I'm a pregnant hacker. Please review my side project.

I'm 8-months pregnant. When I went to create a baby registry I was pretty disappointed with what was out there (I ended up using Amazon Universal Wishlist). I found myself with some time on my hands waiting for baby, and decided that I'd build a better baby registry. I partnered with a great designer I met on forrst.com, and this is the result.<p>I'd love any feedback, suggestions etc.

I love the site, although I am certainly not your market (male, don't want kids).<p>However, a month ago someone posted an almost identical concept to HN. I think it was for wedding registries though.<p>Overall, great concept, attractive website, and a real need.<p>My only criticism relates to it being fairly obvious. What hacker hasn't bought a wedding/baby gift and thought "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a registry for any store?" My point is, I'm sure this has been tried hundreds of times. So you have to ask yourself, "Why didn't those become mainstream, despite solving an obvious need?" and figure out how yours will execute differently. I really don't know the answer, but it has a lot to do with the ease of saying "I'm registered at Bed Bath &#38; Beyond" (which everyone knows) over, "I'm registered with a new universal registry, which shows you what you can get at any online store, it's Babyli.st BABYLI.ST"<p>I'd really love to know your thoughts, because this same problem applies to a lot of different ideas where large brick &#38; mortar stores still reign king, despite obvious inefficiencies.

Here's my number one feature request that wishlists never seem to support: partial contributions. This is even more the case with baby registries, where families might want help with high-cost items (carseats, cribs etc) but where well-wishers are generally going to contribute something in the $20 range.<p>Ideally, I want to be able to contribute $20 towards that $80 carseat. If A, B &#38; C also contribute, the item should be sent as coming from me, A, B &#38; C. If only myself and A contribute, you should be given the opportunity to put in your $40 to complete the purchase.<p>Just my 2 cents.<p>[Edit: Basically I would like the lovechild of a wishlist with something like <a href="http://www.chipin.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.chipin.com/</a> - do that and you can really differentiate yourself]

One followon idea. If you know the approximate birthdate of the delivery, you can contact customers a year later suggesting first birthday present ideas.<p>And second birthday ideas.<p>And third birthday ideas.<p>You get the idea.

It is very well done.<p>Somebody already posted this on your suggestion forum, but I do like the idea of allowing people an option to offer item suggestions. Expand that idea by also allowing people to alternately "buy" something like a gift card (redeemable credit) for the moms; this would be helpful for the people out there who want to buy a gift, but who don't necessarily want to swoon over baby items. (e.g. Target gift card)<p>Congrats for the mom-to-be!

We recently experienced similar frustration with the lack of a good universal registry mechanism for babies. While this makes sense, in the same way that most stores try to keep all registries internal, from a consumer standpoint it remains quite lacking.<p>I think it's great. Color scheme and style are very appealing and appropriate. The one awkward point for me is the "plus any other online store" tag after the noteworthy logos. It seems a little too much like an add-on. Maybe something a little bigger (to draw attention to the fact that your service is universal), with text suggesting, "BabyList registry works with any online retailer!" and then have an "including:" or "featured" listing over your images?<p>Just my two cents.

Looks great!<p>When we had our first child, I couldn't find an online registry that I liked, so I scripted a rudimentary one up one night. It worked really well. My wife loved that she could register for intangibles like "Bring us dinner", or any gift from any store. When the baby was born, I took a lengthy paternity leave and, like you, thought I'd build a web app for others to use the registry. I actually took the idea to a local startup bootcamp and it was torn apart by the instructors/angels and left to die on the boardroom floor. Too hard to generate sufficient revenue. Here are a couple of tidbits from my experience for you:<p>1. One angel had invested in a universal registry and said it took them three years to find any revenue at all. What they did was pivot into a wedding registry that enabled guests to contribute to the couple's honeymoon fund. They made money on travel agent referrals to the couple.<p>2. This is a crowded market.<p>A lot of the comments in this thread (like mine!) note how great your site looks. When I showed my site to the bootcamp people, I emphasized my slick design. They essentially said, "No one gives a crap! What problem does it solve that isn't already solved by someone else!"<p>I thought, "But, but, but... everyone is like me right? Tech savvy and appreciative of good design and UX?"<p>Check out <a href="http://wishpot.com" rel="nofollow">http://wishpot.com</a>. They are a universal registry. All web 2.0 with social integration. They've got some funding (<a href="http://www.centernetworks.com/vc-funding-docstoc-wishpot-kaazing" rel="nofollow">http://www.centernetworks.com/vc-funding-docstoc-wishpot-kaa...</a>). Been around a few years now.<p>Here's a competitor: <a href="http://www.findgift.com/Services/Gift-Registry/" rel="nofollow">http://www.findgift.com/Services/Gift-Registry/</a>. It was founded in 1997 by a couple from Georgia.<p>And another: <a href="http://myregistry.com" rel="nofollow">http://myregistry.com</a>. Second spot on Google for "gift registry".<p>Now check it out:<p><a href="http://siteanalytics.compete.com/findgift.com+wishpot.com+myregistry.com/" rel="nofollow">http://siteanalytics.compete.com/findgift.com+wishpot.com+my...</a><p>Good luck!

