Good day hunters - I'm Assaf, the CEO and co-founder of https://yes.no. Thanks for taking the time to check us out - Q&A is what I love, so I'll be available all day for any and all questions...
We're super excited to be launching our crowd interviewing platform on Product Hunt after going live on web, Android and iOS!
*Why?*
Most of us have questions we'd love to be able to ask our heroes (and get answered), but there isn't always a simple way to do so. I myself had a question for a musical hero of mine, Samy Birnbach (Minimal Compact vocalist and lyricist), and I dedicated a lot of time and effort to get my answer. I realized that a lot of people have the same problem, that others would benefit if this interaction had been in the public realm, and that my hero enjoyed engaging in meaningful, respectful Q&A. And thus, https://yes.no was born.
*Who are we?*
We're an 8 person startup, having just launched our web version and gone live on both Google Play and the App Store in 11 languages (with 20 more to come!). We are currently working hard to recruit interesting experts and public figures, with some good results so far! Check out Nobel laureate Alvin E Roth.
*Why are we different?*
- We focus on the person, rather than the question. Sites like Quora help you find the best answer to your question, by sharing it with the community. On yes.no however, we want to connect you with a specific person that you have a question for. So you can ask your questions to a professor, or your favorite actor, or an entrepreneurship guru, and get authentic answers.
- Time is no object. Many popular AMA services (like Reddit's) have been providing a platform for interesting people and their fans to connect through Q&A during one-off events, which don't provide an opportunity for continuous dialogue. On yes.no, users create profiles that they can come back to as and when they feel like it, just as they would on other social networking sites.
*How can we improve?*
We currently have a few thousand users, but we are constantly looking to provide a better experience and are still learning how to provide the best value for our users. What do you think we can do to improve https://yes.no?
Always feel free to contact us directly: Assaf Levy, CEO: assaf@yes.no, Jonathan Doron, BizDev: jonathan@yes.no
@samir_doshi@atlantis76 Hey Sam and thanks for the question, it differs from one hero to another but in general we have very good response rate and willingness to use yes.no. Further, we have a nice amount of hero's that are active and answering question on a regular basis.
What are the chances someone would even reply to you? This is another platform for 'tech celebs' to get bombarded with questions? What would entice them to sign up?
Why couldn't people just tweet them questions?
Often people do reddit AMAs or even Product Hunt LIVE Chat's where people can ask them things (understand that this is a specified time-frame though).
Is this platform a sort of ever-lasting, open AMA?
People just use Quora for this type of thing, no?
@bentossell seems more collated/orderly than quora from my usage of it.
as you say, this is ever-lasting. also, only certain people get invited to do reddit/product hunt amas. anyone can be asked questions via this
@bentossell Hi Ben, thanks for your feedback and for your questions. Great points.
So, we are emphasizing the importance of the upvote in our platform. This is a simple mechanism for identifying the most popular and trending questions, that eliminates duplicate and spam questions that some stars inevitably attract. We want to promote the idea that answerers can choose, let's say, the top three questions to answer each month, which will in turn increase the quality and value of the content.
Other than this, we are not focusing solely on 'tech celebs'. Whilst this is where we have started (as it's near and dear to us), yes.no is a platform for connecting heroes from all industries and corners of the world with their respective audiences. A platform like ours is more suitable for this type of interaction, generating easily searchable and categorized content.
AMAs and sites like Quora both have their value, but yes.no is distinct from the former in that it is not a one-time session, and the latter in that it focuses on the person being asked, rather than the question itself.
Hope that answers your questions! Would welcome any more :)
@_jacksmith I don;t use Quora so wasn't sure...
yeah but I'm just not sure what motivates the person to answer the questions... Another platform to maintain
@bentossell I've tried this platform for a while, and actually found some sincere answers on controversial topics (political issues). So, it's not just about techies and an overall nice platform to get direct (but short) answers without the usual fluff around it.
@atlantis76 Yeah I just used 'tech celebs' as an example as that is what I know.
