
Screenshots of microPledge ("helps software get made and developers get paid") - benhoyt
http://micropledge.com/shots
======
staunch
Very nice. I'm excited about this because I've sponsored some open source
development and never had an easy way to do it.

Here what I've done: I use a piece of open source software. I want the
developers to implement a feature that will be very useful to me. I offer to
pay a considerable amount of money. They agree. I send them half. They
complete it. I send them the other half.

A system that would let me share the financial burden and handle the whole
process would be very useful. I said before that I think you should expect to
see much bigger pledges than you're thinking right now. As a business,
pledging $10k for a feature that saves me having to buy an extra $50k in
servers is a no-brainer.

If you're going to be actually holding the money you will need to be extremely
credible and your reputation spotless. A picture of who you are, your office
(if you have one), street address, phone number, and that kind of stuff goes a
long way. I want to make sure the authorities can find you if you do anything
evil.

~~~
benhoyt
Sweet. microPledge solves two problems of these problems:

1) The pay-half-now-half-later thing is solved by our staged releases. The
developer can say "I'm 50% done, can I please have half my pledge money?" And
he'll get half his money if the pledgers are okay with his progress (if
they're not, he might only get a portion of his money till they are happy).

2) The share-the-burden thing -- especially if you're talking big pledges. You
could have your $10,000 split across 5 people/companies (or more, of course).

The Credibility Thing is a good point, and something we're very conscious of.
We're going to be very open about who we are and where we live. And (very
soon) we're also going to look into getting our money flow audited annually by
a company like Grant Thornton.

P.S. Just wondering if you have a contact email/website somewhere? Didn't see
one on your profile page.

~~~
staunch
I think it's a good idea for the developer to get some money upfront. A
developer might take time off their day job to complete the project. They're
more likely to do that with some cash in hand. Perhaps that's solvable by them
saying "I'm 1% done, please send half the pledge".

I'm just a developer/sysadmin guy who frequently has the task of spending
money on behalf of the companies I work for, usually on contract. Occasionally
the best available option is to sponsor development. In my case I've basically
dealt with the open source developer as a private sub-contractor.

Which actually brings up an interesting point. For various reasons some
companies won't want others to know they're sponsoring outside development.
You should consider giving sponsors the option of having their pledge remain
non-public. Maybe even anonymous to the developer, which is an interesting
thought.

------
paulgb
The site looks great, and I think the idea is a good one. Just a thought
though - I noticed SourceForge is testing a new marketplace ("SourceForge.net
is introducing a new feature that will let you buy or sell services for Open
Source projects right from the site.") So you might have a bit of competition
if they are doing something similar to what you are.

Good luck with the business, I can't wait to see it when it launches.

------
waleedka
The UI is very nice, well done. I'm not sure how big a market there is for
pledges to build software, though. How about expanding the scope? Say I want
to organize an event for Facebook Apps developers, but I need help with the
expenses. I put up a pledge for, say, $200, and link to it from my blog. If
enough people pledge and the cost is covered, then I'll setup the event.
Otherwise, I'll know that there is not enough interest. And, of course,
software can still be a category for those who need software built.

~~~
benhoyt
Well, in fact our system allows for non-software projects quite nicely. But we
decided our first focus would be software, mainly because we didn't want to
spread ourselves too thin too quickly.

Anyway, your FaceApps Developer Expo sounds like a sweet microPledge use case.
Users can withdraw their pledges if a project doesn't finish on time (e.g.,
you don't get enough money for the event and decide to call it off).

