14 Days Later: What I’ve learned in the first 2 weeks of my startup

I (transparently) love HN, but very much do not love HN on pricing. A blog post is sitting in my drafts folder about this. One of these days, one of these days...<p>There are numerous Ask HNs about our demographics. Take a look at them. Compare with your domain expertise about people who run non-profits. The differences are fairly dramatic.<p>You'll never win an argument about pricing with someone who is not in the market for your product anyhow. Their opinions are not relevant. Getting $0 from HN readers will not compromise the success of your business, since there is no pricing strategy which will result in you getting more than $0 from HN readers.<p>I also think that 9.5% is less than 6% + 3.5% when considered from the perspective of the people whose opinions matter to you making your rent next month. For that matter, I think 10% would also <i>also</i> likely be perceived as less than 6% + 3.5%. In any event, you'll likely be additive on their existing revenue (or the customers will think you are), and 90% of free money is better than 100% of no money every day of the week.

Epic quote - "I’ve never even been to Silicon Valley. I think of Silicon Valley as people in far flung areas of the Roman Empire must have thought of Rome. Surely it’s a mythical land of people who hack apps together in a weekend and sell them for $20 million on Monday."

Wow! Impressive first two weeks. It seems to me that you're doing a lot right here. I like how you sum up your business ("We let nonprofits setup a good-looking, donation-enabled website in about 1-2 minutes."), and if I were a website-less non-profit, I would be very interested.<p>I clicked over to your site, and your design blew me away. You really build authority with it, but also keep things fun, lighthearted, and modern.<p>A couple suggestions:<p>- You might want to test telling people they don't pay you fees after the first X they receive in monthly donations (around $1333, right? maybe make that an even $1000) as opposed to the maximum they pay you in fees. My marketing copywriting intuition tells me that may be clearer / more compelling than people having to do the math themselves. It also gives them a more tangible goal to shoot for and story to tell themselves. ("I'm sure we can get over $X a month, and the service is basically free after that!")<p>- Possibly test a more prominent mention of Facebook / Twitter integration on the front page (to the point that you don't have to click or mouseover to see it). I have a feeling that these features are pretty important to non-profits, especially ones who aren't savvy enough to have a good web presence yet. I'm not sure - again, probably I would just test it out.

That background makes the text very hard to read (at least for my eyes). Literally had to copy-and-paste the text into a text editor...

I can definitely relate to the "outskirts of the roman empire" sentiment: I'm also launching a startup in Greenville, SC, and it definitely feels like the "middle of nowhere" in the world of tech startups. I'm curious how many other startups/HN users are around the area.

I hate to be a downer, but I don't think there's any world in which two weeks is enough to make any conclusions. I think you need to give it a serious shot (think months) before you'll be able to objectively assess your business.

Just FYI, the I Do Foundation (a service where you can donate to charities that a wedding-couple list) charges 8% <a href="https://www.idofoundation.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.idofoundation.org/</a><p>So your 9.5% is not that far off. When I did my donation to the charity my friends chose, it included a note about the 8% and told me that it's the general rate.<p>From their site: """<p>Charitable Gift Registry: The percentage listed on the I Do Foundation website for each store is the exact amount that will be donated to charity every time a guest purchases a gift through an I Do Foundation registry link. For example, a $100 purchase from Cooking.com generates $8 for charity. The I Do Foundation does not deduct any fees from these donations. When guests make online donations, an 8% fee is added to their donation. This fee covers the cost we incur from our credit card processing company. For example, when a guest donates $100, an $8 fee will be added. """

No doubt that HN rocks. Being a person not living in Valley, even in US I got to know about the things which I really needed to know; business and tech. Though I have not done something "remarkable" yet but I believe in myself that whenever I do, it would be because of things I learnt from HN.<p>Coming to your product, it's a cool idea and you are definitely targeting a niche which makes it noticeable. One thing which I think successful entrepreneurs don't share that how do they reach their target audience. This is something which every entrepreneur should share by discussing his/her case study.

Somehow, I missed the original HN post, but I like the service as it serves a vastly ignored market (I've also been a fan of Causes since they started).<p>As far as pricing is concerned, it sounds like it might be best represented on a graph (donations vs. donations less fees).<p>Also, I'm curious about pointing people to Hover when they want their own domains: is there an affiliate relationship there? I didn't get too far into the 'help' section, but who is going to help with DNS settings? Is that something Bellstrike will provide support for?

Good post. I can relate to a lot of it after posting my project here on HN a couple weeks ago. (plus it's also a niche website builder)<p>You didn't ask for any marketing advise but have you considered targeting Christian (or other) missionaries overseas? I have several friends from the US who have moved to Africa or eastern Europe long-term. They are usually sponsored by a US church and qualify as non-profits; but they also rely on recurring support to pay their bills. I think many of them could use something like this.<p>Well done.

You are selling a publishing platform, so why use Tumblr? You might want to switch your blog over to your product, you know, eat your own dogfood and all that...

DCaldwell, I agree with you on the limits of the lean start-up philosophy. I think the minimum viable product idea is hyped up immensely and is often an excuse for someone to release a half-finished product and call themselves an entrepreneur.<p>A minimum brilliant product, on the other hand, is something I could unreservedly support. And I think that is what you have achieved. Well done!

The design really caught my eye as well. I love the playfulness of it. Who is your designer, if you do not mind me asking..

I've known the fine folks behind this project for a while and it's exciting to see them launch and gain some traction. It's great for our area and great for them. Congrats again Dodd and team. Looking forward to see more great stuff coming down the pipe!

For dcaldwell: maybe consider working with reddit somehow? <a href="http://blog.reddit.com/2011/09/if-youre-nonprofit-organization-we-have_14.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.reddit.com/2011/09/if-youre-nonprofit-organizati...</a>

Thanks for being honest about your experiences. It's refreshing to hear some real metrics, even if they aren't the most compelling stats for a launch. Excited to hear more updates in the coming months.

&#62; <i>Impeccable design is worth it</i><p>The site's design is indeed impeccable; did you do it yourself or did you use a service provider of some kind?

do you mind sharing how you actually got those hits in the first two weeks? i know with many startups getting the word out after the launch is very hard.<p>so aside from HN what else did you do to get word out and get even foreign non-profits?