agnieszka bladzik don't give up!
Paweł Kadysz I repeat that to myself every day. And I'm now starting to look like a mad scientist that thinks he'll discover something truly amazing, but just needs a bit more time. I don't want to be that scientist.
Kazzi Paweł, never, ever ever ever give up. Look, in 5 minutes there will be a "hero" mark next to my avatar on my profile. I believe in You.
Ian Prince Excellent Kazziz!
Eugene Alexeev You've already "discovered" a community. It is not like most other internet communities. It is exceptionally polite and full of people who care about photography.
Jennifer Yep. Same here. The first small thing I can do to help.
tania Wow ! I'm speechless. Need to think about it. Wish you some rest...
tigg Goodness me - I am so sorry. You must know what blipfoto has just been through .... I think this site is fab; just been trying to explain to my son as to why and that is hard to say. Keep talking to us all please.
Paweł Kadysz Blipfoto just raised £130000. I wouldn't even dream about that kind of money.
tigg They did indeed; and I don't think it was easy at all! I mentioned it as a comparison, an illustration of the loyalty that these sites have, and - cold comfort that it may be - you are not alone. Did not mean to offend you at all.
Kazzi Dream bigger.
Natalia Balanina Not nice to hear this. But it will get better somehow because great projects attracting positive energy (mostly) so just be positive! maybe try a crouwdfinding on kickstarter or this kind if sites? And promote it here and on FB, create something nice so people woud like to be involved in project (sort delegating).. :) or look for the right partner with strong sales/marketing skills?
Natalia Balanina Your site is nicely made, it has uniqe and challenging idea, with some boost it will just grow itself. More social reclame maybe?
Ewa Kudlaty
I'm pretty sure you will find some solution on this strange situation. I'll keep fingers crossed!
This is my first day on tookapic and I'd like to be here at least next 355 days :-) Good luck!
Mikołaj Eś
We have to do something with that. Yes - I said "WE", not only you Paweł, you had done already too much for this amazing community.
Kickstarter, investment funds, fundraising among users, info about need of donation on the main site of tookapic.
I specialize in tax law, commercial law and companies structures law (PL) - if you will need some help with those legal stuff, just give me a sign, I will do it pro-bono.
Eugene Alexeev Agreed. I'm an IT engineer by day, if there is an API an Android app can't be far away. The API has to be documented and someone be available to answer light questions if problems arise.
Alek Jedliński That's awful. Wish you all the best, this community and website you built is a treasure. Maybe try to partner with a large photo site (but one that does not have any UGC uploaded) like Fstoppers, Petapixel, etc.? Other than that, a Kickstarter may be a good idea...
Kazzi What about some croundfunding?
Robert Mordarski Maybe kickstarter?
Ian Prince Thanks for being so open with us. I'm really sorry to hear about the iPhone app, not that I really miss having one (the mobile web version works just fine for me), but how it's been a drain on your finances and getting you stressed out. I applaud you on your supporting this project with your personal finances, and totally understand how you might just have to stay "stop" at some point, especially with a growing family! I've read the comments, and the possibility of raising money from outside, such as kickstarter. Whilst this might be a solution I can't help feel that it should be the community itself that supports the project financially via hero subscriptions, especially by those who use the site on a daily basis. I'm totally aware that a subscription is not a trivial amount to spend for many of us (being students etc) but at the same time many of us have hundreds of dollars of photo equipment. I mean why not just sell a lens on Ebay to support tookapic, your photography will improve way more than having an extra lens.... This is not about making anyone feel guilty, but just a reminder of the cold financial reality that if the large majority of us don't support tookapic, then tookapic won't exist anymore. Sad for Pavel, and sad for us. So my question to you Pavel is how many hero subscriptions (or the equivalent in $) do you need to keep tookapic going?
Paweł Kadysz Thanks for that. To be completely honest, the cost of just keeping the lights on is $800-1000 monthly with just our tiny community. That doesn't include developing costs, marketing (there is currently no marketing), accounting, and definitely doesn't cover my personal costs. That means we either need 200 paying monthly customers (which is nearly half of actually active users at the moment) or 16 new yearly subscriptions every month just to keep the servers going.
We're still trying to figure something out, which means you may see a significant change in how tookapic works. It'll take another week or two to do this. Then we'll give it another month. If nothing changes, there will be a hard decision to make.
Ian Prince Thanks again for your openness and sharing the figures. I can only applaud your for pouring so much of your personal finances (and your unpaid time!) into keeping this project running. The question as "keeping the lights on" as you say is whether half of the user base is willing to pay a mostly subscription....well, sadly experience shows that that is not the case....at least not voluntarily. But maybe as a "paid only" service once a user reaches, say, 30 photos? This would probably slow growth, but at least it wouldn't be a business costing you your savings...and would buy you time to explore long-term sustainability with a road to building something where you get paid for your time and the investment you and your partners have put into tookapic. That said, you might have other plans. Whatever they are I know I'll personally support them.
