31–40 of 100 posts
Was the shutdown at all related to the need to get licensed as a money transfer agent? I know that's a very expensive process (since you have to go state by state) and I know you guys were thinking about doing it. How did that end up playing out?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to hear about the shutdown. FWIW, I'm impressed how open you're being, about profitability as well as money-raised ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777010 ). Btw, apparently you have a decent amount of traffic ( http://siteanalytics.compete.com/tipjoy.com/ ). Is the problem that very few of your visitors convert to tippers?
Compete measures iframe includes or javascript widgets - meaning our widgets on 3rd party sites. That traffic is roughly correct in direction, but totally wrong for the volume to tipjoy.com itself. But that doesn't really matter, because it is a service - one usable almost entirely without visiting tipjoy.com. The twitter integration, for example, is completely unmeasured by compete. Finally, traffic is a poor metric…
You said, if you were profitable, you wouldn't be shutting down. But if you think there should be a way to make social payments work then don't you think its just a matter of time when you would be profitable.
I mean minimum profitability also doesn't really justify what is called in other posts the 'opportunity cost', but if you are working on something big and still believe there is customer value then profitability will come eventually.
And if that belief is still there then maybe just buckle down for sometime in a paying gig and then go back again. It might take your mind of it for sometime which might actually give you some good insights on how to take it ahead.
I though, still understand that there could be other personal reasons for you to do this, in which case please feel free to not respond.
Thanks again for the post and best of luck for the future.
Sad. The thing about "ramen" profitability is there's another level to be achieved after that, which I refer to as "opportunity cost" profitability. It's often much more challenging, and I sense it being an issue in this article.
Actually that's an excellent point that I don't see mentioned enough. Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost - ie, how much you'd be making if you were working in a "real job" - is indeed very hard to reach. Anyone can be "ramen profitable", defining that as say, under $1k a month. In fact, in actual good countries, you don't need to do anything at all to be able to eat. Australia will pay you $1k/month just…
Interesting thought. One can make a (conceptual) ladder with "ramen profitable" being rung 1 and "opportunity profitable" being rung 2.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually that's an excellent point that I don't see mentioned enough. Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost - ie, how much you'd be making if you were working in a "real job" - is indeed very hard to reach. Anyone can be "ramen profitable", defining that as say, under $1k a month. In fact, in actual good countries, you don't need to do anything at all to be able to eat. Australia will pay you $1k/month just…
"Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost" Interesting thought. One can make a (conceptual) ladder with "ramen profitable" being rung 1 and "opportunity profitable" being rung 2.
Sad. The thing about "ramen" profitability is there's another level to be achieved after that, which I refer to as "opportunity cost" profitability. It's often much more challenging, and I sense it being an issue in this article.
We weren't ramen profitable. We ran out of money and didn't have a good environment or case for raising more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compete measures iframe includes or javascript widgets - meaning our widgets on 3rd party sites. That traffic is roughly correct in direction, but totally wrong for the volume to tipjoy.com itself. But that doesn't really matter, because it is a service - one usable almost entirely without visiting tipjoy.com. The twitter integration, for example, is completely unmeasured by compete. Finally, traffic is a poor metric…
Thanks for being so open and honest about the whole thing. You said, if you were profitable, you wouldn't be shutting down. But if you think there should be a way to make social payments work then don't you think its just a matter of time when you would be profitable. I mean minimum profitability also doesn't really justify what is called in other posts the 'opportunity cost', but if you are working on something big…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually that's an excellent point that I don't see mentioned enough. Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost - ie, how much you'd be making if you were working in a "real job" - is indeed very hard to reach. Anyone can be "ramen profitable", defining that as say, under $1k a month. In fact, in actual good countries, you don't need to do anything at all to be able to eat. Australia will pay you $1k/month just…
>Australia will pay you $1k/month just to not be a criminal FWIW, this isn't strictly true, at least not in the last 10 years. Provided you are not disabled or retired, Australia will only really pay you ~$1k/month while you demonstrably look for work, or while you are an undergraduate student doing your first degree.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We weren't ramen profitable. We ran out of money and didn't have a good environment or case for raising more.
Just out of curiosity: Are you dissolving the corporation (and YC involvement) or are you continuing with YC involvement for a future venture?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually that's an excellent point that I don't see mentioned enough. Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost - ie, how much you'd be making if you were working in a "real job" - is indeed very hard to reach. Anyone can be "ramen profitable", defining that as say, under $1k a month. In fact, in actual good countries, you don't need to do anything at all to be able to eat. Australia will pay you $1k/month just…
"Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost" Interesting thought. One can make a (conceptual) ladder with "ramen profitable" being rung 1 and "opportunity profitable" being rung 2.
Getting "ramen profitable" helps give a business owner confidence, which we call "the first brick wall of business". The only way out of this in a positive, growth direction is to invest in the right things and get profitable - and that means genuinely profitable, not just paying yourself $12K/yr and ignoring the opportunity income.
Failure to do so will eventually mean you run out of energy, even if you don't run out of money. Tipjoy, alas, seems to have done the latter before the former.