I had had the same idea when I was pregnant but there were several key problems that I concluded were unsolvable. I am both curious and skeptical as to how/whether you address these. (I am basing my questions on an understanding that yours is a registry and <i>not</i> a simple a wish list, as per your own description).<p>1. How to mark items as purchased. Relying on gift givers to "reserve" and "unreserve" items may be a step up from restaurant reservations but that's not saying much. I wouldn't be surprised if your honor system led to close to half of every registry ending up in a black hole of forgotten reservations.<p>2. How to keep up with out-of-stock items and price changes. Baby registries usually span months, so how do you deal with outdated information or dead links? From my own Amazon baby registry experience, about 30% of my wish list went MIA by the time of the actual baby shower, when most of my friends and family made their purchases.<p>3. How do you deal with bad UIs. Drawing again from my Amazon experience, a lot of older relatives almost bought the wrong item because of all the "you might also like" items all over the screen. I wouldn't be surprised if a large chunk of your purchases got diverted by bad 3rd party UIs.<p>4. Varied URL standards. For example, some shopping sites get product options from user session so non-logged in URLs link to an item's default color and size. So once you are off to a 3rd party website, there is no guarantee the gift giver would buy the correct item.<p>As far as I can see you've built a wish list that you are marketing as a registry and I am not sure if that's a good thing. The key feature of a registry is that a retailer makes sure that the correct items get purchased (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_registry" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_registry</a>) so I think there is a broken promise there.

Excellent idea and very nice execution! The design is great, plus it's incredibly easy to signup and share your registry. You're definitely on to something here.<p>In terms of suggestions, I'd suggest you tweak your index page a bit. When I landed there, I was most interested in seeing what one of these registries looked like. I assumed that clicking the image of John and Jane's Baby List would show me an example, but it's not currently linked. To actually find an example, you have to think a bit and either find the text link under your Create button or realize that the Showcase link is what you're looking for.<p>Also, the Vendors page needs a bit of work. I'm sure that's number 7273 on your priority list, but I don't think it'll be very successful in engaging vendors as is.

It's a good idea. The idea isn't new but I hope your execution gives it the push it needs to become mainstream.<p>On a personal note, if this does start to have success, I hope you've got plans in place for someone else to carry the workload once your baby arrives. I'd be putting those plans in place now so someone else is largely running things as you enter the final weeks. It's a cliche to say 'your life will change' - but it will change so much it would be a shame to have a new project die because you can't devote time to it in the first couple of months of your other more important project.

If I were you , I would give the users the option to login using Facebook Connect or Twitter. I think People doesn't like signups anymore; Its another password to remember. Also if they are Signed-in using of one of these sites, its more than likely they share it and spread the word. Nice work by the way.

I'd add Babies R Us and buybuy Baby logos to the site. Granted you say it works for all online retailers, those are 2 huge ones that together prob own a good % of the market.

I didn't read through all the posts here on HN to see if this was already report (though I did do a quick search), but there is an issue with the "View By Store".<p>If I look at the example registry and goto purchased items, there is 1 purchased at "etsy.com". If expand "View By Store" and uncheck "etsy", the item disappears as intended. However, if I uncheck "Amazon" and then recheck "Amazon", new items show up that weren't originally there. I'm assuming they're from the "All Items" list even though I'm still under "Purchased".<p>As others have said, I'm not in your target market, but I think the site is very well down.

