@whit537 - marketing guy's opinion

I would have the front page tell a story. Something like. OpenSSL Heartbleed bug affected millions of users because millions of software developers use this free software. The team behind it only received $2,000 a year in donations prior to the bug being found. There are 10,000s of software projects that you use every day building your tech stack. You should be investing in the development of those tools by helping to sponsor those projects and "tipping" the developers directly for their work.

I might then put a table that lists server projects, language based projects, database projects - that dives people into the next layer. For instance Lua -> Lua page with some of the big Lua projects listed.

Tell a story. You don't have to pay "enterprise licenses" for free software, but the tools you use need constant development. Anything you give helps those tools get better.

Thanks! Want to join our marketing team? :-)

One way or another, I've added your comments with a +1 to https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/1074.

As with any major public facing change, do it sooner rather than later, because the later it is, the more people will know you as "Gittip", so the cost of the change will be larger.

Sit down with 2-3 people (including someone not in the Gittip loop!) this weekend and list all of the nouns and verbs that you associate with Gittip's mission, its market, what users do on Gittip, and what people achieve through Gittip. Then pick one of those. Register the domain. If it's taken, use 37signals' approach of appending "app", "hq" or some other unique identifier to it. It will only take up as much of your time as you allow it to.

But is it holding us back from reaching sustainability for Gittip itself?

I believe it is. You say one of your problems is "we’re not doing well enough at engaging with people about our product". Perhaps I am part of the group you would like to engage, I'm not sure. I read a lot of Hacker News and I recognise your website, so I must have been to it before, but when I saw this post I thought "what's Gittip again?"

Honestly, I can't even figure out how to pronounce Gittip. Is it git-tip? When I try to say it that way I get tongue-tied over the double-t. Gid'ip, with a kind of southern drawl? If I was trying to tell someone about it I would say "there's this neat crowdfunding patronage type site called g-i-t-t-i-p". Or just type it into their computer/phone. That's not where you want to be. Names are what we hang ideas on, and I can't even hang a sound on yours.

Speaking of ideas, I feel like there is a fundamental disconnect between the passion and grandiosity of your mission and what I see on your front page. "Sustainable crowdfunding" is accurate, but uninspiring. What happened to "gratitude, generosity, and love"? Your blog post sounds like you're trying to remake the world based on those principles. That's a hell of a vision. A crazy vision. The kind of vision that either goes down in flames or inspires thousands. That's the vision that defines what you're doing and why your organisation exists. So why can I find literally no mention of it anywhere on your site?

You mentioned Patreon, so I looked them up. Front and centre on their page: "Be a patron of the arts." There, in one sentence, they have described why someone would care about what they do. A patron of the arts. That's who I could be if I sign up for Patreon. Reviving the noble tradition of patronage. Supporting artists and the arts community. Joining the cultural movement of the future. What a thing to be a part of! What am I a part of with Gittip? Sustainability? You can do so much better.

I suppose my point is that I believe at this point you don't need to improve your product to grow, but rather get more people interested in your product to grow. Like a software project where everyone just writes some code and hopes it links up in the end, I think the way Gittip presents itself has been under-designed, and isn't coherent enough to achieve its goals.

I think you raise a good point here -- Gittip is run by committee and consensus, via Github issues and pull requests. The Linux kernel is developed via community as well, but has a strong leader at the helm to direct things. In contrast to this, Gittip feels like a bunch of people kind of doing their own thing, which leads to a general impression of aimlessness.

I suspect that branding and marketing efforts shouldn't be run by +1's on issues, but by someone taking charge, picking a direction, and running with it.

I've been following Gittip's progress for a while, as a student funding someone through this isnt a priority for myself to be honest, I've started working now though so I'll have no excuses! Though I think the name means nothing to people outside of tech. I guess the decision to change the name depends on whether you're targeting nontechnical people who appreciate a developer's work.

I can't answer that. Do you think changing the name might make more people use Gittip to contribute money to each other and eventually to Gittip itself? If yes, then do it. This is just my gut feeling from looking at the site, trying to use it, trying to explain it to friends, etc.

I might put it this way, just as a means of transferring my intuitions: it's very hard to imagine a large, successful company with your current scope using the name "Gittip."

I have the same reaction when I see "Gittip", I find it weird, and then think "Am I tipping someone for their work on Github?". Patreon is a little clearer in terms of naming, I guess.

FWIW I agree with all the UX feedback but think that the name's great. I wouldn't change it. Also you've got brand equity in it now it would be hard to argue that with zero marketing budget you could outdo it at this stage (plus it's great :)

Best of luck with it, great story!

Thanks! :-)