
Show HN: Sink or Ship - ship your project in time, or else... - richerd
http://sinkorship.com
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tlrobinson
There's no way I'd pledge to pay a significant enough amount of money to
motivate me to some random people who hacked together a fairly simple app.

On the other hand, I would consider pledging the money to a charity, and
giving a small cut to service that facilitates it.

~~~
bearwithclaws
Hey Tom!

The app doesn't work this way (pledge money). It's simply a tweet scheduler
which charges $5 to make changes every time.

~~~
tlrobinson
I understood that, maybe my terminology was wrong, but you effectively pledge
to pay $5 every time your schedule slips.

I'm not sure $5 is enough motivation, and if it were significantly more I'd
start to question why I was giving this money to the developers of this app,
rather than someone more deserving, like the users who are missing out on
using the product, or a charity.

~~~
bearwithclaws
You have a point.

\- $5 is our first attempt on finding the right balance for most people where
they would be motivated and wouldn't cheat.

\- We definitely thought of giving the money to charity. But we would be more
inclined to use the resource to do something really interesting (more or less
along the lines with "giving it to someone more deserving"), hopefully to
build up a "community of shippers" in long term.

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richerd
Starting is easy, shipping is hard.

I have a folder on my computer with a number of unfinished/unshipped projects.
We created Sink or Ship to address the problem of following though and
shipping what you started.

<http://imgur.com/BdtwZ>

~~~
PawelDecowski
I love the idea and the execution! Well done. It's more of a novelty than a
business but still very impressive.

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thank you! p.s: I'm the other guy who started this project.

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tbgvi
Great idea, instantly reminded me of 'Lose It or Lose It' which is the same
concept but for weight loss (loseitorloseit.com). Putting money on the line is
always a great motivator.

Whenever you get some completed projects it would be cool if there was a
gallery to check them out.

~~~
bearwithclaws
The gallery ("Shipyard", anyone?) is a great idea (there were others here who
suggested this too). We might be able to do it.

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ulugbek
We did a startup that used the same model in stopping online procrastination:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2268710>,
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuc0_ZMQ4P8> and our competitor in
productivity space blogged about us :<http://blog.beeminder.com/timecarrot/>.
My experience is that, it is really hard to build a business model around
behavioral economics, be it weight loss, quitting smoking, or anything else.
Based on the data I have seen, people who will think they need commitment
device are also sophisticated enough to know that they might fail, hence won't
signup. In the end, you always end up serving significantly smaller number of
consumers than you have initially assumed.

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bazookaBen
i just pledged my upcoming game project

try this addon feature : create a "gallery" of to-be released projects (don't
need to reveal title/details due to secrecy). Possible candidate:

"@ashtonkutcher just pledged a secret project, $5000 to charity if he fails by
10th May. Watch progress here"

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Macsenour
Just to be clear... the company makes money only if their customers fail.
Considering we fail more than we succeed, that might work out good!

Although, I can see a $1 charge for the tweet as a marketing fee so you make
SOME money if the planets align and the product ships.

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nicksergeant
So what happens if I unlink the app from my Twitter account before you auto-
tweet?

Also, it doesn't say how much it'd cost if I don't ship in time, just "Free if
you ship it in time. Pay $5 only when you want to make changes." -- what if I
don't ship in time and I don't make changes?

Cool idea, though :)

~~~
richerd
Then you beat the system :) but then why pledge yourself in the first place?

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ksajadi
I would consider this if the proceeds go to a charity (at least partially).

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richerd
thats a great idea. We are just testing the concept out right and scratching
our own itch/problem. Figured $5 was the simplest thing we could do to start.

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ArekDymalski
Amazing concept, great name. It's the insurance model flipped upside down. Or
just "Insurance from your own laziness".

~~~
bearwithclaws
Thank you! To us it's more like "extra kick to get over the hump".

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tarr11
This mentality will just encourage fire drills and burnout.

It does nothing towards improving core problems of software development
lifecycle planning issues.

I would suggest reading a book like Peopleware, before embarking on public
shame or penalties as solutions. These band-aids are almost always self-
imposed, and they almost never work.

~~~
bearwithclaws
_This mentality will just encourage fire drills and burnout._

The truth is, we don't know yet. And we definitely didn't try to solve/improve
software development lifecycle/plannings.

We built this for people like us: bunch of friends working on fun projects and
trying to get it out of the door.

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derefr
I don't know if a constant $5-per-infraction is really enough to spur people
(e.g., me) along. How about going exponential, ala Beeminder[1]?

[1] <https://www.beeminder.com/money>

~~~
mseebach
No point in making it too elaborate. You can always just disconnect the app so
it can't auto-tweet for you if you regret.

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mburshteyn
Nice idea. Similar to something I've considered recently: an email client
concept that would charge postage for every message sent with proceeds going
to charity. Might cut down on inbox overload.

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dodo53
(Just kidding): this incentivizes sinkorship trying to sink everyone else's
projects :oP Maybe they'll start organising startup WoW guilds...

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martingordon
For these types of sites that offer negative reinforcement by donating to the
charity of choice, I wonder how much a stronger an incentive it would be to
donate to a cause the user is against rather than one of their choosing (e.g.,
donate to the presidential candidate you don't support).

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javajosh
This would be a good idea if the announcement came with the extra cachet of
being on time. For example, you could agree to socially promote projects that
ship on time, and remove such promotion if it slips. This would need to be
curated, though, and so an expensive service (perhaps $50?)

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amcnair
I thought that you were more likely to achieve goals if you hadn't told people
about it?
[http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_you...](http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html)

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aespinoza
I think it would also be cool to link your projects (shipped or failed) to
some type of karma system. This way you can show your scars and your
successes. Maybe even target the karma report for VCs.

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draggnar
Maybe you could use most of the money to invest in kickstarter-type projects,
who in turn use sinkorship with much higher costs for not shipping, creating a
loop of funding

~~~
richerd
We had a few ideas on how to iterate from here. a kick-starter model is
something we considered, but wanted to start with something really small for
people to try out first.

~~~
draggnar
i like it - very simple - a little social pressure goes a long way.

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obilgic
I would increase the first amount exponentially for each change, also make
first amount adjustable..

