Show HN: I made an IMDB for Tech(theymadethat.com)
theymadethat.com
Show HN: I made an IMDB for Tech
https://theymadethat.com/
12 comments
Yes CB is more for angels and investors. TheyMadeThat is more about giving credit and seeing someone's impact on the world through their work.
I've been doing the data by hand in order to dog food my UX. I'm not a designer and really the only way for me to fix UX is to feel a potential user's pain. Another reason for this is because at one point I was considering running this as a for profit project, so I couldn't use APIs like Crunchbase's without running into complications; and I didn't want to just scrape. The last reason is that the data just isn't there. I'm capturing data that no one else cares about. What's sad is that most visitors don't even see how deep of a rabbit hole this can be because they just seem to have no interest in making a 2nd or even 3rd click. (Of course the blame lies with me for not making a compelling enough UX and/or copywriting.) For details, read my other comments in this thread.
Thanks for checking it out.
PS if you or anyone has anything you don't like or really like let me know. Feel free to not be nice - I find those responses to be the most useful
I've been doing the data by hand in order to dog food my UX. I'm not a designer and really the only way for me to fix UX is to feel a potential user's pain. Another reason for this is because at one point I was considering running this as a for profit project, so I couldn't use APIs like Crunchbase's without running into complications; and I didn't want to just scrape. The last reason is that the data just isn't there. I'm capturing data that no one else cares about. What's sad is that most visitors don't even see how deep of a rabbit hole this can be because they just seem to have no interest in making a 2nd or even 3rd click. (Of course the blame lies with me for not making a compelling enough UX and/or copywriting.) For details, read my other comments in this thread.
Thanks for checking it out.
PS if you or anyone has anything you don't like or really like let me know. Feel free to not be nice - I find those responses to be the most useful
Could you tell us the difference between this and crunchbase?
Crunchbase is focused on looking at companies and people from an investment perspective. Consequently it has stuff like funding rounds and investors. There are no profiles for products, only companies and people.
These features are are differentiate TheyMadeThat from everything else:
TheyMadeThat is focused on history and impact. There are profiles for things, organizations, and people.
In addition to having links to its makers, Things on TMT can have versions and parts. Things can be also be used by people (more on this later) - versions are links to other things that are variants or versions of itself - parts are links to other things are components - things can also have predecessors and successors (older and newer models)
People can have projects which associate them to things. Projects themselves are entities that can have details such as what tools were used (like with 'parts' this can help track a thing's impact), inspirations (things that inspired their work - also tracks impact), and projects have have team members
Organizations can have both predecessors and successors. The rationale is that whenever organizations change names, it tends to signal a large change (a major change in strategy, acquisition, etc...)
Anyways, there's probably something I've forgotten but I've tried to design it to be a rabbit hole.
try clicking around here https://theymadethat.com/organizations/rv3/y-combinator
You'd be amazed as to how many links YC people have. It’s actually easy to figure out how they got into YC as well
These features are are differentiate TheyMadeThat from everything else:
TheyMadeThat is focused on history and impact. There are profiles for things, organizations, and people.
In addition to having links to its makers, Things on TMT can have versions and parts. Things can be also be used by people (more on this later) - versions are links to other things that are variants or versions of itself - parts are links to other things are components - things can also have predecessors and successors (older and newer models)
People can have projects which associate them to things. Projects themselves are entities that can have details such as what tools were used (like with 'parts' this can help track a thing's impact), inspirations (things that inspired their work - also tracks impact), and projects have have team members
Organizations can have both predecessors and successors. The rationale is that whenever organizations change names, it tends to signal a large change (a major change in strategy, acquisition, etc...)
Anyways, there's probably something I've forgotten but I've tried to design it to be a rabbit hole.
try clicking around here https://theymadethat.com/organizations/rv3/y-combinator
You'd be amazed as to how many links YC people have. It’s actually easy to figure out how they got into YC as well
And Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is too free form because it's a wiki, making entries very inconsistent. The biggest issue is that only people and things that are 'notable' can be added to Wikipedia
P.P.S The highlighted "people" in the headline hurts my eyes.
I'll fix it - thanks for the UX heads up. Design is definitely not my strong suit
No worries, same here :)
I think CB is more focused on the finer details of a company for people to make business decisions.
How are you curating the database? I have been kicking around FinTECH Report http://www.fintechreport.info for a while now but curation is just such a de-motivator for me.
I was hoping that the respective owners/managers of a product might "take ownership" of the listings and manage them... I would love to hear how you solve for that.
P.S. I looked up Twitter and Biz Stone wasn't in the founder list. I'm sorry i'm not motivated to sign up and fix it. Honestly, i'm just not bothered to help out as a site visitor....but... I would hold it against the site if it missed such critical details as that. (Not trying to be harsh, just honest realistic feedback, if that's ok). :)
Good work though and interested to see where it goes.