I'm shocked that this hasn't happened yet. Good job, looks great.

Do you offer a simple input field for users, where they can enter a URL?<p>I think the bookmarklet is a bit high threshold for some (if not most) users. Telling them to copy+paste a website URL and enter it into a field on their control panel is not.<p>For SEO your site could use a little work. Perhaps a blog about pregnancy could help get your domain ranking for some niche related terms. You are probably aiming for social sharing here, and organic search might be a lesser priority. Make sharing on Facebook and Twitter a lot easier (API helps) and visible (icons help). I might not sign up, but still like or recommend your app.<p>Also adding just that extra page to convince users to sign up, or a even demo video, can help with user engagement.<p>Finally I'd have a small look at making your site canonical, by rewrite or specifying canonical: <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html" rel="nofollow">http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-y...</a> because /about and /about/ return the same content. And to quote W3C "Always declare the encoding of your document" (declare a meta charset like ISO or UTF-8 in your header <a href="http://code.google.com/p/doctype/wiki/ArticleUtf7" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/doctype/wiki/ArticleUtf7</a>).

Design is awesome. First impressions last.

Interesting idea. Also like the natural virality of the service.<p>If the system does not support it already, something worth considering is a function allowing the person making the list to upload a photo of themselves to be displayed on their wish list page.<p>This will re-assure the "buyers" they are on the correct page, not just some random list of products on the internet :)

You might want to think about a "size" field for clothing, maybe even a drop-down, or allow people to ask for 1 of each size or something. This is a general complaint I have about wishlists. In my fantasy world of wishlists there would be a number field for each size so you could ask for 1 nb and 1 6mo or something.

Question (and I apologize if I missed it): How do you track purchases across multiple stores to show registrant purchasers' purchases? (say that 3x fast).<p>I can see how it would be done with exact matches, but a lot of stores don't carry the exact same items, in order to remove price competition. The items may look and function the same, and be under the same brand, but they will be distinct models.<p>If I list a 4 slot, extra-wide, chrome toaster on a registry under one model number from Target, how could I know if I should buy a toaster matching that description at WalMart without scanning the list of purchased items? The model of one store offers the convenience of being absolutely sure there aren't any duplicate purchases since once an item is purchase, it is removed.<p>I just realized a toaster is a bad example for a baby registry, but you get my point.

Beautiful design. Functions well,<p>As mentioned a few times here, the bookmarklet is a big barrier to entry. I think a walkthrough video would help that substantially. I can't imagine a regular person understanding they can just browse around the web shopping and your site can pick it up. Browser plugins are also a big entry barrier to people who aren't very savvy.<p>I wonder if you linked out to sites like amazon in a frame where you persisted a top bar around those sites as the user browsed. Might be janky though. *edit: just noticed amazon throws a JS error when framed. damnit.<p>Another thought is perhaps you cobble some api+scraping stuff together and provide the user a simple search+add to registry function inside your site.<p>So is your business model based on affiliate programs for all those retailers? How are you tracking whether or not something was purchased?

Great job! Site review :- * Clean and neat! * Easy to get started &#60;1min to create account to a baby registry.<p>Feature request :- * Would love more info about the item in line. * Who is buying what (if it is socially acceptable!) as I might team up with a friend but not with a stranger. * Baby journals et. al.<p>Other helpful info for you:- * Did you knew about <a href="http://www.thebump.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.thebump.com</a> ? * Thebump has reading info + baby name help + videos + registry.<p>A question to you:- Now that you know about a site which has already solved same problem as you, would you still pursue this idea? If yes then what will be the thought process?<p>With every idea I start hacking with I tend to over research and find a solution and then steam goes off! I want other people's experience with this phenomenon who tend to overcome this.

