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Makerbase — Like a user-editable IMDB for product makers
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Mubashar Iqbal
Awesome! Love this idea.
I know it is early days, but any plans for adding an API? I'd love for Makerbase to power my portfolio :)
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@mubashariqbal API is definitely on our roadmap! Thanks for your kind words.
Great work @ginatrapani and @anildash. Last time we chatted about Makerbase, you said it was a "20%" side project, second to ThinkUp. Is that still the case?
Also, upvoting this statement:
Great products (and businesses) are built by teams of people in engineering, marketing, design, product, sales, etc. We all know this but so often in tech the focus is put on the "developer" with disregard to other functions.
Great products (and businesses) are built by teams of people in engineering, marketing, design, product, sales, etc. We all know this but so often in tech the focus is put on the "developer" with disregard to other functions.@rrhoover thanks Ryan! Leading up to launch we spent more time getting Makerbase ready, and now we'll split our time between ThinkUp and Makerbase based on how the products are resonating with our users and customers. ThinkUp is doing well, and not going anywhere.
@ginatrapani @rrhoover Nice to see new projects from you, Gina.
Your projects & articles have given good amount inspiration during years. :)
Love the concept. Curious, how are you building the community of "contributors"?
It seems like others who have tried this model have failed if they weren't able to consistently motivate people to contribute, keeping the content relevant/up to date. Especially considering for IMDB, movies and casts don't change. For products, features and teams can change constantly.
What's motivating people to continue to manage the content?
@davidspinks Great question -- we've been thinking a lot about that. There are a few ways we think we can be of service over the long-run to creators.
First, we'll be giving more tools to makers that can help them show off their creations and have a great place to list all their work. I don't presume people have a ton of time to randomly edit pages on the Internet, but I do know creative people are very interested in telling the world about their work, and that's the primary motivation we want to serve.
Second, I do think a big challenge is the fact that software has new versions. (Although I guess George Lucas released a bunch of Service Packs for his movies, too.) Right now we support having a date range to list when a person contributed to a project, and we can imagine maybe adding support for versions, so if you contributed just to version 2.0 that would be listed.
Finally, I think there's a tremendous amount of potential in wondering "how the heck did you do this?". So many of us learn from our friends and mentors and inspirations, and finding a good way to tap into that impulse could certainly animate and energize Makerbase for a long time to come.
Makerbase launches today. It was inspired by how useful IMDB is for the film and TV industries. The idea is to organize all the contributors to various aspects of a product so that you know who built what. Even failed or closed products can be added to the database. @anildash and @ginatrapani will be in here a bit later to tell us more about the project.
There are so many "LinkedIn killers" that have popped up over the years, trying to capitalize on LinkedIn's vulnerability, mainly by doing a slicker UX...but polishing up LinkedIn won't give you the next LinkedIn. It'll come out of left field and better suit the workers who are increasingly more likely to be contractors, freelancers, etc. and the projects they make. Makerbase should scare LinkedIn more than anything that's come out over the last 10 years. Props to the team, and good luck.
@adamokane BTW - the "use any of these tools to make [the product]?" thing is a BRILLIANT perk for sponsors.
@adamokane Yes, though I don't see this replacing LinkedIn - I see it replacing the "projects" portion of my profile. This could function as the portfolio companion to LinkedIn's digital CV.
This is great! You could put the Clearbit Company Logo API to really good use here: https://clearbit.com/docs#compan...
@jsngr I also feel that the profile should be more of a portfolio of the things you made, and less of an activity feed.
I love the concept, but it's not entirely clear right now what constitutes a project - I'd love to see hackathon projects featured. Maybe a GitHub integration?
Happy this exists and excited to see what is next. It would be cool to add a link to ProductHunt for each of them, or at least the number of upvotes (I haven't looked at the API, so no idea if that is surfaceable)
@ginatrapani can't wait to see that integration happen! 😆 Wondering if the trick is finding the right mechanism for re-engagement on both sites. Maybe tapping into the fact that both products and makers are constantly evolving. Anyways I'm sure you guys are thinking about it already. 😉
First I'll say I love the concept. But, the product feels pretty unpolished... I encountered a number of bugs trying to use it. I finally gave up when I tried to add myself as a maker and my name or twitter handle wouldn't come up in the pre populated list despite having already registered.
@taykcrane Hey Taylor, thanks for trying Makerbase out. You're right: there's a really confusing aspect of Makerbase that isn't explained well, and that's that there's a difference between a user and a Maker. When you sign in with Twitter, you become a user, but then you have to add yourself as a Maker. We can improve this a whole lot and it's at the top of our list, given the feedback we got on this launch.
I'm surprised people said they thought it was unpolished. I think this is a great execution of an MVP. The signup and project creation from Twitter was flawless, and made adding things super quick. Excited to see where this goes.
@ekryski Appreciate that, Eric. One person's unpolished is another's MVP. :)
Love the concept - 100%.
I think the first thing you should do after this validation is to improve the UI and the product will be super amazing!
Love it!!!
Love the idea! This is going to help anyone who wants to contact any maker for tutoring or advice. Really nice, seriously.
Hackster.io allows posting projects with code and we can follow the maker or contribute our own hacks. Wonder how this is different?
I definitely think that MakerBase can turn out to be a great founding partner / talent finding platform for SMBs. Well done!
I feel weird adding myself to projects for companies I don't work at anymore. Does anyone else feel this way?
how did it function before this public launch? were only a few people invited? etc
@_jacksmith Yes, we had an invitation-only alpha/beta test that was closed off to the public.
Super easy to add a product or a maker, I love the idea! To improve vitality, you should consider sending a notification on twitter to the company / people added as product / maker.
Love this idea! This allows for project-based credit on startups, rather than requiring official positions. Its awesome.
Great job. I loved the process of adding a company. Very slick, especially the fetch from twitter! I'm going to add this to our list of places we submit to on Startuplister.