How many people have you approached to be answerers that have said no rather than yes? What do you pitch to them as the benefit of them maintaining this platform and answering questions?
Hi guys, looks like a great product!!
I think you should consider on allowing users to follow "topics" or categorize.
I can say for myself that i don't know to many people in the "Biz" so don't really know whom to follow and what to look for,
giving the opportunity to follow a topic,category,company etc... (using tags?) may give a better way to start-off.
Way to go!
@elyawp Thanks for the awesome feedback Elya! Category following is definitely something we would love to have, we currently have "Technology", "Business" & "Science" as categories we provide real value of answering professionals and interesting people. We make sure a category is strong enough and has a nice volume of interesting people on before enabling it to be searched. Under these three key categories we also start to add several sub-categories like product for example.
We just recently released an option for people to use tags, which will enable you to follow topics, hopefully in the near future.
The way you currently can find people according to topics is limited to the discovery, we promise to work and make this feature available!
@mcuevasm Thanks Mitchell, we'll take that as a compliment!
A few answers to your question...
We see yes.no as more of a traditional network than Wiselike, with a home feed and cross-platform functionality.
A unique emphasis for us is what we do with unanswered questions and upvotes. Fans ask questions, and others upvote the best questions that they want answered too, resulting in a list of the most popular and trending questions. This in itself can be used by answerers to identify what they should be answering, as well as by us to collect questions for people who haven't yet joined, in order to bring them to the platform.
On top of that, we don't allow the Anonymous asking of questions at all, we have a strict policy to maintain transparency and respect on the site.
Hi guys, nice job.
With the hope of Yes/No attracting the "right" people from different verticals, this could be a great way to be topic-focused and rise above the noise of other "personal" (social etc) communications methods.
@jodoron no specific ones in mind Yonatan. I think there is a great opportunity to expand beyond the immediate suspects, i.e the "tech celebs" (credit: @bentossell ;)) which are already sort of reachable on other channels.
@ohadaviv I totally agree and actually working on this as we speak :) well not this instant since we're live on Producthunt. We are building further categories and already onboarding new interesting celebs in different categories. That is the path we also believe could help build yes.no to a better product.
I love this idea. It's a really great idea to help both the "user" and the "infuencer". I am often asked advice on and help with startup ideas, MVPs, existing companies, landing pages, markets and basically help to validate an idea that's being conceived. I mentor and help founders and individuals via accelerator programs and my own women's organisation on the daily and really try to be part of the startup community i live in but i don't think messenger is the only platform i can be reached on - there should be more. It's currently the easiest way to contact me and most of the questions come to me through there as its easy to reach me there. But i'd like another platform to have a wider reach.
Most people won't know how open i am to questions and helping out unless they know me or they've just given it a go and pinged me but i am very open to helping and its one of the best parts of the job in this entrepreneurial world i live in. A 'direct way to reach the person you want to reach', quora style product for people is a much needed idea and i'm glad its here. Well done to all that worked on it.
/M
@rui Thank you Rui for the awesome idea!
If I understood you correctly, enabling users to change their @ tags like in Twitter for some more customization is definitely something we are thinking of and would love to implement.
How do you see it in your vision?
@jodoron If I were to use Yes.no, I'd like to give other people the URL yes.no/rui
And also, to have @rui inside of the platform.
I think it's a very interesting concept, I might enjoy using the platform. Are you thinking of adding a "dismiss" button to the questions?
@rui It is a totally cool idea and I already opened it up for conversation with our R&D team,
Thanks for the compliments,
If you would like to delete a publisher / unpublished question you can easily do it, was that what you mean?
@jodoron Instead of clicking "..." and then "delete question", just one button to dismiss it. It's going to be helpful for the people with a lot of following.
@rotemthegolfer Thanks for the feedback Rotem! The current categories we have are: "Technology", "Business" & " Science", under them there are also a few sub-categories. We make sure a category has enough celeb "presense" before adding them as an option.
What kind of categories would you like to see in yes.no?
