[pkh80]

Its a great idea but the product seems only half done... I signed up and could only share links but I couldn't (as a product vendor) tell referly how much I'd pay for signups or register with the site in anyway.

It only seems to allow you to share links at this time, not register your product.

[citricsquid]

this is what confuses me about refer.ly. This has been an idea she has had for years, she gets into YC and launches in such a half assed way. I can totally understand the whole "launch fast" mantra, but when you've sat on an idea for 3 years you can wait an extra 2 weeks to make your product usable.

They have all this initial buzz (which is not guaranteed, ever) and it's totally wasted. I signed up as a user and I can't even use the product because it doesn't do what it's supposed to, there aren't any rewards, as you've pointed out businesses can't sign up... seems silly to me. If you're going to launch like this you need to be constantly working, I made a suggestion in the last thread (a simple ui change that would make the product at least usable for me) and it hasn't been done, it's a product I want to use but can't. In it's current form it's just a glorified URL shortener with the promise that in the future we'll get rewards, that's it. I feel like I'm being overly negative but the poor execution really rubs me the wrong way because this idea has a lot of potential.

[thedillio]

True but this launch and then build is common practice these days. In fact, many product launches on tech crunch, et al do this also.

When launching a company/service/product the most difficult part for me has been creating something that people actually want to pay for and reaching those people. Launching barebones and selling the vision proves that the product is worthy first.

[AznHisoka]

What rubs me the wrong way is they have all this initial buzz based on just imaginary fluff - they don't even have a full product out yet.

Also how many middlemans can you have in a transaction? You got the affiliate network. You got Viglink, You got the person who referred the customer. Then Referly finally gets whatever is left.

[robryan]

Without using it I assumed they would be just using affiliate networks, as in they work with all the merchants on an integrated affiliate network, rather than making their own connections to merchants (which would really just make them another network)

[dmor]

Not yet announced but http://refer.ly/business.php