Agora
Web and SaaS
product search engine
SHOW HN2023
317points
268comments
#131of 3,109 in 2023
Top 5%of 2023 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
20 positive, 66 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 41 critical, out of 130 comments about the project. Thread score -0.15.
Idea: 8 for, 9 againstExecution: 0 for, 14 againstPricing: 1 for, 7 againstPerformance: 0 for, 4 againstDesign: 1 for, 3 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Fast progress and responsive maker
From 1 comment
So cool, good luck in the marriage, you made a very cool thing!!
IcyHordr on HN
Objections
Search relevance is poor (red shoes, andy cooks)
From 3 comments
https://www.searchagora.com/search?query=red%20shoes It doesn’t work very well.
hipadev23 on HNAgora also doesn't return red shoes for the search query "red shoes". Seems like you haven't fully solved the problem yet :) From a technical perspective, crawling 25M products…
muratsu on HNNot only is the search complete dogshit (for example, I searched "andy cooks", the title of a book which I know for a fact is on several Shopify sites, and didn't get any results…
mvdtnz on HN
No region or shipping filter
From 2 comments
I like it. I need to be able to filter search to if it will deliver to my country. It desperately needs some indication that your action is being processed, like a spinner, when…
quickthrower2 on HNNot only is the search complete dogshit (for example, I searched "andy cooks", the title of a book which I know for a fact is on several Shopify sites, and didn't get any results…
mvdtnz on HN
Slow search performance
From 2 comments
Searching is slow (kinda expected that right now), but after clicking a product and then hitting back, I have to wait for the search again. Not at computer so I didn't check the…
twothamendment on HNI like it. I need to be able to filter search to if it will deliver to my country. It desperately needs some indication that your action is being processed, like a spinner, when…
quickthrower2 on HN
Unclear value proposition versus large marketplaces
From 2 comments
Agora also doesn't return red shoes for the search query "red shoes". Seems like you haven't fully solved the problem yet :) From a technical perspective, crawling 25M products…
muratsu on HNBasically it’s Amazon
b2bsaas00 on HN
Authenticity concerns about the founder story and holding company
From 2 comments
The Terms page goes to "Jaggi Enterprises", "A Modern Investment Fund. We buy, build, and invest in software companies with recurring revenue.". So maybe this is not really…
TekMol on HNI'm sorry, but I have to question where this heartfelt story about looking out for your wife is in any way real? The website certainly doesn't look like a side project, it has a…
dns_snek on HN
Requests
Add ships-to or region filter
From 2 comments
I like it. I need to be able to filter search to if it will deliver to my country. It desperately needs some indication that your action is being processed, like a spinner, when…
quickthrower2 on HNNot only is the search complete dogshit (for example, I searched "andy cooks", the title of a book which I know for a fact is on several Shopify sites, and didn't get any results…
mvdtnz on HN
Add loading spinner or progress indicator
From 1 comment
I like it. I need to be able to filter search to if it will deliver to my country. It desperately needs some indication that your action is being processed, like a spinner, when…
quickthrower2 on HN
Cache search results so back navigation is fast
From 1 comment
Searching is slow (kinda expected that right now), but after clicking a product and then hitting back, I have to wait for the search again. Not at computer so I didn't check the…
twothamendment on HN
Curate or audit stores to remove low quality ones
From 1 comment
I built this a couple years ago (now defunct) for the same reason :) The public JSON endpoints on shopify stores make it pretty easy to get the data. You mentioned using Mongo…
callmeed on HN
Track price changes over time
From 1 comment
Great project. If you continue to crawl the data, be sure to save it so you can detect price changes a la camelcamelcamel.
xnx on HN
Questions
How the scraper was built and what it cost at scale
From 2 comments
What was the process for scraping 25M products ? I have always used standard python tools like selenium, bs4 and the like. But I'm guessing none of these work at scale. Could you…
screye on HNWhat technology did you use to build the scraper and how did you get around the usual challenges (anti bot, ip banning, etc) with scraping large amounts of data?
misterbwong on HN
How the initial list of Shopify stores was obtained
From 2 comments
Cool! But how did you get the initial dataset of 643,000+ Shopify stores (data as per your “About” page) in the first place, to then scrape the products from their /products.json…
Asparagirl on HNwow! Nice work. I've been trying to build an index of shopify stores. Did you search for all domains pointing to shopify's name servers?
glohbalrob on HN
What the revenue model is
From 1 comment
What's your revenue model? I see you expanded on the details of your $1.5K monyhly cost, but failing to see how you make money? Affiliates fees?
krauses on HN
Alternatives named
Shop.app
From 2 comments
Cool project but Shopify already has this. https://shop.app https://shop.app/search/results?query=red%20shoes
taimurayaz on HNShopify has tried a few times to build a tool like this but hasn’t ever managed to get any traction. I think that missing any curation at all could be what eventually kills it.…
pitched on HN
Klarna
From 1 comment
Maybe I'm clearly ignorant, but how does this differ from Klarna (https://www.klarna.com)?
usrme on HN
Amazon
From 1 comment
Basically it’s Amazon
b2bsaas00 on HN