I just had a baby myself (2 months ago) and would have LOVED this service during my pregnancy. I too tried using Amazon, but it sucked. So, I ended up going with Babies R Us, wasn't pleased with their service at all.<p>Blogher would be a great source for you to find testers and get solid feedback from a group of mommies and mommies to be :). Also, one thing that I liked about Amazon and Babies R US however, is they had list recommendations. It may be a good idea for you to add some cool lists to you site such as "Top 10 Must Haves for Green Moms" or somethng like that. I was clueless when registering and appreciated the guidance of the lists.<p>I'll be sure to promote it here in Tokyo to the American moms! Good luck with your pregnancy!

Your site never explains what a baby registry is. The example registry doesn’t really help, nor does your About page. There is no Wikipedia article for “baby registry”, and Google searching “what is a baby registry” doesn’t produce anything helpful. I gather that it’s a wishlist of some kind, but that doesn’t explain why one would want to have one, and why it’s called a “registry” instead of a wishlist.<p>I’m definitely not in the audience for this site, so maybe all parents-to-be learn what a baby registry is from their friends or something, but it would be nice if you explained to random internet surfers what the site is for. Just a sentence would suffice.

Usually, in the about, I find "we" to be better than "I". I did that, I did this, I'm the founder, I'm the developer, I contacted xyz, I hope you like it..<p>"We" would sound more professional.. Just to be clear, I'm not saying you should remove that friendly tone which I find great, especially for that kind of website. However, I'm not sure if it is worth it to put so much emphasis on <i>you</i> as <i>you</i> are not the goal of the website..<p>We were looking for "bleh". Thanks to xyz designer who join our team and help us create this [etc.].<p>My 5 cents, good luck :)<p>(I know it's kind of ironic that I suggest being more professional when I can hardly speak English correctly, but anyway..)

I hacked together a quick and dirty wedding registry when we got married. We didn't want to favor any retail store or vendor over another. Almost nobody used it. :( I think people are used to going to stores and using their registry programs, especially since stores with registries will often give you a list and/or give the registrant a scanner to go through and scan all the items he/she wants to add.<p>My experience was that it doesn't work out very well, but your thing is definitely more polished than mine, and maybe with the right promotion you can make it click. :)

It looks great, particularly when compared to MyRegistry.com. Is there a way to pull in existing registries from Target and Babies R Us? That seems to be where most pregnant ladies start, and then end up desiring more from other non-registry sites.<p>If I put babyli.st on my shower invite, I imagine having some extremely confused Aunts and Grandmothers... but if I can say "Babyli.st, Target and Babies R Us" that would be more generation friendly. They can go to Target, and it updates on Babyli.st for my savvy friends.

Auto-register people. Circle back with people after 6 months and find out how they would have registered differently. Develop some profiles, identify the popular products, and you can allow expecting mothers to auto-register with the recommended items.<p>And buy yourself some kid-o-potamus swaddles. We never would have picked that out but someone gave us one and that was a life saver the first 6 weeks or so. Never would have though being all straight jacketed was the preferred way for babies to sleep...

Great execution and slick-looking site. Referral programs make this an easy product to monetize.<p>On the marketing front, one way to pitch it is that a decentralized registry makes life easier for your friends, too. I am so sick of having to pay top dollar for gifts just to get them off of a registry, when better deals can be had elsewhere for the same products. How many extra dollars have gone to Bed, Bath &#38; Beyond instead of Amazon simply for that reason?

Excellent site, very nicely designed.<p>On the privacy policy, the principles you state are excellent. It would also help to be a little more concrete, for example under what circumstances (if any) will you share information with partners and advertisers?<p>I love the idea of creating connections between vendors. Is there anything more community-oriented than a mailing list? A LinkedIn or Facebook group for example if most of the vendors hang out one place or another.

I'm sorry I don't have time to go through your app more, but here some things that occurred to me (I have 17 month old and 3 yr old, so just out of your target):<p>1) Try to collect data and offer up suggestions 2) Try to get a good Facebook presence. (etsy.com). Your target market lives on Facebook now. 3) Can you email your registry?<p>Gotta go. Good luck

This is a great idea, and looks very nice! Several of my friends are pregnant right now, and they are all registered at multiple places. This would be very convenient.<p>If I'm buying a gift for a friend, do I need to know their mailing address in order to have it shipped to them? It would be amazing if this took care of that for me.

