Get handy suggestions on products using HandySuggestions

How many times have you posted to a social network asking for a suggestion?

“Which movie should I go to this weekend?”

“Suggest a good place for Italian food near Indira Nagar.”

However, the use of existing social network only for suggestions isn’t feasible because of the number of other things that it is used for. A platform only for suggestions will be interesting and HandySuggestions by Daffodil Software Ltd, is just that.

A HandySuggestions user is presented with categories and products under it. The user can then make a suggestion about the product on the platform, which can be shared on their facebook wall as well. The platform also provides the user with an option to write a small review of the product as well.

A centralized platform

Yogesh Aggarwal, the Director of Daffodil Software Ltd, had certain instances in past when he felt that our traditional home remedies are disappearing because culture of nuclear families is growing fast and thats how the idea of a centralized suggestions platform appealed to him; a place where people could look for suggestions regarding products.

One of the first categories to be included in this suggestions platform was health products. Over the past 6 months, this has now spread to 13 different categories, ranging from movies to electronic goods.

Good userbase, bad adoption

Over the past 6 months, HandySuggestions has garnered a userbase of over 2000 and has reported about a 100 daily active users. The age demographics of these users lie between 20 and 30.

The daily active users on this platform is a measly 5% of the total userbase. What makes this stat even more worrisome is that, this is a set of initial users, who would be the platform’s ambassadors.

Our Take

To succeed as a social app today, is a very tough ask. Apart from a great functionality, the platform should provide a compelling user experience, and by the looks of it HandySuggestions doesn’t have that. Furthermore, the platform doesn’t comply with the initial vision - get suggestions for a query.

It is still early days, but as it stands, retaining users is going to be the biggest challenge for HandySuggestions. However, if they can integrated a query-suggestion feature in the system (as was the initial plan), then the platform stands a chance of survival in this harsh social network ecosystem.