Show HN: MonsterLumen helps you brainstorm business problems

5 points by ssebro 13 years ago | 14 comments

Hi Hn,

A buddy and I worked on this prototype to see if we could design a system that helps people think creatively. I'd love your feedback, tips and pointers - and yes, I know it's a bit ugly (much css work to be done).

Check it out at beta.monsterlumen.com and let us know what you think!

mneumegen 13 years ago |

I like the idea although it definitely needs a bit more work. I used the nudge a few times out of curiosity a got a question that I wasn't interested in answering but there was no way of exiting the dialog. I think a bit more instruction on what is happening and an indication of how far through the process I am would have been helpful.

If you're planning to charge people for the service you might want to have a think about who your target market is and how you will make money. I see MonsterLumen as an educational tool that teaches you skills and techniques to think outside the box, once I've got those skills I don't need your app anymore so just consider that when you're coming up with pricing.

ssebro 13 years ago | |

Great feedback. You can press esc to exit the nudge dialog - we purposefully made it hard to exit because we wanted people to engage in seemingly silly questions, because in our experience, that's when you have breakthroughs. As an aside, we've also noticed that the tool doesn't work unless you have a legitimate problem that you care about and are trying to solve - made up problems just don't cut it.

I agree that we could do better at communicating progress and more about the process - I think this is one of the major things we need to work on.

We're not thinking about charging for it right now, it's just a proof of concept to answer the question "Can software make someone more creative"?

We're not worried about people leaving and applying the skills elsewhere, since what we've seen in practice is people who've paid thousands of dollars to learn these skills revert to their old habits once real problems pop up.

Thanks a lot for giving it a shot, and for your feedback!

soneca 13 years ago | | |

I used it for a real problem and I loved the idea and how simply is built. But I used alone, while I still considering try it with my team, I just didn't feel very compelled to send invitations. I use Asana, if this was a tool of their product, with all my teammates there, our taks and projects listed, and people already in the "let's talk about business" mood, I would certainly use it.

I don't see it as a tool to teach you "creative skills", not at all! I see as a good brainstorming tool. A good, simple one. The main advantage to real meetings brainstorming sessions is that this is asynchronous, your team doesn't have to be all together at the same time. You may just say "let's brainstorm this through the next 3 days, and friday we decide what to do". And I liked the 2 nudges I got very much! And I like that is not that easy to skip.

But, as a web app alone, with very poor social resources, it lost all its appeal. Something that I think would make it great is to allow all communication to be made through email (just as Basecamp and Asana do). But if everything is via email, then it may be very powerfull. But you have to create a great UX with added value, because one can simply create a email, copy 3 teammates and start a brainstorming thread. How to introduce the nudges, a good organization of topics and ideas, an easy to upvote good ideas maybe, etc; that would be hard to do through this email communication.

Well, I think the concept is great, I hope you can make a good product out of it.

ssebro 13 years ago |

The URL is http://beta.monsterlumen.com, and I'll be sticking around in the comments to get your feedback!

sixQuarks 13 years ago |

you want me to be honest? This feels like a feature to me, not a business. Very hard to get traction with something like this.

ssebro 13 years ago | |

Most definitely - we love honesty. Can you flesh out your comment a little? I think most businesses have problems getting traction to start out - what specific challenges are you seeing?

sixQuarks 13 years ago | | |

well, that's the problem. Getting traction is going to be very difficult with this. You're expecting people to find, or remember this site next time they need to brainstorm something. It's basically a stand-alone "feature".

Marketing is difficult, but more importantly, getting visitors to stick is going to be extremely difficult.

If, on the other hand, you do something bigger, such as create a brainstorming resource site with tips, tricks, and all sorts of useful stuff that will attract visitors - this could be a nice feature to add to that site.