semi-regular business Q&A session

[mark]

It's been a while since the last one, so denise suggested that we do another Dreamwidth-the-Business Q&A session.

But first, some data. One of the things that we promised when we started this site - and still do! - is that we will be open with the details of how the business is run, how it's doing, where your money is going, etc. Given that, here's the breakdown of our first few months of operations (discounting May):

June: $7,500 income
July: $5,000 income
August (thus far): $2,500 income

This is pretty much what we expected. More people buying accounts towards the beginning of the site, tapering off as we come up towards the various renewal periods. We're comfortable with these numbers and trends so far.

Our current monthly expenses come to about $6,000. This breaks down roughly 50/50 into "server costs" ($3k/month) and "people costs" ($3k/month). We are presently paying a few people as contractors to do time-sensitive and business-critical work for us. (Systems administrators, ToS enforcement, and some development time.)

We are not, currently, paying any salary to Denise or myself. (Which is one thing we really hope to fix...but stay tuned for today's news post.)

Summary:

Dreamwidth is running slightly in the red, but has enough money in the bank to keep the site running for several years at the current run rate. We have a few things in the pipeline which we hope will allow for us to increase the attractiveness of the site to paying customers (features) as well as give us more sources of revenue (credits, virtual gifts, etc).

There will be more data about our next-6-months plan in the upcoming news post. But for now, if you have any particular questions about the business, things you want clarified, or anything, please comment. Denise and I will be happy to answer!

Comments

[queenbarwench]

How about... a percentage of the fee for each gift goes to charity, maybe? Then people can give virtual cookies to their mates and to a good cause.

Going further, people could nominate charities and have a monthly option of three. (One of my local supermarkets does this with a token system and a box by the exit. It's very well-received). There would probably have to be sufficient traffic to justify a rotating option, and I'm not sure how it would work with non-US charities, but I'm sure we could think of a list of twelve international charities people would be happy to donate to.

[denise]

We definitely want to do a few charity vgifts. There are a few things we have to think about carefully, though -- avoiding anything at all politicized, finding global organizations and not just local ones, making sure they're secular and nonpartisan, making sure the cause is sufficiently broad (so, no single-disease fundraising charities, for instance), etc, etc.

A while back, when LJ was starting to do vgifts, I did a bunch of charity research and came up with (I think it was) 10 options that worked pretty well; I'll dig those back up. And I can definitely see us doing things like fundraising for various nonprofits that fit our target notion of creativity and diversity, like the National Novel Writing Month program, literacy charities, etc.

[jeshyr]

I like this idea.

And I also like queenbarwrench's idea of having a certain small percentage of *every* vgift go to charity. It does certainly make me feel like they are less "icky" in terms of being a fundraiser for DW. I'm thinking something like 5% or 10% for normal vgifts, obviously 100% for specific charity vgifts such as for Nanowrimo.

I understand the business case behind it, especially as Mark laid it out above, I just dislike the "feel" of it. And no, I can't actually articulate that better, unfortunately.

[zvi]

But customers (like myself) don't necessarily want to give to charity by buying people small graphics, or to support the specific charities which Dreamwidth eventually supports.

I really dislike forced donations, just on general principle, and find the idea of 100% of vgifts containing a charitable donation icky in the other direction.

[cleverthylacine]

Although I can't imagine D would pick any charities I find icky, I too prefer to make my own decisions about how and when I contribute to charity.

[triadruid]

Moi aussi.

[trixtah]

Me too.

Sure, offer some charity gifts for those who want them, but I'd rather have the option of NOT having a charity component.

I'm also quite happy for DW to use these things as a revenue-gathering option.

Seriously, if v-gifts are too "tacky", they should not be offered at all. Charging for the extra service seems perfectly reasonable, especially when revenue is not exactly romping in the door ($5000 a month seems to be barely break-even, and I think the site maintainers ought to be paid for their time).

[yvi]

finding global organizations and not just local ones, making sure they're secular and nonpartisan

I love you. That's all.

[cesy]

avoiding anything at all politicized, finding global organizations and not just local ones, making sure they're secular and nonpartisan, making sure the cause is sufficiently broad (so, no single-disease fundraising charities, for instance), etc, etc.

Do there even exist any charities that actually fit all of this? I would have thought most would be at least slightly politicized in some areas.