Help finding a differentiator for BuyMeACofee, Ko-Fi, Patreon, type product.
I'm exploring Stripe Connect and want to utilize it in a new project. I'd like to make a donation/sponsor type platform similar to buymeacoffee.com, ko-fi.com, patreon.com, etc. I could just clone one of them but I'm hoping to find ideas on ways to differentiate so people might actually want to use it when I'm done!
Things I've explored:
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Twitter sponsor, when you donate to a user a shoutout with your username is automatically posted to that users wall
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A leaderboard style sponsors where the more you donate to someone the higher your name is on their leaderboard so you can show that you're their "biggest fan"
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Digital collection bowl for churches, makes it easy to collect tithes from your members
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Just a lightweight sponsorship program, similar to Github Sponsors, not really much different here
Any ideas or any thing you wish you had in a platform like this?
Good market. However for each of these features figure out the issue behind it. Issues first. Solutions next.
Has someone ever thought, “Man, I wish there was a way to collect funds for the church digitally?”
Some yes, some no. Then build off of that.
Best of wishes!
It sounds like you've decided on a product without already having a differentiator. The question is: Why? If you have a motivation for choosing this product, then that motivation will be your key differentiator. If you do not, then you probably shouldn't be focusing on this product.
Normally I’d agree, but like I said in the first sentence it’s because I’m learning to use Stripe Connect. I could just learn it in a sandbox/clone application but figured I’d try to put my effort to some use.
These platforms are essentially interchangeable. I use Buy Me A Coffee and wouldn't switch for more or different features.
What all these platforms miss is the most important thing small creators desperately need: visibility, discoverability. All the rest is a minor tweak that's not enough for picking one over another.
A killer feature would be TikTok-like recommendation algorithms that make customers discover new creators and content.
Thats a great idea! I feel like Gumroad really killed it with discovery (I've sold products on there within a day with no marketing), but it's focused on the products not the people.
Yes, I meant something like Gumroad Discover. An additional challenge is to make the platform become a destination for customers, or at least bring a critical mass of customers there.
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This comment was deleted 5 years ago
Unfortunately (for me) Ko-fi changed up their pricing model and now take 0% fees, and just have a premium tier.
I think this is definitely where I'll have to find my idea! Theres basically infinite niches I could dive into. I actually took a look at lagstack previously and thought about trying to make a more generic version where you can upload any data in .csv, json, .xls format and sell your data, I'll dig more into it and see if it could work and find use cases for it.
Thanks for the ideas!
This comment was deleted 5 years ago
Oh you're 100% correct I just saw their 0% platform fees all over their front page but didn't realize that didn't include the shop fees, it does say 5% over on https://more.ko-fi.com/shop.
That's an awesome product, thanks for the link. I;ve also found https://onlysheets.xyz for Google sheets,