
Our path to $1M in Sales (2013) - Jarred
http://wiwillia.com/post/41810471731/our-path-to-1m-in-sales?hn=true
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shostack
What I'm curious about is what that original MVP looked like. How did the cash
collection get sorted out? Was it just dumping it into a Stripe account, and
then any refunds for situations where there weren't enough orders would be
manually processed?

Also, I wish the article talked more about the affiliate program. A while
back, I remember a distinct uptick in the number of stories and content
marketing spam hitting various startup forums around how people were making it
rich with Teespring and Facebook ads. It was very obvious it was the next fad
in the affiliate marketing space.

How much of that was a conscious marketing push by the Teespring crew vs. just
something that sprung up on its own? The "get rich quick" crowd was all over
it, and I can't help but think that was a big leader in initial growth as well
as content that drove organic traffic back to them (perhaps one step removed
via an affiliate).

~~~
no1youknowz
> Was it just dumping it into a Stripe account, and then any refunds for
> situations where there weren't enough orders would be manually processed?

I'd love some confirmation on this too. I had a protracted email exchange with
some members of the Stripe support team which I didn't find favourable. Mainly
because they didn't understand my actual business. But it lead me to choose a
competitor who was actually happy to work with me.

Their main issue was the amount of refunds that I may be getting due to the
business model. At the time of the email exchange I hadn't even started to
operate!

So with respect to refunds. What's the operating procedure? If you get too
many, do they suddenly close your account? In my instance, if my current
provider were to close my account. I'd be out of business, instantly!

That's why I didn't go with Stripe. Which is a shame, as I wanted to use them,
as I heard some good things about them.

Thanks

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shostack
Out of curiosity, what did you go with in the end?

It almost seems like some sort of escrow type service is more appropriate. Is
there anything like that with a similar developer-friendly platform/API like
Stripe to facilitate crowd-funding? I'd honestly be surprised if there wasn't
at this point.

~~~
latchkey
I built an online registration service. We needed to be able to do refunds
easily (free) in case the event was canceled. We used WePay because at the
time, they were the only company that offered free refunds.

WePay has been through several incarnations/pivots over the years, not sure
how they are now as I've moved onto another business now.

~~~
no1youknowz
Thanks for the suggestion about WePay. Sent them an email requesting more
information.

