We built a world map where websites sponsor countries — but getting the first real sponsors is hard
We’re building The Map Challenge, a live world map where a maker, business or creator chooses a country and a public location, then publishes a website through a one-time sponsorship.
Each confirmed sponsorship gives points to that country, creating a friendly global ranking. The map is free to explore; publishing a website starts at $5 with no subscription.
The product is live and the flow works, but our real challenge is distribution and social proof. People have opened the sponsorship flow and reached the payment step, but the confirmed contributions so far have only been our own tests.
I’d value honest feedback: which side feels more compelling — the public website marker or helping a country climb the ranking? And what would you change to make the first real sponsorship feel worthwhile?
The payment-step behavior makes the question more interesting than the usual “which idea sounds better?” test. What are you looking for in the early users to decide which of those two motivations is actually strong enough to build the product around?
I’m looking more at behaviour than stated preference: which message gets people to open the sponsorship flow, whether they choose an unclaimed country or one that already has sponsors, and what kind of links they submit.
My current hypothesis is that the strongest motivation will be either visibility for a project or the appeal of being the first sponsor of a country. Once there are enough genuine purchases, I’ll compare those patterns and ask buyers one short question about what convinced them.
That makes sense. The behavior signals should tell you much more reliably than stated preference which motivation is actually driving the purchase.