My first reaction was that this is creative and interesting. Impressive that you did it in 24 hours.
The validation use case for Upboat makes sense... but it seems strictly weaker than, say, Kickstarter for validation. Emails mean much less than payments; you could get 1000 emails but then have a low conversion rate on that. If you did the same project on Kickstarter, you'd either fail to reach your goal or reach the goal and have validation that N people want it enough to pay for it. Upboat would be good for checking interest in FOSS projects or something, but then what is your plan to monetize it?
Could also extend it to include a charge for the first month's usage.
Once the requisite number of upboats is met, the funds can be transferred to the idea holder, less a clip of the ticket.
This would also improve confidence that the validation is genuinely representative of user willingness to spend money - if I get 1000 upboats for a new service, but I plan on charging $49 a month for it, I still have no idea if I've validated people willing to pay $49 for it. Pledging that money and then collecting it at goal reached (Kickstarter model) would help alleviate this, and I think make for much more compelling investor discussions.
I think for this to work he needs to aim at the sweet spot that Kickstarter doesn't serve: new businesses and business services.
And he could charge per email received. He wouldn't make as much as Kickstarter does but perhaps down the line he could switch the business model to be more like KS where users "purchase" rewards.
Comments
My first reaction was that this is creative and interesting. Impressive that you did it in 24 hours.
The validation use case for Upboat makes sense... but it seems strictly weaker than, say, Kickstarter for validation. Emails mean much less than payments; you could get 1000 emails but then have a low conversion rate on that. If you did the same project on Kickstarter, you'd either fail to reach your goal or reach the goal and have validation that N people want it enough to pay for it. Upboat would be good for checking interest in FOSS projects or something, but then what is your plan to monetize it?
Could also extend it to include a charge for the first month's usage.
Once the requisite number of upboats is met, the funds can be transferred to the idea holder, less a clip of the ticket.
This would also improve confidence that the validation is genuinely representative of user willingness to spend money - if I get 1000 upboats for a new service, but I plan on charging $49 a month for it, I still have no idea if I've validated people willing to pay $49 for it. Pledging that money and then collecting it at goal reached (Kickstarter model) would help alleviate this, and I think make for much more compelling investor discussions.
I think for this to work he needs to aim at the sweet spot that Kickstarter doesn't serve: new businesses and business services.
And he could charge per email received. He wouldn't make as much as Kickstarter does but perhaps down the line he could switch the business model to be more like KS where users "purchase" rewards.