Great product and seems like a great team. I actually heard about this a few weeks ago and even attended an AMA. Learned a lot and hope to be on there myself one day! In the mean time have got great stuff out of it. Good job guys. Definitely deserves an upvote.
@stefamini Stefanie, it's amazing to hear you know us for weeks and that you like our product :), you are more then welcome to start answering question in yes.no as I am sure you can provide a lot of value for our users.
Guys, I love the idea! This is exactly what I was missing from Q&A platforms such as Quora and Jelly app. The focus on the person and not the question will enable not just to get valuable answers and information about questions, but most importantly will give the opportunity to build last-long relationships. I think that this opens the door to talented people in business, education and much more, and connect them to influencers who might mentor them or really give them the chance to fulfil their potential.
This product looks very promising. This is one of those things that can in time - become huge.
The more informative the answers, and the more "up the food-chain" they are - the more people will come and ask a larger volume of questions, and in total questions of higher quality.
Best of luck,
i can totally see myself using this in order to learn.
@tesslerc It's invigorating to see that you love our product Chen, feel free if you have any ideas or suggestions to improve, we too can always learn :)
@jodoron I think maybe a "trending" or "most popular" based on categories / follow based on topic and not only people.
For instance, I really like technology - any type, anywhere. I am more interested in seeing what people are asked and what they answer - on this specific topic and less interested in their opinions on economics and so on.
Also I don't really know who would be interesting and who would not (hence no idea who I should follow) - so following a topic would be easier.
@tesslerc@elyawp Thanks Chen, actually Elya asked a similar question, the answer is that we are currently working on providing a more smooth experience to follow content people want :)
This is an awesome service. We are using it to answer questions and find interesting answers. It is cool be able and discover top leaders from many industries and be able to ask them anything without barriers. You may ask us anything: https://yes.no/ranky-de-muchkin
Hi guys, great product. The questions provide a more personal perspective on people we know - love it.
One question though - if I ask someone a question, how long until I get an answer?
@guyklr Thanks for the positive vibes and feedback. It depends who you asked, not everyone will be able to answer all the questions they get, and that’s where upvoting comes in. The most popular questions will be self-evident, and will help us bring them to the site, as well as help them decide what to answer first. So get upvoting! By upvoting your freshly asked question you increase the chances for a fast response from your hero.
Other than that, we do our 200% to constantly onboard interesting people on yes.no to answer your questions :).
I think this is a really interesting idea. I'll echo some of the concerns here though. I'm not really sure where this fits alongside things like Twitter, Quora, etc. Like, you can ask someone to answer a question on Quora already—I'd be worried this is just another place your questions could be ignored 😁
I guess my biggest concern though is that it doesn't seem like the kinda place you could ever build a relationship with someone. So say I interact with someone on Twitter, there's a chance that there could be a more meaningful conversation that leads to opportunities in the future. I'm not seeing that here.
That being said, I've spoken to @jodoron before, and seems like they're working hard on making it super awesome. So it's definitely one to watch.
@jakeapeters Thanks for the feedback Jake! Like every startup at first there will be challenges. Having said that, we rely more on the mechanism we built in yes.no. Quora is all about the questions rather than answers, you can ask a question and a thousand people would respond but not the person you care most about their answer - we tackle that issue and give it more "spotlight" in our value proposition.
Relationship building is one of the most important challenges for growth in any social network, we have a few plans ready for when we grow big enough with our audience we will implement them to enhance relationships, but it intrigues me, what would you do differently on yes.no to increase the creation and sustaining of a relationships within yes.no?
@jodoron It wouldn't be fun running a startup without the challenges 😁
I'll be interested to see how you get on with the relationship building side. Because building meaningful relationships is a massive problem for a ton of people, and not one that's really been solved yet.
Honestly I'm not sure what you could do. It just feels a little transient over there. You ask a closed question, get a closed answer. Maybe threaded answers / conversations could work—so you ask a question, get an answer, and can then publicly carry on that conversation.
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