One alternative is Podia. We've been getting a lot of signups from Patreon users over the past few days. We don't play games with fees (no transaction fees at all, actually, only what Stripe/Paypal charges). Here's more on the differences: https://www.podia.com/patreon-alternative If anyone wants to give it a shot, feel free to reach out to me (Spencer, the founder) directly in the live chat widget :)
What about packaging what you know and putting together an eBook or online course? A lot of freelancers and consultants are turning to that to make extra money and to build their reputation. Here's an example: https://courses.gorails.com/
We're hiring Engineers and Product Designers at Coach. REMOTE OK
Coach makes tools for tutors to help them promote, build and manage their businesses as well as earn additional income. With Coach, tutors can create their own website, use our scheduling tools to book time with students, create and sell courses with our course-builder and accept online payments.
We’re a fast-growing, New York-based company looking to build our team with passionate, like-minded people who want to help us change the education industry through innovation.
Good question. The broader idea originally was to "uncover employee happiness" but we've held off on the measure/metrics part of the business to build up the perks/rewards side.
Why is it cool: In the fifteen months we've been in operation, we've never lost a customer. It just gives everyone a smile on their face and that's the type of businesses that I like to work on.
I completely understand how domain name transfers work. I've done plenty of them. Just because you're a big slow company doesn't mean that we as consumers should just shrug it off as "business as usual". The domain market is a mess specifically for the reason that nobody has built a better solution in ten years. When I purchased https://www.uncover.com back in ~2004 it was the same process as it is today. That's just not right ten years later.
Looking to see if the domain is listed with the registrar as well is a really great tip. I didn't check to see if it was in GoDaddy's marketplace before purchasing it through Sedo. Next time I'll do that if I find myself in the same position.
Author here. I think Fred Wilson said it best back in 2011:
"I believe that a good domain name is an important success factor in building and launching consumer web services. It's not in my top ten but it could be. It's certainly something we think about a lot when making investments and working with companies post investment."
I've grown https://www.uncover.com (a simple tool to give employees perks and rewards) in various different ways. A lot of it began with telling my network of friends who run startups. Getting them signed up. Then getting them to tell their friends how much they liked it. Once that source was depleted, I began to do a lot of content marketing. I started writing for a lot of different blogs, websites, etc. That helped get out name out there and brought in about a third of our current customers. I'm now beginning to experiment with buying ads. It's still too early to tell how well that will work out, though.
Launching is very overrated. I mainly emailed friends, family, and shared https://www.uncover.com via social media. Luckily, it got picked up by Hacker News and some other outlets. We got some great traffic in the beginning, but a "good launch" alone isn't going to make or break you. It's about the longterm value you can offer your customers.
Great course.