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Hey, I really like the concept here. But think you've made a number of missteps, so this is my (hopefully) constructive criticism. ONE I think you're making a
by michaelbuckbee 9y ago
Hey, I really like the concept here. But think you've made a number of missteps, so this is my (hopefully) constructive criticism.
ONE
I think you're making a grave category error with your pricing comparison. Because while it's true that you charge much less than Themeforest etc. you are not doing what they are doing.
They're true marketplaces and the % price you pay to them is for the payment processing, delivery management and _most crucially_ implicit marketing.
If I've made a Wordpress theme I'm much more likely to make more selling it on Themeforest (even with their 50-70% take) than I am with you and your 18% because they have literally millions and millions of people coursing through their ecosystem and searching directly within their site.
I think a more apt comparison is to something like Gumroad (which is more of a digital goods payments+fulfillment system and not a "marketplace"). Lots of people sell things like their eBooks and courses on Gumroad for $10/mo and 3.5%.
TWO
You need some example, case study, _something_ that shows how this actually works. Ideally you'd have this for all of the different ways you see this being used. There are a bunch of questions I had as a potential seller looking at this: do they accept Paypal? What's the checkout process look like? Do buyers end up with a library of stuff they've bought on SquareBit?
THREE
I think you've fallen into the "everything" tool trap where (since you're deep in the weeds with the service) you're finding stuff every day where you think: "SquareBit would be perfect for these people selling this thing" but to an outsider it's really hard to connect the dots.
Is SquareBit a good fit for ebooks? Video Courses? Private package repos? I have my thoughts, but your site and marketing needs to very cleanly say how and what this is for and how people would use it.
FOUR
I'd be concerned using your service on the basis of you're doing online payments of a sort and call yourself Square. This isn't great and I hope you don't get into legal trouble, but ouch (IANAL, but any way you cut it, this isn't a positive to you).
- zschuessler 9y agoLOVE this feedback, thank you so much. This is extremely helpful. I've jotted down some tasks as a result of this. And I'll say to point #4 - if I have to rebrand, it will be the second time. (And as a result, won't be too hard to swap the name out) Fun fact: was originally called git.cash, and well, Git started enforcing their trademark so that was a no-go :-) Thanks again, I really enjoyed this write up.