

Dear Jim Gaffigan, Louis C.K. paid $35k for his website. We'll do yours for $0. - reso
http://dearjimgaffigan.com/

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blhack
Cool idea guys, but poor execution. Here is some free* advice:

-The design on your website is terrible. You need to fix this immediately. This just looks like a tumblr post, or a twitter stream or something. Actually, it looks like a "The Oatmeal" comic. It's unbecoming. Go look at the design of companies that do stuff like this, evaluate why they do these things, and why you should too.

-Drop the "look how hip we are" photos. You get to post photos like that when you're talking about launching your _next_ multi-million-dollar company, not when you're offering to work for free.

-Post some examples of stuff that you've designed. Post examples of times you've worked with payment processors and dealt with potentially multi-millions-of-dollars worth of transactions.

-Post some examples of stuff you've built that has been at the scale we're talking here. Vaguely alluding to your friend embarrassing himself in front of Mark Zuckerberg isnt' really a good example of why your service isn't going to come grinding to a halt when it gets some traffic.

*And now about that astericks. If you do any of the things I listed here, please give me a portion of the money you make in the future. Here is how to get ahold of me: <http://thingist.com/users/Ryan>

edit: guys. This:
[https://twitter.com/#!/RossRobinson/status/17026182091597824...](https://twitter.com/#!/RossRobinson/status/170261820915978240)

Several times a day for a week?

Not okay. Give it a rest. At this point I'm sure he's seen it and is probably
annoyed with you.

edit2: I found the site that you're trying to launch:
<http://launch.matinee.io/>

You'd probably be better served to host this there. Now it looks like you're
trying to start offering this as a service to a lot of people, and you want
Jim Gaffigan to be the first.

That's cool, and that sounds a lot better than "We're two guys who like to
drink beer and play in the snow. Trust us with your millions"

~~~
reso
Thanks for the great feedback. The tone of the site is meant to be
lighthearted, so as to appeal to a comedian. We're not aiming this at a
corporation wanting to entrust us with their millions, but a particular person
with a good sense of humor. Sorry that didn't come through. Its also just a
hook; obviously he wouldn't hire us based on this site alone.

The launch page as it exists right now is not really related to this campaign.
We've just been using it to a/b test marketing language so far.

I totally agree the design is crap, after all, I made it myself!

~~~
zaidf
Remember, _Jim_ is the comedian. He's probably not looking to hire comedians
like him to run what's in his mind a bunch of geeky shit. So yeah, being
lighthearted is okay, but not at the expense of losing your cred as someone
serious.

~~~
leviathant
This, a thousand times this. Jim's good at being funny, he needs someone who's
good at providing a solid online venue for promoting his upcoming release.

Take a good long look through the website for Version Industries, the guys who
worked with Louis CK. I've known Caspar for years online, and I still have no
idea what he looks like. But I can see from this website that he does good
work.

------
eggbrain
I'll be frank, if I was Jim Gaffigan, I wouldn't hire you.

The reason for me is twofold: The asterisk, and the lack of product.

The Asterisk: You make it very hard to understand what "Free*" actually means.
When you later say "we'll need to take a small portion of revenue..." a lot of
red flags go up in mind. What if I want to deploy the product on my own
server, where I will take care of the bandwidth and other costs? Will you
still give me your product for free, since the only money you asked for was to
cover bandwidth?

The Lack of Product: I don't see a demo (tell me if I'm wrong) showing how you
have this turnkey "Louie CK model" solution up and running. If you don't have
that, that means I'll be your guinea pig as your first customer. If I'm
putting a product out there, I'm not willing to chance being a guinea pig
because if problems occur (data stolen, server outtages, etc) it's my
reputation that will suffer as a result.

~~~
shawnc
I was at this point of thinking 6 years ago - "Hey I know i'll find the
content makers and i'll do allt he other work, and we'll split profits. It'll
all work out so great because i'll make them so popular, but really I am
totally expecting them to do all the work of getting people there".

It's a bad way to start a 'business'. It's a bad way to move forward on an
idea. And it's a surefire way of setting yourself up to be looked at as
worth... wait for it... nothing.

Instead of trying to entice him to pay you nothing, entice him to pay you 35k.
Wouldn't that get you so much further in his eyes and also, in yours? Wouldn't
that give you so much more runway to actually do the amazing job you're
expecting of yourself, and also the one you're setting Jim Gaffigan up to
expect of you also?

