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Comment by muxme | Hacker News Reader

I'm running into the growth problem with my website: http://muxme.com. Lots of people say the love the website, but it seems like no one is telling their friends. I was thinking of maybe adding user created sweepstakes, because I think the only way people would spontaneously tell their friend is if they win something from the site. More winners = more people telling their friends, but I can only go so far on my budget. What do you guys think?

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I don't think anyone I know would be interested in this website. So even if one person likes, it doesn't mean any of their friends will. As a web savvy person, I assume services like this are not worth trying because

1) it's just as likely to be a scam as not and

2) even if it's worth it right now, it will soon not because because of people gaming/spamming the system. The odds of winning an item for free are not displayed, and therefore are assumed to be astronomically high. It's assumed it's not a good return on my time to register and enter.

That said, it's a cool site, and I like your intentions. I do not think there's going to be a feasible way to prevent gaming and spamming unfortunately.

1) I post a receipt of the item, have a video drawing of the sweepstake, and post the tracking number of the package after it's sent out. Short of revealing the winners name, I don't know what other proof I can provide (although googling the user's usernames reveals quite a bit about them, I encourage them to change their usernames). I understand what you mean, on first glance I can see how people think the site is a scam.

2) I show how many people enter, so the odds are 1/(total number of entries). I was thinking of requiring a valid/unique phone number on registration and require the users to input the code I text them. Think of Craigslist / Chatroulette / etc.

I don't envision any people from Hacker News using the site on a daily basis. In fact, I posted it here as a "Show HN" and a whooping <10 people visited. There are people where an extra $25 means getting to take your daughter out to dinner when she announces she's engaged or an extra $100 means you get to pay your bills on time for the month (real winner stories so far). What really pushes me to work on the site every day is that even if the site fails to grow, at the end of the day, I've helped people without asking for anything in return.

I appreciate the comments.

So are you paying for these prizes out of pocket? What's your goal?

Yeah, the prizes are paid for out of pocket by me. It's not the most expensive project in the world, let's say I average $50/day ($1,500/month) in gift card costs and $10/month on a server. I live in a 42 square foot room and share an apartment with 5 people, so I'd say that the expenses are taken care of from my choice of a frugal lifestyle (we're talking Manhattan, New York rent here). Those are my only expenses to run and maintain the site. The risk of $1,500/month for a couple of months to possibly achieve my dream is a no-brainer.

My goal is growth. Craigslist is a great example of a site that I want to be like. Offer an awesome service for free. I'd like to have companies fund the giveaways or maybe even have companies pay to have their giveaways featured as a top result. I don't really know yet. I'm sure there's some win-win situation that I haven't thought of where the users get awesome free stuff and there's a way for me to work on the website full time.

Thanks for the responses. Have you considered reaching out to businesses to offer free stuff? Sort of like Groupon that doesn't cost them anything other than the discount/free item they provide?

Yeah I've definitely considered it. It's on my list of things to do, but I'm also sort of experimenting with the website and trying to optimize the user experience and make the site fun.

At first glance, I thought that your website was listing random free items on the internet and that you'd make money with affiliate links. I looked at a few items and they were all given by "MuxMe" so I was really confused as to WHY you were giving free items. I then looked at the about page trying to understand a bit more and there it is, you seem like a genuine nice person giving free stuff away, hoping one day to become a non-profit.

I'm still a bit confused. In a way, it seems "Too good to be true". I would craft a nice paragraph and put it at the top of the page so that first-time visitor understands what you're trying to do. You cannot blame people for thinking that this is scam (Hey I'm receiving emails every day telling me I won $1M).

Also, you realize that if I tell my friends about your website I have less chance to win.. why would I do that?

What's your long-term goal with the non-profit?

That's very valuable feedback. Thank you for telling me that you thought I was listing random free items and made money with affiliate links. I like the idea of making an extremely visible "about" at the top of the page so that a first time visitor reads what the site is about before making an assumption.

You're absolutely right that the more people you tell, the less of a chance you have to win. The model is flawed right now. The winners are telling their friends (or even friends are asking the winners how they are taking them out to dinner), so if I could somehow get more winners with a low budget, then the site would be a success.

My goal is to work on the website full time. It makes me very happy running the site and I'd say it's the only thing I think or care about. Also, I thought that maybe some of the users are interested in learning programming and I could create Youtube videos to teach them how to make websites/program. I've always wanted to be a teacher.

Neat concept you have going! You come off as a genuinely nice person in your videos, which is great for building trust. My one small piece of feedback would be to consider changing the 'About' link to 'How it Works' instead. I went to your site and immediately started scanning for those words, because usually a sweepstakes site has a catch of some sort.

Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback, I'll take it into account and possibly change that.

Changing it to "How It Works" was a really good idea. Thanks.

when you talk to your users, ask them if they've shown this to their friends. If they haven't ask them why they haven't. If they have ask them why their friends didn't like it. I would also recommend sending out a NPS survey to all your users

Its amazing you've doing this. Definitely keep it up. My advice would be to find a business guy who could do a solid pitch of this for companies. I'm sure there are some out there who would be interested.

Thanks, I've had my ups and downs the past month but contacting the winners and hearing their responses is what keeps me going. I appreciate the comment.

I agree that if I had a business guy that could do a solid pitch that I could get the donations from companies. The website is also very experimental right now, so I think I'm going to keep it up and figure out a good model before introducing people and companies into the mix. The great thing is that the website is currently a hobby project, so I can do whatever I want to it without being forced to do something I disagree with.

Why would I decrease my odds of winning by telling my friends?

The more people that enter the giveaways, the less of a chance you have to win. There's a guaranteed winner every time and your odds are 1/(total number of entries).

how would your website ever make money? Why would someone post a sweepstakes?

I'm not worried about money, I'm worried about growth. There are services like RaffleCopter / Gleam / KingSumo / Woobox / etc. which let you create Sweepstakes to promote viral growth for your website or business.

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