind of list of people interested in it just from a landing page with a "Join the waitlist" button, then it's a big sign that the idea might not be the best or that you don't have the capacity to market it.
3) Your key premise is that people care about hierarchical Q&A. There is no true way to know this without asking people. So, again, ask them at the beginning of the "years" before writing a line of code.
4) Your site boils the ocean. It's almost impossible to build up a user base with a site that is not focused around a niche. For example, Stack Overflow's first version was focused on the topic of Tech/Coding Q&A and then they rolled out sub sites. So, your best bet will be to pick a specific niche to focus on and then when you grow and build that topic, then start to move to other topics. That is a tried and proven strategy. (Also, it's only by picking a niche that you know WHO to market to and what marketing strategy to use).
5) Your main marketing message is based around "features" but very few end users care about features they care about how your product will make their life better and how your product will make them a better person. So, your marketing copy should be about "benefits" not "features".
6) Again, well done for shipping! If you ever work on another project I would recommend to pick something you can ship in < 3 months, even better just test it with mockups and a landing page before building anything. The sooner you can get feedback the sooner you know if you're moving in the right direction.
I hope that this feedback is taken in the spirit it is meant, which is just to be helpful.
This is a really inspiring comment. I am just going to make a note to self on as to why:
0. Well-intentioned and you can read it
1. Next to well-intentioned also a simple but effective feedback style (the hamburger model: compliments at the top and bottom and the 'meat' in the middle)
All spot on, esp the niche and user-problem focus; but sounds more R&D innovation than market launch. e.g. bitkeeper not github; relational algebra not oracle; lisp not java.
The earliest of adopters ("enthusiasts" and "innovators") want cool technical features, not benefits.
Yes thank you very much for detailed and helpful comment. You are very right in your well written points. Discovered “The Lean Startup” book only very late in the game lol. But I doubt it would have changed our course much since we are true rebels and any Tried and Proven Strategy is probably not exciting enough ;) !
Thanks again and have a great day!
2) (For future projects) IMHO It's not advisable to work for "years" on a project without showing it to end users. It's basically a big guess. For best results make sure to start building your audience from the start. Even before you code anything. When you pick an idea to focus on, if you can't build some kind of list of people interested in it just from a landing page with a "Join the waitlist" button, then it's a big sign that the idea might not be the best or that you don't have the capacity to market it.
3) Your key premise is that people care about hierarchical Q&A. There is no true way to know this without asking people. So, again, ask them at the beginning of the "years" before writing a line of code.
4) Your site boils the ocean. It's almost impossible to build up a user base with a site that is not focused around a niche. For example, Stack Overflow's first version was focused on the topic of Tech/Coding Q&A and then they rolled out sub sites. So, your best bet will be to pick a specific niche to focus on and then when you grow and build that topic, then start to move to other topics. That is a tried and proven strategy. (Also, it's only by picking a niche that you know WHO to market to and what marketing strategy to use).
5) Your main marketing message is based around "features" but very few end users care about features they care about how your product will make their life better and how your product will make them a better person. So, your marketing copy should be about "benefits" not "features".
Please read this set of free ebooks for more info on that: https://copyhackers.com/get-it-now
6) Again, well done for shipping! If you ever work on another project I would recommend to pick something you can ship in < 3 months, even better just test it with mockups and a landing page before building anything. The sooner you can get feedback the sooner you know if you're moving in the right direction.
I hope that this feedback is taken in the spirit it is meant, which is just to be helpful.
Good luck with your project!