I see things like that, and I immediately think amatuer - because I was right
there, thinking that way. And I didn't achieve anything of substance until I
woke up from silly dreams of making it big by jumping on the backs of giants.

~~~
jcc80
Agreed. This is a good deal for someone like me who wouldn't want to spend
$35k, nobody knows me and I could take a flier on some random guys. But, if
I'm a famous comedian, I'm looking for someone I can trust who has done this
type of work before. Not the lowest price.

------
quanticle
_We'll do the initial web design for free, but you're going to be so popular
that we'll need to take a small portion of revenue so that we don't go
bankrupt from bandwidth fees! We can work this out later._

So, in other words, if Mr. Gaffigan isn't careful, he's going to end up paying
a lot _more_ than $35k for his site.

~~~
MichaelApproved
The $35k CK paid for his site didn't include continuing cost of continued
hosting, bandwidth and administration. These guys seem to be offering to cover
those costs indefinitely. So apples to apples, development cost is $0 compared
to $35k.

------
Iaks
Isn't the point of self-publishing to cut out the intermediary that is taking
a percentage of the artist's sales? Given that impetus I struggle with how
this would be an attractive offer especially since Jim Gaffigan is more likely
than not able to afford the $35k price tag.

------
chrisacky
This is one of the worst executed pitches I've ever seen.

A few things totally infuriate me.

1\. > The bate and switch. Using an asterix to play down your "free" "fee" is
not cool.

2\. > The site design is sub-par (this didn't annoy me, just a constructive
criticism.) No one should be criticised for having poor design skills, heck I
suck.

3\. > You have posted this story multiple times. This isn't cool. This is the
aspect that is the worst.

4\. > This isn't some good will gesture, it's a business idea sugar coated as
some ploy to make money.

5\. > 5%?!! (I especially thought of 5 points so I could say five on point
five!)

------
ralphsaunders
Your new startup designs websites but doesn't have a designer? I don't think
you've thought this through.

------
csomar
The design isn't disastrous but it looks cheap. Why didn't you invest more on
the design? This could attract both his eyes and the community ones.

~~~
dmix
It looks like it was made by two engineers with very minimal design skills.

Thats how I would put it politely.

------
k33n
This reminds me of some of the bad ideas I've had when intoxicated.

------
drawkbox
Louis CK paid 35k so that he didn't have to give a piece of the revenue. A
better model would be to offer both ways in case a creator wants 100%
ownership. Transaction fees, production costs, etc are enough of a cut.

------
newobj
Why not just build the site and then offer it to him for free. I'm not sure
why people think putting together these "dearxxxxx" websites is any
better/different than a cold-call or email. If you'd built the actual site and
offered to hand it over to him for free that would have been a whole other
story.

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wyck
The color scheme, the shadows, the fonts, the horror, guys seriously hire a
designer or UI person. A crucial link is missing, the one the USER sees, you
know with their eyeballs.

------
mvkel
So, $35,000 one-time, or potentially way more than that long-term? I think
I'll take the first one, thanks.

------
kev009
Seriously, GTFO. This is disingenuous.

Trying to make money by doing this kind of thing isn't wrong, but that's a
private negotiation with the talent. You don't get to pretend you're doing it
for "free" for upvotes and exposure.

------
workhorse
The biggest issue with this is that they don't understand Jim Gaffigan's
comedy.

The way to be humorous with something like this is to use a skit from one of
his early comedy skits with a witty twist.

------
timClicks
Liked the post until the needless mention of blowjobs came up.

~~~
reso
Apologies if we offended, it is supposed to be humorous.

~~~
kenrikm
Ok I'll take that, a bit of advice I would redact that line before you reach
your "mark" unless you're 100% sure he's going to take it the way you intended
it (as a joke)

~~~
reso
Yeah, I took it out. Its not really his brand of humour, anyway.

------
cleverjake
Dupe - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3618061>

------
prawn
Flagged. Same site submitted by the same user under a different domain,
presumably because the last one was marked [dead].

------
laconian
Worth every penny!

------
rhizome
New URL? This was up earlier this week.

------
funkah
There are times when I'm very thankful I'm not a designer. This is one of
those times.

------
peterwwillis
Are you kidding? If i'm Jim Gaffigan i'm not gonna hire a couple of LMFAO
rejects to design my website unless i'm paying them in Hot Pockets. Which
would be disgusting.

Hooooooot Pockets.

------
jack-r-abbit
wait... didn't I see this yesterday right before it was dead. Dude... this is
a crappy idea and it makes the site owners look like amateurs.

And for our next trick we'll make this calculator spell "BOOBIES". hehehe

 _lame_