Eugene Alexeev @Ian, great idea on selling a lens. Perhaps I'm an oddity, but I have share of equipment that goes unused. A charity sale or member auction where the proceeds fund this site could be organized.
tigg I sold an unused camera today .... I would gladly put the money into the right place to help.
Aaron Really surprised at the keep-the-light-on running costs! Is there no way to reduce that burden?
Paweł Kadysz We could downgrade the servers. And you'd probably leave tookapic because of slow response time. We recently did some savings. We hope to see $100-150/mo drop.
Ron Dadoo I am not going to be long, because I have difficulty in expressing myself in English, I use the translator... But I guarantee my support so that Tookapic lives!
Magda Korzewska Paweł, what about doing some marketing project for any brand? We could take a photo of certain brand instead of our weekly theme. They could use it in social media. Maybe from us there are someone who could organize such agreement with Oreo, Converse, whatever? For them it will be not big money, but can support Tookapic for some time? Is Anyone working for such company who might be interested in quality, lifestyle pictures as for example "spring walks in trainers" "Oreo " ?
Ana Great idea Magda
noun Waw! I'm so desapointed! I love Tookapic! It brings me so much! I love this community, I love to see the work of other people over the world, I love to share my work, I improve so much to do this challenge! It's a really good social website with people having the same passion. And I'm sure we are a lot like me, I think it's important that Tookapic goes on! We have to support you Pawel. When I paied to be Hero, I thought it's very cheep and I wondered how it can be financialy possible for this site to be alive. The problem is the money, so why not asking every month a fee after a month free to new members, not a lot but for everybody and more for the people who wanted to be Hero. Or why not asking a small fee for every pic. And I agree with Ian, we spend money for your material so why not for the site where we put our pics? Anyway, if finaly you have to stop Tookapic, I don't need my money from my Hero's fee back, all you've done for me is more than what I payed! I'll support you as far as my possibilities allow it me.
Eugene Alexeev Pawel, I was talking to some designers at work and a number of business models were put forward after I introduced them to the site.
1. Sponsored themes. Some businesses may need specific stock photographs (e.g., people in a cafe listening to music). These could be completed as "themes" or "challenges" with the photographer being recognized, but rights being passed to the sponsor in exchange for money.
2. In regard to mobile apps: the only thing that surfaced was the need for a documented APIs and willingness to accept either open source or third party apps and share revenue if ads are present. I understand the desire to own the app and exercise control. Certainly you don't want people giving out their passwords to strangers, but perhaps crowd sourcing could help here.
3. Do you have rights to the mobile app prototype running on your phone? If so it may be feasible to disassemble it and return it to almost usable source code. This is trivially possible with Android APKs, I'm not 100% sure about iOS. There are certainly a number of talks at security conferences about doing just that.
Paulina M
It's not your failure! You've created something that helped a lot of people. You should be proud of yourself. Not everyone is so persistent in keeping their dreams alive.This is a drawback, but don't give up. You should know from your experience that those kind of things come and go.
Maybe some articles on reddit.com or wykop.pl could help? There are people interested in photography in those communites. Maybe they would be interested in joining tookapic? Maybe we could post Jennifer's article there blog.tookapic.com/where-to-run... ?
There is a crowfunding site called patreon.
Kazzi
It's not a failure, never. You do not fail. Either You succed, or You learn.
Patreon is a great idea, but for that type of community I'd rather see polakpotrafi or even rather kickstarter (global). Instead of Patreon You can be a hero there :)
Jakub Purej qbanez Jest appka tookapic? Sorry, że po polsku pytam, ale tak zaawansowanego angielskiego nie rozkminiam ;)
Paweł Kadysz Nie ma. W skrócie - wycyckała nas firma odpowiedzialna za apkę. Na grube tysiące. Poza tym w skarbcu brakuje mamony. I generalnie chlip.
Jakub Purej qbanez Rozumiem, dzięki za odpowiedź po naszemu ;) No i współczuję, mam nadzieję że odzyskacie kasę i inny developer zrobi to porządnie i uczciwie! Powodzenia.
craig I think if everyone Knew how tight things are, more would respond.Perhaps it may help to email everyone and see what suggestions come. If nothing else if people know how bad things are they may take out hero memberships. Crowdfunding is also a good way to get a cash injection which may help in the medium term.
