Show HN: Crowdfunded inventory for small businesses

[andrww]

We were a part of Boomtown Boulder's second accelerator class, and after a few months of thrashing and pivoting, we feel we've got something pretty cool! We are a new crowdfunding platform with a twist - we let you partner with retail businesses by financing their inventory, helping them with marketing/lead generation and then collecting a return when that inventory sells. What I am personally really excited about, is that because the users are actively engaged throughout the process, this type of investment is not classified as a security and we can offer it to non-accredited investors. It's also a pretty unique solution for the businesses as they essentially get their inventory fronted to them at no cost, freeing up their cash for other business activities. Would love any feedback on anything, our site is: http://www.kickfurther.com

[jcr]

You've got a small problem with your CSS. You set a reasonable font-family early in the body{}, and then later in the stylesheet, you overwrite it:

http://www.kickfurther.com//stylesheets/app.css

  app.css:62
  body {color: rgb(34, 34, 34);
    font-family: "Helvetica Neue","Helvetica",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
    font-weight: normal;font-style: normal;line-height: 1;cursor: default;
  }

  app.css:8219
  body {font-family: "proximanova",sans-serif;}

In that one file, there are 286 styles where you go mucking about with the fonts (size, family, weight, ...). This is bad juju since it means a ton of work for the web browser, and hence, a slow site.

The main background image fails to scale on a slightly older version of firefox I tested (18) when resizing the browser window, but it worked when tested with an older version of chrome (24), it scaled properly. I think the issue is with how you're setting background-size here:

  app.css:9203
  .homepage {
    background-image: url(/images/homepage.jpg);
    background-size: cover;
    padding: 5.25rem 0 9.5rem;
    color: #FFF;
  }

A quick check of ff-18 on the quirksmode test for "background-size" http://www.quirksmode.org/css/backgrounds-borders/size.html doesn't show anything odd, or shed any light on the scaling issue. My bet is this is a (old) firefox problem resulting in the usual battle of attempting to support outdated browsers. --I'm not sure how much effort you want to put into legacy support? (It's a losing battle ;-)

The layout/design is intentionally large, spread out, and with lots of empty space. It takes effort (read: friction) scrolling down to figure out what KickFurther is all about due to all the empty space. It has nice calls to action for both individuals and businesses, yet without knowing what it's all about (i.e. the calls come before "How does it work?" section), I question how effective they will be? (i.e. conversions). --You might want to A/B test putting something like the "How does it work?" earlier or even first along with the text over main background image e.g. Initially state the problem you solve (providing capital for inventory to businesses), and how you solve the problem (crowdfunding inventory purchases).

The rotation animation on the logo is a nice touch and it looks good.

It takes too much effort to get to the menu items on the bottom of the page, and they are rendered in a font that's too small. The menu item links like "FAQ" "Screen Process" "How it works" and even "About Us" are deserve more emphasis. --Your concept is new, but the first thing I wondered about is, "How do they prevent fraud?" so who you are and how you screen users should be emphasized more (IMHO).

http://www.kickfurther.com/offers

On the "Offers" page, I'm not sure what to think about the blurred out offer images under the "Upcoming Offers" header. It was unpleasantly annoying to be tricked and driven towards joining your mailing list and/or registering in this way. It might be effective, but...

All in all it's an interesting concept and I've never seen it before. Good luck with it!

[andrww]

Hey thanks for the great feedback! Was that a knock on proxima nova? ;) We definitely need to optimize the css, 10,000 lines is silly for what's on the site right now. I'm using foundation and not selectively including components at this point so that would be an easy first step. I'll look at the background issue as well, it needs to be cleaned up in general and is not currently optimized for mobile either.

I definitely agree about needing to make the messaging more direct right up front, that has been one of our biggest challenges throughout. We want to experiment with different landing pages of course, and are working on a 'how it works' video to stick at the top of the homepage as well.

Great notes on the footer links, we need to find ways to make that information more accessible and easy to find in general. I also wasn't a big fan of the blurred out offers, we just didn't want that page to feel too empty; we'll get rid of it once we get a couple more offers live!

[jcr]

>"Was that a knock on proxima nova? ;)"

No, not at all! --I'm not particularly bright and I love warm weather, so it sounds like fun to be in the general proximity of a nova. ;)

I hope I wasn't too critical? Writing replies to "Show HN" posts can be tough to balance since the intended goal is to get/give useful feedback.

As for fine-tuning your messaging, you're in uncharted waters with an entirely new concept. It will take some effort and time (and A/B testing), but keep at it and you'll get there.

[andrww]

Not at all, we appreciate the critical eye.

[lemma]

I love the idea, but aren't you worried about the name causing trademark issues?

[andrww]

Thanks! We don't think Kick______ can be trademarked, but if it gets to that point we're not too worried about having to rebrand.

[fiatjaf]

Man, this is genius. I hope you succeed, but it is so awesome that I can't stop thinking there is some problem with the idea (I'm not seeing any, but, hey, it is too good to be true!).

[andrww]

Thanks!