Show HN: Check if my startup ideas have legs
So I just tried this for TeaRounder (my solo project I&#x27;ve been working on in spare time for a while). I did an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign for it a few months ago, so I can compare them from a project founder view.<p>Positives:
-It was 20-30 times quicker to upload to ptwi, significantly less daunting and was hassle free. I literally did this in five to ten minutes, immediately after seeing this thread. Ks felt like an ordeal, and took the best part of a week to get set up, including multiple drafts, setting up screenshots just to fit their layout, filling out a spreadsheet that wasn&#x27;t really aimed at the kind of project I had - not to mention their system for verifying payment details and getting checked for fit with their rules (they tell you to allow a certain amount of business days for someone to check it, and don&#x27;t really make it clear that that&#x27;s only done if they&#x27;re automatic system flags something up)<p>- your website name makes my intentions more clear. With Kickstarter there&#x27;s often this impression people have, that the campaign is the main or only source of funding for a project, which can be downright harmful to projects. I remember a game console Kickstarter getting lots of flack for asking for an amount that people thought wouldn&#x27;t be enough to make it work. When you only need a little bit or nothing at all, it&#x27;s not helpful to have to inflate the amount you&#x27;re asking for, on an all or nothing form of funding. (To me now, crowdfunding is basically a &quot;vague acquaintances and people in the same online communities as me&quot; round)<p>Negatives:
1)I couldn&#x27;t change the amount I&#x27;m asking for in total. It might be because I&#x27;m on mobile, but even with zooming in, it didn&#x27;t seem like that was even an input box. $1000 is way more than I need to prove that it&#x27;s worth continuing on that route. I&#x27;d be happier doing $200 but on just a few days of the ad being live, since the next stage is only really a $5 per year thing. (Edit: 5$ per year is roughly what I&#x27;d want to charge each user for a basic level subscription)<p>2) the message about paying $10 to show I&#x27;m not a spammer. That is shown once the page is live and it&#x27;s rather confusing. I don&#x27;t know your brand and in my experience in the UK most companies that check if you&#x27;re real by taking money and then refunding do £1, so being asked for $10 on that basis makes me nervous. Makes me question why there wasn&#x27;t a captcha, or email verification, or restriction to one upload. It took me writing this up to realise posting projects to ptwi is anonymous. That also explains using cryptocurrency and having to save a specific link to administer the page. Feels really odd but kind of cool.<p>3) I&#x27;ve never used any cryptocurrency before, and I also wouldn&#x27;t want to have to explain how to use it to people I share the link with. Ideally I should be able to just send the link to people with a short warm intro and leave them to it<p>Here&#x27;s the shareable page that I got:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;provetheywantit.com&#x2F;project?public_token=pub_EDJsmGxnGKfdcgylwwOdhwDYDtVIvfYjgZWT" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;provetheywantit.com&#x2F;project?public_token=pub_EDJsmGx...</a>