
Ask HN: Two options for Pivoting my growing/dying startup - johnnyb00y
I&#x27;ll try and keep it as short as possible, I would really appreciate any advice or feedback.<p>So after two PH launches and 2k+ Users in two months, I&#x27;ve realised that a platform to share articles and connect them with sources doesn&#x27;t drive enough engagement to achieve the goal of Readory being the go-to place to find interesting articles sourced by a community. Rather it&#x27;s now become a platform for marketers to promote stuff...<p>www.readory.com will be completely overhauled into one of two things based on what the HN community and our Users think.<p>Here are the two options for Readory:<p>Option 1 - Readory becomes a centralised publishing platform for writers who wish to earn $$$. Currently, there are no platforms similar to youtube for creators where a writer can earn proper $$$ moolah for their content. As a bootstrapped business the idea would be to go head to hips with Medium allowing bloggers to publish their content and earn some money from it. Basically, I would connect advertisements to a Users article (if they wish to monetise) and dish out 95% of the total that article makes. (Adsense Host perhaps)<p>Option 2 - The original model of sharing articles stand-put but rather than one link being shared many links would be collated into an &quot;edition&#x2F;collection&quot; in order to have more original and shareable content. The idea is that a User can collate some articles from around the web, leave a commentary and turn it into a sort of shareable magazine. An example would be &quot;Interviews with Developers turned Founders&quot; a small commentary I&#x27;ve left and perhaps 5 of my favourite articles related to that subject. This would hopefully increase the quality and engagement issue.<p>Would really appreciate any feedback.
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onion2k
_The idea is that a User can collate some articles from around the web, leave
a commentary and turn it into a sort of shareable magazine._

This has been attempted many, many times. As far as I know no one has ever
managed to make it work profitably.

Interesting sidenote (well, I think so) - Bastian Lehmann started a platform
called "curated.by" for collecting articles, videos, tweets, etc before he
started Postmates. I saw him do a presentation about it once (as part of a
Difference Engine accelerator demo thing).

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johnnyb00y
Really? I'll have a deeper look online for some (unless you know any off the
top of your head).

Definitely an interesting sidenote indeed, I'm off to the waybackmachine!

I've got some ideas which (hopefully) could make it work more profitably. Lots
more people are paying for subscriptions newsletters nowadays perhaps timing
can play a role.

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Cypher
> Currently, there are no platforms similar to youtube for creators where a
> writer can earn proper $$$ moolah for their content.

False: Steemit.com

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johnnyb00y
I don't think Steemit will become mainstream enough to be considered for that,
there are too many issues with their ingenious yet majorly flawed hierarchical
structure and payment model

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ddtaylor
What is a PH launch?

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skinnymuch
Most likely being posted on Product Hunt and being visible in the list of
posted things for that day.

