

Tipjoy (YC winter 08) Founders on Passing the Hat - echair
http://gigaom.com/2008/07/27/tipjoy/

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demandred
@ivankirigin: any thought of changing the mascot?

as a consumer -- amazing as it sounds -- i would not trust something with that
silly logo with my money, without doing some pretty extensive research.

in general, I feel that the look and feel of the logo, design, and mascot are
just ...wrong. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but for a micro-payments
service (or any that service that deals with real, hard, cash) I would surmise
that presenting a reputable foot forward would go a long way in building trust
and brand equity.

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ivankirigin
The front page is consumer facing. We have plans for another page that will
show more directly the other ways to use Tipjoy.

I think reputation will be largely built by distribution, and the mascot will
not significantly affect distribution. Also, the star on the turtle's back is
our favicon and used in places like friendfeed.

~~~
ivankirigin
Also, I think a MUCH bigger problem is that we have tip in the name but want
to do more than tipping.

~~~
demandred
well I didn't like the name either, but I thought maybe it made sense for the
tipping aspect. Seems like you're building a great product, and
branding/positioning/messaging is obviously very important for what you two
are doing.

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iamelgringo
It's really nice to see other married couples pursue the startup life
together.

~~~
ivankirigin
I know two other married founders sets, and they love it too.

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babul
It's really cool to build a community around your product and even cooler that
they build things for you e.g. plugins.

Just goes to show if you make things people want, they will make things you
want too. :)

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gaika
Glad that they are not passing the hat :) Title is so misleading.

Recommendations that are backed by something tangible is the future of the
social news sites. That not only eliminates all kinds of cheating, but aligns
your stated interests with with what is really valuable. The site that is
making recommendations can also take a cut from the tip, so there's no need to
spam everybody with irrelevant ads.

~~~
ivankirigin
We are actually looking for funding, so even the incorrect interpretation is
somewhat correct.

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Prrometheus
This is the most ambitious startup that I can remember seeing out of
YCombinator. That may increase their chances of failure (I'm not sure if this
is true), but it also raises the maximum level of success. These guys already
have a revenue plan and they could get really big really fast.

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breck
I miss the Total Amount Tipped number they used to display on their site. It
was an easy way to check on how their model was working out. Understandable if
they'd rather not share, but it was cool.

~~~
babul
Too many envious eyes? ...people often think an idea sucks until they see how
much money it makes, then suddenly it looks good and the competitors begin to
mushroom up. Hence, sometimes it is not good to give out too much information?

~~~
axod
I'd love that to be true, but I don't think it is in this instance. Unless
something is making millions, a lot of people may see it as a failure, even if
it's still growing and adapting etc.

I seem to remember some blog or comment jumping on tipjoy a bit for only
getting a few thousand dollars in tips since starting or something... Maybe
that's why.

~~~
d0mine
_$2,519.01 (red arrow) is not a large sum of money. Compound that with the
time period indicated by the blue arrow. Elsewhere in the site founders
explain that they charge a 3% transaction fee. In other words they pulled in
$75.57 over 4 months._ </quote>
[http://jeffspost.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/why-didnt-it-
take-...](http://jeffspost.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/why-didnt-it-take-off-
pathology-of-a-floundering-web-20-startup/)

~~~
ivankirigin
That post was a day before our second techcrunch article announcing a large
new set of features. Someone that judges a startup a failure just a few months
after launch doesn't know anything about startups.

