Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:37:57 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:37:57] S0: Yeah. [00:37:57] S1: And make that really cool and show that off, and then get people to use the product as quickly as possible. So... I mean, [00:38:02] S0: it's also interesting, like, we just hit the bottom of the page. Yeah. It's not very tall. [00:38:06] S1: Yeah. [00:38:06] S0: Yeah. And so I think users are comfortable scrolling. Yeah. And so if there is important information that is hidden behind a lot of these feature tabs here [00:38:14] S1: Yeah. [00:38:14] S0: Yeah. Just break them out and, like, make the page longer. It's okay. People can scroll longer rather than compressing it and hiding everything. Exactly. And the other trap that I see a lot of people falling into with with the AI tools now is because it's so easy to, you know, create a different, like, image or animation. Like, these are actually animations. Right? [00:38:34] S1: Yeah. [00:38:34] S0: For every single one of these, they spit out a bunch of these, and they've they've all got the hallmarks of, you know, the very small text and, you know, the... This animation. Like, no human would spend the time and go, like, oh, we need a little dot that goes from these corners and program that and everything, but it doesn't mean it's actually adding value to what they're doing. Exactly. So this, I think, is when you're talking about you need to curate and set the bar and make sure it's communicating the right things. [00:38:58] S1: Yeah. [00:38:59] S0: There's lots of things here, but they don't actually help my understanding of the point that it's trying to make.
00:38:59 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:38:59] S0: There's lots of things here, but they don't actually help my understanding of the point that it's trying to make. [00:39:03] S1: I fully agree. And I feel like that... That's again something where you need to work and hire the right people with the right skill sets to do the... To help you do the the job. Like, AI definitely can help you probably put this whole website together. But when it comes to abstracting these features into illustrations, might not be the worst idea to work with an illustration designer who's done this before and who specialize in information graphics. And maybe that actually becomes, because it's well explained, just a core part of the SkillSync brand identity. Mhmm. It's like, this is one thing that... I remember working with Gemini a few years ago, and there was this animation with, like, a braid. Like, basically, they were showing the model and all of these different things Mhmm. That Gemini had, and they all came together and built, this helix. And that animation was... It basically just explained exactly the capabilities of the model Mhmm. And that turned into a very thin line, and then it said Gemini. And that was an animation that a lot of people worked on who are much more talented than me for a very long time. [00:39:58] S0: Mhmm.
00:39:58 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:39:58] S0: Mhmm. [00:39:58] S1: And then later, a lot of really good engineers translated that into a scrollable animation for the website, and it just, like, that kind of sold it. Mhmm. And then you were in the product and you were using it, but that was that was the memory of... Like, that piece of motion was just ingrained in my memory and really explained exactly what the model was doing. Sometimes, being a little more artistic and abstract actually goes a really long way. And I think, yeah, for SkillSync, I could definitely see... There's a million different patterns and a million visual examples of how to of how to show that off, and you can be a lot more, like, just craftful and and and graphical about how of how you just... How you design that on on the website. So Yep. That will be my feedback to to to to these guys. [00:40:43] S0: Cool. Thank you, SkillSync. [00:40:44] S1: Thank you very much. [00:40:45] S0: Okay. Next up, we got Instaplay. So let's see. So I'm seeing a bunch of featured... I can't tell if these are movies or games. So it says design something that [00:40:57] S1: Birdsort. Birdsort. Okay. So these are games that we can play? Games. I think. Okay. [00:41:04] S0: How do we play? Got a bunch of birds. We got some sound that's playing now. Let's maybe go... [00:41:16] S1: Let's go for... Let's try something else. [00:41:18] S0: Start button. We're fighting this wolf, I guess. [00:41:28] S1: That's enough. So [00:41:30] S0: we've got this call out here, which... It's interesting. You know? It it says create, describe your game idea, right,
00:41:30 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:41:30] S0: we've got this call out here, which... It's interesting. You know? It it says create, describe your game idea, right, [00:41:36] S1: when you [00:41:36] S0: click into it. What's interesting is there was no copy under the title Instaplay. And so we we were up to ourselves to try to figure out how to orient around this page. Yes. And the first thing that we did is we saw all the visual games [00:41:52] S1: Yeah. [00:41:52] S0: All the screenshots of them. Yeah. And so we jumped right to that. Yes. And so we missed the fact that, actually, the primary purpose here is for us to be able to just create our own games on the fly. Yes. And so I think a line of text could help with that or some type of callout that makes that... The prompt box more prominent. [00:42:10] S1: And and, again, it goes back to your example from from earlier. It's like, what is the one thing we want the user to take away when they land on the page? Is it exploring the the the multitudes of of games that have already been created on this platform, or is it the fact that we can create our own games? Creating our own games actually leads you to a sign up page, which no one's gonna do if they haven't seen their created game. Right. So you have to come up. You have to cough up enough credits to try to, like, onboard people into the product. [00:42:35] S0: That's the
00:42:35 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:42:35] S0: That's the [00:42:35] S1: cost of acquisition of one user. By the way, in that metrics is extremely important. It's probably, obviously, what what what they're what they're thinking about. Correct. But that cost of acquisition can't be continue with Google. Right. It has to be whatever I just asked it to do, it has to spit it out perfectly, and I have be able to try it one or two more times. And if that works, I might be inclined Yes. To actually... Yeah. So you [00:42:54] S0: put in a prompt, you submit it, and it takes you to this screen asking you to sign in. Yeah. And the problem is, we don't know if this is good. [00:43:00] S1: And so... This is a great example, obviously, where I would also... You could build out a really cool interactive carousel here, and each game has almost, like, ten seconds of, like, a real [00:43:09] S0: play Yeah. [00:43:10] S1: Rather than just seeing these static these static assets right now. Don't I know what's behind it, so I don't know what I'm looking at. This is a great example. You could probably get Codex to tap into each one of these, screen record it, and replace that as the thumbnail, at least maybe on hover states, and it kind of will bring maybe more interactivity and dynamism into all of this into all of these different, like, universes. I think what they're trying to show with these with these covers is just like, look. With Instaplay, you can do a lot of stuff. Mhmm. I don't even think we need to be able to play all of these different games [00:43:38] S0: Yep.
00:43:38 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:43:38] S0: Yep. [00:43:38] S1: If the call to action is to create our own game and be game designers ourselves. [00:43:42] S0: Right. And so if that is the primary call to action, that is not what we did first. And then you probably want to actually create the game for people so that they can play with it. And then if they wanna save it Yeah. Or come back to it later, share it with anybody, then you gotta sign up, or then you gotta create [00:43:55] S1: your account. And and here also... Look. So you have create my games for you explorer. No one knows what any of that means, by the way. But if you click on any of them, like my game, for instance, again, it leads you to a sign up. Mhmm. Like, if you are not signed up to this page, you shouldn't even see my games probably. Right? Like... And have the ability to tap into something that then will lead you to sign in again. For you leads me back to the game I was just on, which I don't know if that makes a lot of sense. And explorer is basically the page we're already exploring on home. I don't even think that needs to be a new button. The only thing you've done now on the explorer page is taking the input field away from me. Mhmm. So now I can't I can't create a game anymore. So there's a few things there in the hierarchy where I would really think very... Like, put yourself in the position of someone coming to your website for the first time who has no idea what it is that you're building or selling. Yeah. How do they interact with the product?