Isn't the URL unnecessarily complicated? You can't say "check out babylist.com" you have to say "check out babylist with a dot between the i and the s" or "it's not a dot com it's a dot st so check out babyli dot st".<p>It just seems to be more difficult than necessary to verbally communicate how to reach the site.

As everyone else has said, it's a really nice looking site and a great idea.<p>How stable are the product links you use? Do you do any type of periodic validation?<p>If I click on a link to view a product, it might be nice to open that window inside a frame (or modern equivalent) with a babyli.st "reserve" button at the top.

You might want more instruction on how bookmarklets work. Most people have no idea WTF a bookmarklet is.

Great design - looks really good at first impression. One thing I would suggest is an About page. Something explaining your frustrations and why you created the company. I think the fact that you were pregnant at the time puts a really personal touch to other pregnant women.

One thought I have is when clicking to create a list you ask me to sign up... I haven't used your product yet and am not sure if I want to sign up yet. Is there anyway you could allow people to create the list first and thus be committed and then get their email?

Idea: to differentiate your list from Amazon's universal wish list and others, make your list prettier and more memorable than theirs. Decorate the list, offer several themes to chose from, allow users to upload photos of themselves and to add some text...

Great site. What are some of the libraries you're using for this site besides using Ruby on Rails? It would be great if you can share on a broad level. I'm always intrigued by the speed of development with other solutions than using .net.

Your web site looks amazing! The colors go well and the storks in the footer is a perfect addition to the design.<p>As far as usability goes, the home page is very easy to understand, and you'll definitely get a high conversion rate because of this.

Minor CSS/HTML quibble - on the example list when you switch between "Show unpurchased items" and "Show purchased items" views the browser scrollbar makes the main content jump. Minor issue - otherwise I love the look and feel.

Great idea. Great looking site.

UI thought: list of items in the showcase section has a lot of white space. While this is a good practice, you may want to allow more than 4 items per screen by reducing top &#38; bottom white space for each item.

Looks great. One point of feedback: when I first looked at the logo, I didn't know what it was. I had to sit and think about if for a bit. Granted I'm not your target market (male, mid 20s, married but no kids).

LOLs for using "Sophie" as demonstration. We don't have one yet, but I was told a friend already bought one for us, as it has been a favorite toy for decades. Apparently if you have kids, you also have Sophie.

I'm getting an error when I try to edit an item on my list: "We're sorry, but something went wrong. We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly."<p>But it's inconsistent; I can edit other items.

Market the crap out of this. This is a great idea, and you can easily extend it to weddings, etc.<p>You need to get those stores on board in some way as well... big risk if they decide that you aren't "needed".<p>Well done!

Not sure how much time you expect to be able to spend on this once your baby is due. Probably 0 hours for the next few years! Congratulations though. Also the site looks very nice.

Great looking site and definitely fills a void for new or expecting parents. My wife definitely would have used this when she was pregnant last year.<p>Congrats on your forthcoming arrival!

Looks great!<p>One quick note would be that the logo is linking to babyli.st/index when it could really just link to babyli.st. That way I don't have to click the Back button twice. :)

This reminds me a lot of www.isbornyet.com<p>Similar idea, but with the variant of your own domain and the ability to announce to friends etc, when your baby is born.

Fantastic! My wife and I just found out we're expecting and I sent this to her immediately. It looks great, I can't wait to try it out!

Natalie, love the site - it's one of those ideas I wish I would've done! Wish this was around when my wife was pregnant.

Keep an an eye on the domain, all too often people type 'bitly . com' when I say 'bit . ly' - do you have babylist.com?

You might want to consider allowing mothers to select items from a basic list for first time mothers.

Awesome design. I have not heard about forrst. Will try to find someone for my projects.

Cool project but your 'works with' icons are all in a big bunch here on Chrome. :-)

Where are you hosted? Development environment? And other similar details?

Nice - you should create a similar site for weddings at weddingli.st :D

What rev share percentage is reasonable for an arrangement like this?

nice job - will love to use this soon!

1. Keep it simple. Do not add features like people ask!<p>2. Your domain name sucks. Look for something better. This is impossible to recall.