As promised, here is our financial status as of January 25, 2016.
Our hosting bills for the months 7, 8 and 9 of 2015 (the ones we paid out of pocket): $15'442.89.
CloudFlare DDoS protection for 2015 and Jan 2016: $1'593.33.
We are currently using our startup credits to cover our hosting bills. This will end by June 2016 and then we're on our own.
We have some 21k in bitcoin and a smaller amount in Dogecoin, and we plan to use this to cover the costs we paid out of pocket. PayPal donations have also helped cover some of the costs above and costs prior to 7 2015. We plan to decrease our hosting costs by further optimizing our platform, but there is also an option to migrate to another hosting provider if we can get more value for our money.
We are in the process of setting up our merchant account with a US bank, and if all goes well, we should be able to sell products and services and process credit cards.
If I missed to mention this, Voat is now a registered Delaware company and me and PuttitOut are the sole owners. Company registration is also another large cost which we covered ourselves. We have not taken any investments (although we did receive quite a few offers and inquiries).
With massive optimization and cost cuts, starting with July 2016, our monthly costs will easily go above 5k and we will obviously need your help to stay online. I may have missed to mention some costs, I will update this announcement if I remember anything. Please note that I wrote this in haste (I have a full time job which is rather exhausting as you may have noticed).
@PuttitOut: please feel free to edit this thread if you wish to add something or correct any mistakes I may have made.
If you have ideas what we can do to help keep Voat online, this is your time to shine. One-time sale of products/services usually don't work in the long term, so we need to think of something which will provide recurring income.
I have to run out, but I'll be back later to answer any questions you may have. I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas.
Finally, a big thank you to all who donated, but also thank you everyone else who wanted to donate but could not, for whatever reason.
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ilovepussy ago
The way I see it, Ads by Sub-verse is about the only way this can work long term.
Donations - Sure, donations can bring some revenue, but it is not consistent, and is pretty much totally dependent on the community. Only a fraction will donate, and then only once or twice. Some will do reoccurring, but not enough IMHO.
Sell stuff - I'd buy a T-Shirt, a mug, maybe even a bumper sticker, but beyond that, I'm not going to be buying stuff every month. Plus, running a store is a pain in the ass, and @Atko or @Puttitout probably do not have the time to devote to a store.
General Advertising. Front page, maybe, but only if @Atko and @Puttitout are willing to filter the front page, and that's where that other site ended up having major issues. I'm sure many advertisers are not interested in having @hecho posts or the MH101 trolls next to their products.
So this leaves Ads by Sub-verse. Let the advertisers decide which sub-verses they are willing to place ads, and lets the chips fall where they may. I could see Vivid wanting to have ads on the NSFW subs, and HP or Dell wanting ads in Technology subs.
Just my 2 cents
crashtestgenius ago
I think making some t-shirts for a few specific subverses or monthly designs would help to keep people buying. If you look at what tek syndicate does, they have a t-shirt of the month, plus they come out with new designs fairly often. If these were created by the community, that would make it even better.