Ask YC: What do you think of my new startup?
Please could you spare a few minutes to check out: http://foobets.com and give me your honest opinion.
The basic idea is to allow a community of users to 'pitch' and 'bet' on predictions in tech, sport, politics etc.
The first few hundred folk to sign up get a free Pro Account, which I'm considering charging at $10 per year, but might give away free if I decide to ignore 37 Signals advice and follow PG's strategy to grow as quickly as possible.
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There is nothing wrong with trying to make a buck. But the disparity of programmers' mindsets is amazing.
That said, I love, use and appreciate open source. It's just not the only answer, and many people working on open source are compensated by a sponsor (IBM, Sun, etc.). Is it fair to pick on someone for expecting to be paid for their work? World of Warcraft isn't much more than a time waster.
In fact, if I were Zuckenberg, I'd give a fat chunk of Facebook stock to various free software projects such as PHP, etc. Moreover, I believe it should become a tradition, those guys are the reason why "startups are so cheap!" (quote) these days.
I wish the best developers got paid the most, but the reality is, it seems to go to the ones who are best at getting people to part with their hard-earned cash.
Let people bet with paypal in every prediction, just $1 per bet. Winners share the pot and you keep 5% of proceedings.
Make a triple choice so odds are more distributed Yes,No,Tie and use simple icons for one-click-bet (like digg).
Put sports, lots of them (but don't over saturate).
Keep it simple as it is right now.
Put a section at the top with the top ten predictions by bets, for marketing (one million dollars bet on obama/mccain will draw a lot of attention).
You will charge for VIP accounts a year later for extra services but you won't need that money, you'll be rich already.
Good luck and remember me if you hit the jackpot.
I know you will!
Don't let people post predictions to the front page, you be the filter and the editor, you are the decider.
Let people buy 10, 20 or 50 "tokens" to fill their account so they don't have to go through paypal everytime they bet.
Allow a maximum of tokens per certain period of time (100 a month) so people don't get addicted and ruin your site with lawsuits.
Also, keep suspicious "winners" at bay with algorythms.
Pay prizes directly to users accounts (not back to paypal) so they "reinvest" again playing, so the money is always in your control and you will make lots of money in interests, (you could give away your comission if you want so the whole pot goes to the players).
If they decide to cash out, send the money to their paypal account. Not everybody will, so less overhead at the end.
If paypal is not an option try SMS
1-800-FOOBET * ITEM * USERID * 1|2|3
$1 per SMS, work it out with the telcos.
SMS is the new micropayment, believe me.
Giving away a few hundred Pro accounts may get you so far, but as soon as you stop you will come to a brick wall - I can't see people paying for this.
Though I do like the idea a lot! ;)
Your site is the cleanest of the ones I've seen, so that may be a win. Make it easy to embed predictions in websites, and make an API for people to build mashups with.
As others have said, though...I don't think many people will pay $10/mo unless there's something much more compelling that we haven't seen yet.
Oh, a "Closing Soon" search would be nice, too.
Sure, might have some legal hoops to jump through, but an online betting on tech things could be fun and profitable.
Positioning it as something that you can make money with, makes it a whole different thing IMHO.
As a suggestion, I think the site could be little more fun/game-y instead of looking like a list of articles. And maybe make the current hot/popular prediction be the most prominent thing on the page asking 'Do you think <link>X</link> or <link>Y</link> will happen", so a new person on the site immediately has something to see and do.
Good luck!