Luke I know others have espoused similar sentiments, but getting screwed by another company isn't your failure, Pawel. What you've put together here is something amazing, and truly special. Both technically and in terms of community. The amount of work you put into the site every day is mind-boggling. About a year ago now, I knew next to nothing about photography, and my S/O just happened to recommend this site to me. I began snapping pictures with my cell phone camera, slowly learning and seeing what others were doing. My first few weeks (maybe a month ;) ) were pretty rough around the edges. But 3 months ago I bought my first DSLR. While I'm nowhere close to a professional photographer or anything, looking back through my project I can safely say that Tookapic taught me and showed me a love for photography that I never imagined I had. This site is a truly special thing and you can count me 100% to help as much as I can to keep this amazing project and community running, whatever the plan may be. I also would like to extend my utmost gratitude to @Paweł for his dedication to the site and the community. My story aside, in terms of actual suggestions, starting small would probably be the best (and least stressful) option. Start with a donation campaign among the site's current community and users. Would it be possible to run something similar to Snapwire? Tookapic could work as a broker between a company needing stock photos/advertisements and the users could submit photos to different projects. That way the site makes money and the users can make some on the side too. That's just my two cents, hope it's at least somewhat helpful. I know I'm signing up for a hero subscription right now. Thanks for everything, @Paweł <3.
jazzie it is very sas to read this and i fully agree to everything that was written. i want to point out 3 aspects: 1 _ i came to read this because of the picture by noun of yesterday, which points out an important thing: why didn't you inform us before about these problems? i mean, every single user needs to know this! i will get my hero badge today, not because i want the features or the badge but because i want to support you! this leads to point 2 _ weekly theme for next week: save tookapic! 3 _ make a crowdfunding - i am quite convinced that everyone running a project will support you! please don't give up!
tigg Which was the very reason I became a Hero early on. Just felt it right and fair to pay for services received IF you can, but I do understand that is not possible for everyone.
remiremib Sorry to hear that... I'm just getting started on this site (yeah, it's my first week...), but I can already say I love the concept and all the work you've done here. I really hope you can keep going. Stay strong!
Roman Czarny Ponieważ w kontaktach z innymi uczestnikami korzystam głównie z translatora a temat jest taki waży napiszę po prostu po polsku:
Zajmowałem się już fotografia wcześniej jednak nigdzie indziej nie czułem się tak jak w Tookapic - Wspaniała Społeczność której jesteś Ojcem nie może odejść i po prostu zniknąć.
Nie zgadzam się z innymi przedmówcami że usługi muszą być płatne w ten sposób nie przeciągniemy nowych rekrutów a bez nich nie będzie reklam - a to reklamy mogą dać nam i Tobie prawdziwą stabilizację a te pojawiają się wraz ze wzrostem liczby użytkowników i oglądających (możne niech każdy z nas zaprosi kilku nowych i zostanie dla nich opiekunem).
Kickstarter może być dobrym pomysłem nie jestem jednak ekspertem.
Aby zatrzymać na chwile bieżące problemy proponuję uruchomienie dodatkowej dobrowolnej opłaty myślę że wielu z nas może sobie pozwolić na niewielki kwoty by wesprzeć całość projektu.
Paweł nie tylko Ty masz problem - mam go go wszyscy i jak dzieci Dobrego Ojca za jakiego Cie uważam wesprzemy Cię w każdej decyzji i w każdej trosce.
Pomysł z sponsorowanymi tematami tygodnia jest niezły trzeba tylko znaleźć sponsorów. Ja już zaczynam ich szukać.
Paweł nie możesz się tak łatwo podać jesteś wzorem uporu dla nas Wszystkich i to od nas wsparcia w pierwszej kolejności możesz oczekiwać (musimy tylko wiedzieć że problem jest).
Bayron Mejia Perhaps you can create a crowdfunding situation perhaps some income might come in. Such as an Indiegogo, Kickstarter campaign. Or an idea so users can spread the word about tookapic. Since like that I found out about it randomly 2 or 3 months ago and I enjoy it. It challenges me to photograph more
Sheri B @Paweł, I have read some but not all the comments. I did read your entire description. I don't have any magic solution, but I will support whatever you do. I think you've created an amazing community and you're certainly not a failure of any sort. I also do not want any sort of refund. I think a Kickstarter would be a great way to get the word out. I'm going to start linking to my pictures more on Facebook. Maybe it will help a little. I also think the sponsored themes is a great idea.
Jaydee Dear Pawel I hope you know that you have a wonderful community here to support you.You obviously know the story of Blipfoto and how they have tackled similar problems to ours.I am absolutely certain that if you made contact with those who were responsible for setting up the new system there,they would do everything they could to help you despite being very busy continuing to build Blipfoto back up.Perhaps you should think of tapping the resources and talents of a small advisory group to brainstorm together both to give you support and exchange ideas.
Jon Scott Pawel, I just want to echo the thoughts of many of the comments below. What you have achieved is greater that perhaps your initial project of Tookapic. You have a fantastic product through Tookapic, but you have also created a community, which is encouraging and personal, in quite a different way to other sites. I have no expertise in terms of developing a website, or the skills that you have to develop and run Tookapic, however I have signed up for a monthly subscription and will support you in any way that I can, in order for you to continue with this great project.
Magda Korzewska OMG sounds serious. I hope good solution will come soon to save Tookapic. I keep my fingers crossed for it.