> creating a functioning, profitable, and successful competitor for a market that's honesty fairly niche as it is, sounds like a pretty far reach
First off, I really appreciate the word of caution. The biggest reason that startups fail is because they don't do enough planning in advance; they get caught up in their own excitement about an idea and plunge ahead. David (my cofounder) and I have done this enough that we're being more cautious, but the constructive criticism is very appreciated.
As to business plans and how to make this work -- Patreon is, in my opinion, missing a bet. They've built a platform designed around giving recurring payments from one set of people to another set of people in exchange for mutually understood but free-form services; this is something that can be expanded far beyond the artist market. David and I have already talked about a lot of different sectors that we could expand into once we have a functioning system, some of which are vastly more profitable than the artist community.
We're starting with the artist community for several reasons:
*) Patreon proves that it's a market.
*) Patreon's existence makes it easy to explain the idea. I can make a post in this community saying "it's like Patreon but different in these ways" and everyone understands exactly what I'm talking about.
*) It's easy to locate artists; there are a lot of well-defined art communities on the Web, all of whom would like to make more money from their work, have well-defined contact channels, and are not opposed to contact from strangers.
> it's much, much too early to be trying to gauge interest when you don't even have a mock up or a business model or really much of anything for people to look at yet!
I understand your point, but I think perhaps there's a misunderstanding about what I'm doing. The stage we're at right now is market validation, not customer acquisition. I'm not saying "hey, we're building a service, come sign up for it!" I'm coming in to verify that desire for the service exists. Once we've built it I'll come back and offer people the opportunity to sign up as early adopters.
no subject
First off, I really appreciate the word of caution. The biggest reason that startups fail is because they don't do enough planning in advance; they get caught up in their own excitement about an idea and plunge ahead. David (my cofounder) and I have done this enough that we're being more cautious, but the constructive criticism is very appreciated.
As to business plans and how to make this work -- Patreon is, in my opinion, missing a bet. They've built a platform designed around giving recurring payments from one set of people to another set of people in exchange for mutually understood but free-form services; this is something that can be expanded far beyond the artist market. David and I have already talked about a lot of different sectors that we could expand into once we have a functioning system, some of which are vastly more profitable than the artist community.
We're starting with the artist community for several reasons:
*) Patreon proves that it's a market.
*) Patreon's existence makes it easy to explain the idea. I can make a post in this community saying "it's like Patreon but different in these ways" and everyone understands exactly what I'm talking about.
*) It's easy to locate artists; there are a lot of well-defined art communities on the Web, all of whom would like to make more money from their work, have well-defined contact channels, and are not opposed to contact from strangers.
> it's much, much too early to be trying to gauge interest when you don't even have a mock up or a business model or really much of anything for people to look at yet!
I understand your point, but I think perhaps there's a misunderstanding about what I'm doing. The stage we're at right now is market validation, not customer acquisition. I'm not saying "hey, we're building a service, come sign up for it!" I'm coming in to verify that desire for the service exists. Once we've built it I'll come back and offer people the opportunity to sign up as early adopters.
Does that make sense?