Accepted into Hustlehack pre-accelerator!

I was recently accepted into a London pre-accelerator, called Hustlehack. It runs over three weekends taking placing in Imperial College London with various workshops, talks and mentor periods for idea stage candidates.

With a strong interest in the comment space, I decided to use this opportunity to explore this market and problems within this domain. Me and my partner began by defining commenting:

Commenting is a form of expression that elicits response.

It comes in many forms (verbal, audio, visual), occurs in many places (on-site, off-site, online and offline) and are motivated by many reasons (enjoyment, information, reputation).

We then did some customer development, by interviewing potential users. We had a sample size of around fifty. The general trend among the population is that they don't comment. There's a negative perception of it and often commenting means undergoing some sort of risk - risk of having backlash or leaving a 'digital trail' for example.

We prioritised an actionable pain that we could help alleviate. This was the inability to know where discussions were happening beyond one's own sources. For example, a breaking news story would create a wave of reports across the web, with conversations dispersing. It becomes very hard to keep track of different opinions. We noticed some current fixes that users apply: searching for a relevant phrase on social media, search engines and content websites like youtube. Definitely not optimal, but this action implies an important need.

We'll be brain-storming solutions tomorrow!