cvanvlack

My family are farmers. I got a PhD in physics, switched to startups and have one successful exit. However family is still a BIG value for me.

I think a lot about the opportunity cost of time and I spent a lot of holidays trying to be thoughtful in the search of a good gift.

A lot of my family realizes the fortunate position we are in. So I have thought a lot about how to share generously, but also authentically, with a keen eye on the fact that time is our only non-renewable resource.

This is why I have focused on gifts as a search/efficiency problem so I can actually spend real time with the people in my life.

Thanks so much for sharing.

For me it's the difference between wanting to outsource and wanting to optimize.

I was never comfortable with the outsourcing because I never felt like it would have been "from me".

Instead I wanted to find a much faster way of winnowing through a category to see if there was something that I thought the other person would like.

I originally had generic tags that people could add but no one would ever add a unique tag. It just kept on pushing the suggestions more into the realm of the mediocre rather than into the realm of unique and interesting.

I'm still trying to find ways with the UX to convey "With this design it's not possible for the app to harvest your data".

I think all of us are DONE with tracking and ads. But giving a recommendation is almost impossible without asking about the context and using continual refinement.

I'll keep working on it!

I know what they like. I can answer that question.

What I have struggled to answer is what's out there that matches what they like.

                                  &&&&&     &&&%                                
                               &&    &&&&  &&%   &&                             
                               &&&&    & &&,&   &&&                             
                                 &&&&&  .&&&.                                   
                                   &&&&    %&&&                                 
                                     &&&     &&&                                
                             &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&                          
                             &&&        &&&        &&&                          
                              &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&                           
                              /&&       &&&       &&                            
                              /&&       &&&       &&                            
                              /&&       &&&       &&                            
                               &&%      &&&      &&&                            
                                &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Shopify stores seem like another big opporunity. It could potentially be the biggest mall in the world and yet I can't find the Shopify stores in my own area to support local.

100% agree on the reminders. I originally had the gift recipients birthday's in there but that was personally identifiable information so I stripped it. People are already too concerned about data collection. I'll likely add a "When do you want to be reminded about this gift giving date" to avoid that whole issue.

The framing I have been thinking of is search engines/Amazon are great when you have a keyword.

What seems to be missing is a product discovery engine. How do you search for something that you don't know exists?!