@Austin

Yeah, building the community is definitely harder than building the engineering side. It is hugely impressive that you managed to bootstrap Manifold to have so much activity in so little time.

I agree, it IS a niche within a niche. But -- isn't it sort of the point to get to such a depth? My ideal version of the world includes using prediction markets for more than just US elections and crypto prices.

I want a decent number of people predicting whether a certain policy will increase birth rate, or whether a nuclear power station project will be built in time and within the budget. Those are indeed very niche, nerdy things, but also things on which it is important to get things right. So I am trying.

But also, even the case of failure is not in vain. If it turns out that it is impossible (or very hard) to get a community of 100-200 people in Bulgaria to be regular users, that is also a data point. The next guy will know that prediction markets for small countries are very tricky/hard. We will have some practical evidence against any futarchy ZEDE/charter city ideas.

>feedback from the first set of users

The feedback was generally polite interest - I didn't manage to get the ball rolling to get anything more.

>What do you plan on doing differently this time around to try and get more usage?

Specifically:

• focus on community building, rather than on features

• have leaderboard prizes - which is not trivial, even for small amounts, in poor countries

• have a marketing budget

• consult actual marketing/SEO experts

• do things that don't scale that well - press releases, cajoling university students, facebook posts, get a core of users to participate by badgering them IRL, send personal invitations to the political analyst class, give out nice certificates that people can show off and put on linkedin, hire an intern or two, hold an essay contest

• apply for more sources of financing

@Austin

Yeah, building the community is definitely harder than building the engineering side. It is hugely impressive that you managed to bootstrap Manifold to have so much activity in so little time.

I agree, it IS a niche within a niche. But -- isn't it sort of the point to get to such a depth? My ideal version of the world includes using prediction markets for more than just US elections and crypto prices.

I want a decent number of people predicting whether a certain policy will increase birth rate, or whether a nuclear power station project will be built in time and within the budget. Those are indeed very niche, nerdy things, but also things on which it is important to get things right. So I am trying.

But also, even the case of failure is not in vain. If it turns out that it is impossible (or very hard) to get a community of 100-200 people in Bulgaria to be regular users, that is also a data point. The next guy will know that prediction markets for small countries are very tricky/hard. We will have some practical evidence against any futarchy ZEDE/charter city ideas.

>feedback from the first set of users

The feedback was generally polite interest - I didn't manage to get the ball rolling to get anything more.

>What do you plan on doing differently this time around to try and get more usage?

Specifically:

• focus on community building, rather than on features

• have leaderboard prizes - which is not trivial, even for small amounts, in poor countries

• have a marketing budget

• consult actual marketing/SEO experts

• do things that don't scale that well - press releases, cajoling university students, facebook posts, get a core of users to participate by badgering them IRL, send personal invitations to the political analyst class, give out nice certificates that people can show off and put on linkedin, hire an intern or two, hold an essay contest

• apply for more sources of financing

Hey! I think it's cool that you've already built and shipped this once already -- I'd love to see more prediction sites flourishing! I appreciate that you provided an image of the site too; it looks pretty polished, and the image really helps us understand how the site would function.

Given that the site is already mostly built, it seems like your hardest challenge will be finding users who are excited to participate -- especially if you're targeting the Bulgarian audience, as forecasting is already something of a niche, so Bulgarian forecasting would seem to be a niche within a niche. To that end, I'd definitely recommend conducting user interviews with people who you think might be a good fit (I found the books "The Mom Test" and "Talking to Humans" to really help me get comfortable with user interviews).

A couple questions:

• What kind of feedback did your first set of users have on the site.

• What do you plan on doing differently this time around to try and get more usage?

@Ernest

>Where does the news come from?

The links are submitted by users, like reddit/hackernews. The markets are created and added by the team operating the site.

>What advantages does it have that aren't met by MM?

It's hard for me to really answer the question. What advantages did reddit have that weren't met by Facebook? None, it was just different.

And this site operates completely differently from manifold.

• Different processing of information

• Different topics

• The structure encourages users to participate in every forecast.

@Ernest

>Where does the news come from?

The links are submitted by users, like reddit/hackernews. The markets are created and added by the team operating the site.

>What advantages does it have that aren't met by MM?

It's hard for me to really answer the question. What advantages did reddit have that weren't met by Facebook? None, it was just different.

And this site operates completely differently from manifold.

• Different processing of information

• Different topics

• The structure encourages users to participate in every forecast.

Where does the news come from? What advantages does it have that aren't met by MM?