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Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

buymeacoffee.com

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Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#51

Post by subpixel »

patja wrote: post #33

I feel this is unintentionally going to the lowest end of this space with the whole "buy me a coffee" message and brand. I run a site which is 100% monetized through voluntary donations and I would never use language like buy me a beer/buy me a coffee for it. It feels like you are marginalizing your work to the hobby/side-project realm with low expectations. We strive for $40 a year as a target donation from those wh…

What approach do you take? I'd be interested in knowing b/c I often have ideas that might benefit from that funding model and I usually wind up thinking "nah, that could never work".

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#52

Post by zyio »

josephsunny wrote: post #2

BuyMeACoffee.com co-founder here. BMC is a friendly way for creators (bloggers, artists, developers) to receive donations from their audience. We have seen the platform used in ways we never imagined. William LeGate, an activist (boycottNRA) used BuyMeACoffee just yesterday to raise $2500 in less than an hour: https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/968630079285686273 Check out some 'Buy Me A Coffee' pages: https://…

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wp-login.php Cheers!

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#53

Post by pvg »

josephsunny wrote: post #46
pvg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing it on the pages but it this seems somewhat important for a company that handles money - there's no mention of who or where you are, who the principals are, etc. The terms seem a little slapdash, there's a bit about being 'partnered with Stripe' (are you? or does that just mean you use Stripe for processing?).

Yes, we are using Stripe to process payments. We also used Stripe Atlas to incorporate. We are not partnered with them in any other way. Sorry if the copy is misleading, we'll correct it.

The broader thing is probably more important. You are handling money on behalf of other people, right? That should involve a general air of clarity transparency throughout otherwise you end up looking (perhaps totally unintentionally and unwittingly) like a scam. Namelessness, locationlessness, terms-with-no-applicable-law, etc all increase the aura of scamminess.

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#56

Post by josephsunny »

jacobevelyn wrote: post #41
josephsunny wrote: post #2

BuyMeACoffee.com co-founder here. BMC is a friendly way for creators (bloggers, artists, developers) to receive donations from their audience. We have seen the platform used in ways we never imagined. William LeGate, an activist (boycottNRA) used BuyMeACoffee just yesterday to raise $2500 in less than an hour: https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/968630079285686273 Check out some 'Buy Me A Coffee' pages: https://…

Awesome! Here's me: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/JacobEvelyn Small pieces of feedback: - It's not super clear to me what I should put in "About you" vs. "Your story" - I noticed that the "Your story" section gets centered on the page, making bulleted lists look a bit weird (see my page) - I noticed that emoji don't work in the "Your story" section (this may be intentional) In general this looks really neat, nice work…

Thank you, and these are some great points!

- 'About you' is more like a small two-liner that'll show right above the payment widget.

- You're right. This is a known issue, and we will fix it with the next update.

- BMC is emoji-friendly (even for supporter comments). We'll look into this right away.

Cheers!

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#57

Post by pbhjpbhj »

pvg wrote: post #40
josephsunny wrote: post #2

BuyMeACoffee.com co-founder here. BMC is a friendly way for creators (bloggers, artists, developers) to receive donations from their audience. We have seen the platform used in ways we never imagined. William LeGate, an activist (boycottNRA) used BuyMeACoffee just yesterday to raise $2500 in less than an hour: https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/968630079285686273 Check out some 'Buy Me A Coffee' pages: https://…

Maybe I'm missing it on the pages but it this seems somewhat important for a company that handles money - there's no mention of who or where you are, who the principals are, etc. The terms seem a little slapdash, there's a bit about being 'partnered with Stripe' (are you? or does that just mean you use Stripe for processing?).

FWIW it's not legal to operate a website in the EU for a business (including sole-traders) without having a bricks-and-mortar address given.

This http://www.ukwda.org/blog/is-your-website-legal is for UK, but cites the EU legislation.

I wonder how these sites work with EU "value added tax" regulations, a couple of years ago new rules came in that need fastidious record keeping - whilst this is "donations" it seems it might be considered "voluntary payments for goods/services" which presumably attract tax confusions?

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#58

Post by dulse »

josephsunny wrote: post #22
dulse wrote: post #13

Looks good. Few notes: 1. During sign up, I'm super confused why you have to set up anything related to payout before setting up your coffee page -- this is inverted to the way it should be. Get them the page as soon as possible and let them share and accept donations, then IF (big if, I bet the median amount raised is $0) they have a literal financial incentive to set up their friction-filled payout form process. If…

First off, thanks for such a comprehensive feedback! 1. You can skip that page in one-click; but I get your point. We decided to do this to avoid any confusion for new creators; especially when the whole point of the platform is to receive payments. Creators usually spend no more than a minute to sign up, so we never thought it'd be an issue. Thanks for pointing this out :) 2. Good point. Featured section is currentl…

No problem, happy to help. Feel free to email me directly (email in HN profile) if you want more thoughts at a later date, I enjoy giving feedback on new projects.

I missed the "skip" button, but I think you get the underlying point. You'll want to accelerate the "magic moment" as much as possible, which is the moment your users grok the value your service provides (and you'll see this in your data as you look at user retention rates for the cohort that hit this moment in your funnel vs. those that did not). You should try to figure out what this is, then obsessively try to remove as much friction as possible to getting to that point.

My guess is that for you it's either a) seeing your coffee page; or b) getting your first coffee donation (probably the second). Either way, remove as much setup as possible to create the coffee page, sharing it to their network, and get money coming in the door.

Cheers!

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#59

Post by dulse »

dsr_ wrote: post #54

Sigh. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/untrustworthy Is the limited range of donation sizes an attempt to avoid KYC anti-laundering regulations?

I doubt it, as they will be enforced by Stripe / PayPal on the payout end.

The laws regulate once you hit certain thresholds, like $100-$500 but it's aggregate not individual contributions (and this service is geared toward more mass market crowd funding).

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#60

Post by josephsunny »

dsr_ wrote: post #54

Sigh. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/untrustworthy Is the limited range of donation sizes an attempt to avoid KYC anti-laundering regulations?

It is to avoid using BuyMeACoffee for money transfer. We lift this limit for 'verified' users. Nice username BTW ;)
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