Apply HN: Polymyr – Bring Your Product to Life

[polymyr]

http://www.polymyr.com

Consumer reviews are preferred by a 3-to-1 margin over press reviews. Polymyr capitalizes on that and is a social product testing/launch platform that offers hardware startups valuable user experience insights by incentivizing our members, through rebates which you decide upon, to test and review your product. We aim to significantly improve the current launch process by giving new products superuser-level reviews right from the start.

For example, Product X is currently retailing for $199, our members will buy it for its full price, they'll see how much of a rebate they'll receive after they submit their product review, we collect and analyze all their reviews on our platform, send Company X all the reviews, and provide recommendations based on those reviews. For each unit sold, we only ask for a small commission.

In summary, we help you promote and sell your product, reach new audiences, collect valuable consumer insights, and give you recommendations.

[davemel37]

> Consumer reviews are preferred by a 3-to-1 margin over press reviews.

I strongly disagree with this premise. I would suspect real branding, PR, and marketing data would show that press reviews influence branding and sales 10-1 over consumer reviews.

(although consumer reviews can mean lots of things. It can mean a friend recommends, or a consumer does a deep video review online, or it could mean an anonymous person gives random feedback.)

I guess, I have two questions: 1. Can you substantiate that original premise with more than a poll or survey, but actual market research? 2. Do you think incentivized reviews will instantly remove any credibility those reviews may have carried in the first place?

[mikedeng]

Thank you for bringing up great points! We've definitely thought a lot about your first question because you're right, if companies don't care very much about consumer reviews then our product isn't going to be useful. As it turns out, all the startups we've talked to so far have told us that they would love to get more and better consumer feedback. In the end, makers are building products for consumers, so it makes sense that makers want reviews from people they are selling to. It's true that press reviews are valuable, but how a consumer sees a product may be different from how a professional product critic sees the product. There are also a couple articles online that help substantiate our point. But you're right, having a rock-solid market research report to prove our point would be a great asset!

For your second question, we don't think the incentive will hurt the credibility of the review - the incentive exists only to encourage consumers to provide an honest review that will help the makers improve their products.

Thanks again for commenting :)

Edit: Ninja'd by my partner above!

[polymyr]

Thank you for your feedback

1) There is a shocking amount of credible market research that all point towards the growing and dominant power of consumer reviews. With better access to information, multiple choices of goods and services, and the opportunity to share experiences with a single click, consumers have become empowered to do their own research on purchases.

There has also been a strong prevailing sentiment that the press cannot be trusted as these reviews are incredibly biased due to fear of losing continued sponsorship. I would expand more into it but these studies explain it better and more comprehensively than I ever could: The Deloitte Consumer Review and the "Buy It, Try It, Rate It" study from Weber Shandwick.

2) We have multiple measures in place to monitor and ensure quality reviews that aren't driven just to receive the rebate itself. Such measures include a set and structured product reviewing process, and a user-ranking system that rewards high quality reviews. We plan to heavily curate our user base through similar strategies from companies such as Quora and Yelp.

[davemel37]

> For each unit sold, we only ask for a small commission.

Have you gotten any companies to agree to a royalty like this or is this just the initial monetization idea. I can see them paying 5 figures for a final report, but not a royalty on their bottom line sales.

[polymyr]

We take your feedback so seriously that we're willing to answer it twice!

As Mike said, currently we are going with a commission-based monetization strategy for the MVP, and based on feedback, it is subject to change.

Of course, we have many monetization strategies/features/mechanics we'd like to play with in the future, and they'll always be for the benefit of our users and the companies we work with.

[mikedeng]

Thank you for commenting! This is the initial idea at the moment. It makes sense to us because a commission on each unit means that companies pay more if they get more reviews. So far, none of the companies have brought up any problems with this scheme, but we will definitely be trying to solidify our monetization strategy as we partner with more companies.

[davemel37]

I misunderstood this. I thought you meant on each unit sold in the future...not just to your reviewers.

[chaostheory]

What makes you better than Amazon Vine?

[polymyr]

Great question!

Amazon Vine is an invite-only program that rewards Amazon reviewers through giving them access to review free pre-release and new products. From my understanding, it works similarly to the Yelp Elite program.

Polymyr tackles reviews in a completely different angle. We're not just a rewards program, we're a launch platform with a mission to accelerate product development. It's important to note that the reviews submitted on our platform are private by default. They're intended for your company to actually gain valuable insights to improve your product. As we grow, we hope to provide more data-driven user experience analytics for companies to use. In addition, we're planning to release a feature that will allow these reviews to be public, but for now, how companies use their reviews is completely up to them.

Let's start off with the consumer's perspective. By using Polymyr, you're able to see and participate in any current product launch. You have the freedom to explore different products from categories that you're personally interested in. Our review process is designed to make reviewing products fun and engaging. Furthermore, we're planning on launching our own social ranking program (similar to Amazon Vine and Yelp Elite) to incentivize our users to submit higher quality reviews. We care about quality over quantity, and we want the features we implement to embody such ideals.

From an enterprise perspective, Polymyr provides a much better service across the board. First and foremost, launching a product on Polymyr is completely free. In contrast, to use Amazon Vine, companies have to pay a substantial fee. Moreover, Polymyr's review process is more than just a five-star ranking and text box. We're building a process that makes it easy for companies to prioritize what aspects of their product they need to work on first. By launching your product on Polymyr, you're able to price test through our rebate model and use your launch page as a way to connect with our super-reviewers during and after your product launch.

This is just the beginning for Polymyr. As a two-sided marketplace, we're currently focused on giving the best possible experience to the companies that use our platform and service. We can't wait to add all the social features we have planned for our users down the road. That's where things get really exciting and what will eventually make us truly special and unique to both our makers and users.

I hope I answered your question!

[morirb]

Cool!

I'm curious about the "launch platform" part. (I did a "Apply HN" on that). What is your vision on that?

What do you mean with "superuser-level reviews"?

This is exciting:)

[polymyr]

We're just as excited as you are! :D

1) Our vision currently is to help any product at any stage succeed pre and post launch. We want our platform to be an incredible and on-demand resource for companies to gain insights that they only could have dreamed of.

2) Superusers are your product evangelists. They're the people that want to deep dive into your product and want to have domain knowledge over it. Big companies such as Apple or Google specifically look out for these users and reward them handsomely, as they are incredibly rare.

To put it simply, superuser-level reviews are the highest quality of reviews, where you get the most feedback because the user cares that much about the success of your product and is willing to go that extra-mile for your company.

At Polymyr, we hope to cultivate and attract a community of superusers that simply live and breathe your product.

[mikedeng]

Thanks for commenting! :D

By testing/launch platform, we mean that we're making a place where new startups can launch their products. Our vision is that makers will launch first on our platform, and this will help them gain initial traction and consumer feedback to help them further improve their products.

By superuser-level reviews, we just mean really detailed and aesthetically pleasing (for both the consumer and the maker) reviews that we hope will help makers take their products to the next level!