looking for ideas to monetize pinkary—any suggestions? something that doesn’t compromise its simplicity
Add more features for “verified” users? Like Direct Messages, banner image on your profile page?
Some quick ideas:
- Branded emojis
- Verified company accounts
- Supporter badge / special avatar or profile customization (Discord like) for paying users
- Sell short usernames for a premium
Maybe offer users the opportunity to promote their profiles for visibility within the community? This could be a self-serve advertising option where users can pay to have their profiles featured on the homepage or in specific categories.
I'd be curious the goals of the project as that influences the monetization strategy. If it's to get big and keep many salaries going plus more that's going to be a different strategy vs leaning on open source engineering and keeping enough cash to keep the lights on, rainy day fund, and pay for salaries/hourly as they are needed.
I think @nicbvs is on to something for getting started => pay for "fun" features, not functional ones similar to "boosts" in Discord.
All that said, I think there is one thing I've noticed about this community => they're willing to pay for great things.
<this is a good reminder to go and sponsor this project>
<jumps to GitHub>
Also I discovered today that it's already possible to get a sponsor badge, so maybe push that a bit more
- Paid long-form content for organizations (job offers, articles)
- banners (no where near as good as it was)
- cosmetics, anything else that isn't pay-to-win
Honestly I'll be ok with one or two small ads on sidebar
How about some ways to add "flare" to a profile? For example, discord lets paid users upload animated gif avatars.
Can we bring back the MySpace "homepage gone crazy" styles of yore?