To pivot or not to pivot? 🤔
Hey there,
So I've been working on https://buymeadomain.com which is a platform for founders & indie hackers to raise their first-ever round of funding in the form of "domain-name investment". They can submit about their project/startup idea along with the domain-name needed & an interested investor can buy them the domain in return of a certain equity.
I did some soft launches & got some feedback. The thing is that this is not making sense to many people out there. They are saying that if a founder can't buy even a domain-name why would anybody invest in him or that the domain per say is not such a big investment & there are many other expenses like hosting & all.
After all this feedback, I'm thinking of pivoting this into some sort of product hunt for investors where founders can submit there project, create a buzz, get signups & thus attracts investors. The investors can browse along the products & invest in any of them as an angel investor.
But then again as per Y Combinator's Michael Siebel, great ideas always sound horrible at first & people think they are not good enough. What do you think? Is this the case with buymeadomain.com or do I really need to pivot it to what I described above?
Let me know your thoughts 🙏.
Answers on FAQ wasn't convincing enough for me. So attractive for scammers in both sides.
Current listings are in the range of $15-$100 how much should I expect to get in return. It's more of a charity thing rather than investing. Doesn't sound worthy enough for time spent. Also seems like those listings are in idea phase, investing in ideas is 🤷‍♂️
I'm guessing your domain was around $9 so you valuated your project for $900 on idea phase. It's hard to find investors like Shashank.
On the other hand let's say it someway gained traction and people listing their already profitable products just to buy the .com version of their domains. It's quite specific, doesn't it. Taking investments just for the marketing and it can only be used to buy a domain. And the founder giving up a good chunk from their shares. Considering that domain is out of budget for them to look for an investment.
Pivoting it through an online shark-tank sounds interesting to me. Micro acquisition space already dominated but there is always a piece from the cake. Also I believe non of them offers shares at least yet.
Even tho you expect things to happen by itself; and potentially get a cut from the transactions just by providing a marketplace without putting any effort. Sounds like a good dream. You need to have a critical and un-interchangable role in this transaction to be able to get some money out of it.
Anyways, good luck on your journey.
Thanks for your detailed feedback, @Rusted!