

How can I turn my passion into business - xackpot

Hello All, 
   There have been many stories about how people have converted their passion into business. I am one such passionate person who has not yet given his passion any business aspect to it, but would like to. I am the founder of Drawmics.com which is was born out of my passion for sketching without an aim to create something worthwhile. It is just like sketching one's mood. While I wanted to do this, I thought there must be similar people like me who would want to create such casual work of art. So I created a social media platform: Drawmics just like twitter where people would sketch, upload images, art works, comics, etc on Drawmics and share it with other people. I am seeing some traction on Drawmics and people registering into it, but until now there has not been significant increase in the traffic.
    I would appreciate if you can provide your valuable
ideas about how to build a business out of it and monetize
my passion.<p>I have a few questions:
1. How to market it. I have used Stumbleupon, facebook, twitter and tumblr ads, but still don't see the traffic I would like to.<p>2. How should I target my website against people who are participants rather than just passive observers.<p>3. What improvements on the site that you would like to see?<p>4. I have contacted a few webcomic artists as well for uploading their works. Some have accepted and some have turned down the offer. Since I am just a guy with a regular job, I cannot pay them.<p>5. I have used GWT and Php for all the coding, GIMP for graphics and Flash for the sketchpad. Now I am thinking of using SVG and HTML5 canvas for the sketchpad. Would you advise me using any other tools for improving the visibility?<p>Thanks for your time.
Vikrant Ramteke
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anigbrowl
Decide whether your site is primarily about drawing or image sharing. I think
working on the drawing will bring a smaller but more stable community over the
long term; however you have more chance of making a buck with the sharing. I
can't see what you offer for image sharing that Twitpic or something does not,
however.

Then, start over with your user interface, maybe with help from another
person. It loads quickly and smoothly, so I can see you have put in some work.

But visually...I'm sorry, it's ugly. The colors and fonts seem to have been
selected at random and there are too many things competing for my attention.
The first thing I notice is that few or none of the users are paying any
attention to your 'theme of the day,' so maybe the theme is pointless; you can
get rid of multiple UI elements immediately. The center window changes size
depending on the task (browse/search/draw) - very disorienting. And adding
your website to the corner of the picture you uploaded...well I see why you do
it but it's just annoying, and it often covers part of a caption. Make a logo,
make it small, put it in the top left corner.

There is potential, but please work on simplicity and consistency first. Right
now, it's like a meal with 7 courses jammed onto one plate.

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xackpot
Thanks for you comments anigbrowl, My main aim was to have drawing/sketching
capability at the website with sharing feature, but users have also used the
site to upload images. It is different from twitpic in the sense that it
allows one to draw/edit images at the website itself using the sketchpad. And
I think you are right, I need to work on the UI, and hence I have got a
graphic designer friend who is working on redesigning it with uniform colors
and fonts. I am using GWT to code the UI and may be there are some settings
that I have not used which control the changing window sizes. I will spend
some time to fix it. Since I am not a javascript/html person, I found GWT very
easy to use. Do you have any recommendations for any other tools instead of
using GWT?

Putting a logo at the top left corner would be more distracting, don't you
think so? I would rather have it in the bottom right corner. I was thinking of
creating another small strip of image containing the logo and attach it to the
bottom of the main image.

The new design that we are coming up is surely clean, clutter free and more
pleasant to look at. Earlier I was the only person working on it so you can
imagine how tunneled my vision must have become, but now I am getting more
people to work on improving the website.

The new design should give you the feeling of one course at a time of a great
meal :). Thanks again for your comments, I will keep you posted here.

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anigbrowl
Good luck!

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xackpot
Hello, we have launched a new version of the website: Drawmics.com. I would
appreciate your feedback on the same as well as some answers to the questions
from my first mail.

Thanks

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alain94040
Advice number 1: can you reformat your post so it's readable? Thanks.

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xackpot
Reformatted. Thanks.

