4 ms·

Seems like you have a pretty hard chicken-and-egg problem, since you've been working on this for so long without traction. How are you going to attract users? W

by buss 11y ago

Seems like you have a pretty hard chicken-and-egg problem, since you've been working on this for so long without traction. How are you going to attract users? What have you tried and why have those things failed? If I was a celebrity or someone important, why would I sign up to receive unsolicited messages for a pittance? I feel like you have a value mismatch -- people worth contacting want a strong filter (high $ value), and the people that want to contact them won't want to spend that much. The only people who will be reachable will have a low value and probably aren't worth contacting. How do you know people want this?

jimbursch 11y ago
Excellent questions - thank you! I'm going to answer your questions in reverse order. How do you know people want this? First off, I want it, and others will want it if it is designed and presented properly -- that is what is taking me 10 years to figure out. Regarding the second question, there is a problem with the way you frame the question. "Unsolicited messages for a pittance" -- of course nobody wants that, but there is some amount for which anyone would welcome an unsolicited message. Me, I would welcome receiving a 25 cent message. There are advertisers who are paying a lot more than that to send me unsolicited commercial messages, and it comes to me as junk that I resent. For the celebrity, the situation is the same. There is some amount that any celebrity would accept. There are fans who are willing to pay some amount. I would be willing to pay a few bucks to send a message of admiration and support to Edward Snowden. In the FundChan system, my bid would be competing with other admirers to get to the front of the line. If I bid enough, he gets my message. If I am outbid, he doesn't get my message, I keep my money. How are you going to attract users? YC Startup School (great videos!) taught me that I have to do things that don't scale to get early traction. Right now my plan is to campaign to get what I call high value targets into FundChan -- people other people want to reach. This could be celebrities (I'm in Los Angeles, so Hollywood is a natural) or, if I get into YC, I will campaign to get sought-after members of the YC community. So, how much would Sam Altman be willing to accept to read a message? Who would be the highest bidder to send him a message? This is simple supply and demand. If the supply (Sam's attention for a moment at a given price) meets demand (the amount the highest bidder is willing to pay) then we have a market. In the FundChan system there are two data points for every user: Notice Price and High Bid. The Notice Price is the bid amount set by the user that will trigger a text or email notification. This is a price signal from the recipient to the sender. High Bid is the currently highest bid in the recipient's message queue. This is an indication of the demand for the recipients attention. As a sender, I decide if I want to bid high enough to get to the front of the message queue, or if I want to bid high enough to trigger a notification. What do you imagine would be Sam Altman's Notice Price and High Bid?

by buss 11y ago

jimbursch 11y ago

Excellent questions - thank you! I'm going to answer your questions in reverse order. How do you know people want this? First off, I want it, and others will want it if it is designed and presented properly -- that is what is taking me 10 years to figure out. Regarding the second question, there is a problem with the way you frame the question. "Unsolicited messages for a pittance" -- of course nobody wants that, but there is some amount for which anyone would welcome an unsolicited message. Me, I would welcome receiving a 25 cent message. There are advertisers who are paying a lot more than that to send me unsolicited commercial messages, and it comes to me as junk that I resent. For the celebrity, the situation is the same. There is some amount that any celebrity would accept. There are fans who are willing to pay some amount. I would be willing to pay a few bucks to send a message of admiration and support to Edward Snowden. In the FundChan system, my bid would be competing with other admirers to get to the front of the line. If I bid enough, he gets my message. If I am outbid, he doesn't get my message, I keep my money. How are you going to attract users? YC Startup School (great videos!) taught me that I have to do things that don't scale to get early traction. Right now my plan is to campaign to get what I call high value targets into FundChan -- people other people want to reach. This could be celebrities (I'm in Los Angeles, so Hollywood is a natural) or, if I get into YC, I will campaign to get sought-after members of the YC community. So, how much would Sam Altman be willing to accept to read a message? Who would be the highest bidder to send him a message? This is simple supply and demand. If the supply (Sam's attention for a moment at a given price) meets demand (the amount the highest bidder is willing to pay) then we have a market. In the FundChan system there are two data points for every user: Notice Price and High Bid. The Notice Price is the bid amount set by the user that will trigger a text or email notification. This is a price signal from the recipient to the sender. High Bid is the currently highest bid in the recipient's message queue. This is an indication of the demand for the recipients attention. As a sender, I decide if I want to bid high enough to get to the front of the message queue, or if I want to bid high enough to trigger a notification. What do you imagine would be Sam Altman's Notice Price and High Bid?