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I wanted to use Stripe for prohibited business which falls under fetish. I didn't know that it falls under prohibited business because I did not check, so my fault there. They asked for a review and told me that it was prohibited. I agreed and told them I would not use Stripe for that business.
Now they want to close my account. I asked them not to close my account because I would not use my account for prohibited business but they still want to close it.
So I wanted to use it for prohibited business, they reviewed it, I didn't use it and now they want to close it because I wanted to use it.
I'm tempted to ask them why they allow OnlyFans which is pure porn and falls under prohibited business. I know it's because of money but still.
What was it? How did you succeed? What did you do? Please share with people and me.
1. My country is too small and market is small. You can do something here, but everything is so limited that it's terrible. 3.5M people and then when you target certain people who wants your product or service or app or website, you get super small amount of people
2. The Balkans (group of countries around my country where people speak the same language) is a better story, but every nation is so isolated. I asked yourself, how often do I use products/app/websites from the other countries and vice versa? Very rarely. Every country is in its own bubble.
3. European market. Every country has its own language, culture, mentality, etc. it's hard to get into those countries especially if you don't know the lang.
4. The US market is great because it's unified, it's easier to go viral, the language is the same, purchasing power is great, but it's a bit of a problem because me as an European don't know their habits and thinking, I have no connections or friends there, I don't know where and how to start. The market is saturated, something is happening there all the time, and now you have to break through with something new.
5. The UK is ok market, they are more related and similar to the USA. For example OnlyFans is from the UK, MillionDollarHomePage the same etc.
I had quite a lot of partners, it didn't really work out. But I think it's me, I think I function better alone. Everything I tried failed, and I tried exactly in those countries that I mentioned. Worst of all, I wasn't persistent enough.
I have the feeling like I'm trying impossible. I had no money or capital, everything I did I relied on word of mouth, but that's shit. Without good capital that will support the marketing, it's all a shot in a dark.
Sounds like I'm complaining here or trying to find excuses but I'm not, I'm still trying to make it. I'm just confused, I don't know what to pursue, where to try, which market to try
Did you have any stupid ideas that you actually executed and how it went?
1. Gay adult project
I am gay and have pinpointed what bothers us in the gay community and what can be improved. It is a gay hookup site but with a significant major improvement. I think that could really improve the hookup scene in the gay community. I have no business model or way to monetize it at this moment. it is a location-based so kinda hard to market because I have to promote it city by city. I do have some adult followers on my Twitter and I started to write the blog. Here I know exactly who to target and who needs this service. Just not sure how to target those people, but I have some ideas.
2. Mainstream project
This is a mainstream project with a clear business model and earning plan. It is not location-based, everybody can jump in and participate. One side pays while the other side gets paid. Here I don't know how to target an audience, I have some ideas. This one is either "it goes viral or it doesn't". I don't really know if people need this or not, but I know that people want to earn money, while other people want to pay someone to do something or to see someone do something. This project is technically well-defined, but business-wise not so much, the purpose is not really clear for me.
If I may, I could share landing page of each project so you could get a better idea about what it is, my description here could be vague I'm not here to talk about the features of each project or competitors, I'm here to get advice on which one I should pursue.
It means 1M messages need to reach other 1M users and 1M push notifications need to be sent. I presume all those requests go to the queue so the response is returned faster and user experience is better.
But how do those companies handle 1M queue jobs, since most of those messages need to reach other users almost in realtime, without much delay.
I quit because they are boring, content and people are boring. I'm 30 now and before I had a group of friends with similar interests: high school and college. I was meeting new people with also similar interests so they were posting what was interesting to me and vice versa.
It was fun to be on FB, IG and such. But now when I lost touch with 99% of people it got boring. Some of them post pics of their kids, some of their job and so on. I don't care, I can't relate to that. I don't even talk to 99% of the people, so it turned into stalking each other.
Also following celebrities is not interesting to me, they live in totally different dimension. I feel like my "online social life" is dead.
- Church givings - not sure how it's called, but in Christianity while being in Church a person goes around and asks for the money from people, so people give a dollar or few cents. So some kind of app that does that on global scale for the Church
- Would you do it for a dollar? - I even coded this. Basically person can ask someone else: would you _____ for a dollar? And if other person does it and uploads the proof, he gets the money
- You have a dollar? - As beggars beg in real life for a dollar, how about begging online for a dollar
- iEgg - just selling egg with Apple's logo for a high price. This might not be possible because of the logo, copyrights and shit
- Messaging with push notifications only - nowadays you can reply directly from push notifications. So no chat lists, no list of messages or such. You reply directly via push notification
- Don't meet in person - some kind of dating site that forces you not to meet in person, so everything must stay online
- Stupid people repellent - like some kind of mace or such, if someone annoys you, you spray them or around to repel them
- Alien emoji - regular emojis but with double eyes and green color, like this ::D ::) ;;) They are more strong than regular, so if you type ::D it means you are extra happy
- Social network where everything is fake - fake followers, fake likes. Like a hyper networks, you become popular extra fast and gain followers fast. You get likes and notifications from fake people, boosting your dopamine
I created it because I read news and I hate reading Bible-size articles full of unnecessary information just to find the main point
It has a purpose, it really does solve a problem: * Save people's time * Inform you as fast as possible * Give you the main point of an article in 5 sentences * Save you from clickbait or half clickbait titles
Starting my own news website without any connections or audience doesn't make sense, also I'm bad at marketing. I firmly believe this is a very good solution. I just don't know yet how to utilize it?
Should I offer the power of algorithm to some podcast that have audience and their own news website, should I offer it to someone who wants to build a news website...
A year ago I found that project but I dropped it because people told me: "Don't do it, not worth it". I mean I did launch it but for my own country which is really small.
The project is about summarizing news articles, you know pulling out the most relevant information from Bible-sized articles, saving people's time, and solving clickbait problems. With that, I solved the supplier problem, I just need to scrape news sites and have a supply. Thus it makes it easier to drive customers.
Also from a development perspective, it is super fun, I can keep improving my original summarization algorithm. So I'm bringing that project back to life
Yesterday I found out that an article was written about one of my users and my web app. I was amazed to be honest, didn't expect that at all
https://theunited.news/article/this-tiktok-influencer-earned-dollar10000-from-challenges/4567
It was super hard and challenging, coding all the time, and taking small breaks to eat and rest. But I made it, after straight 48 hours of no-sleep, only coding. I finished my MVP.
This was the first time in my life that I did something like that and to be able to finish it in only 2 days. It was crazy!