On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 6:09 PM, John Pratt <jpra
...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sean, what have you even accomplished? No one cares what you think.
> You are a troll.
> -John
> On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Sean Bonner <seanbon...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Wow, this is the douchiest e-mail I've seen all day. And that is saying a
>> lot.
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanbonner/4234089909/
>> Pro Tip: Pretty much the two worst things you can do when promoting
>> something are talk shit about previous partners, and talk shit about
>> other people with similar projects.
>> Also, if your new project is for mobile phone users in Portland, why
>> are you sending it to a group in Los Angeles?
>> -s
>> On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 5:36 PM, John Pratt <jpra...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I used to run Fundable.com until a few months ago, when I decided to
>> > shut it down against the will of my business partner, who allowed some
>> > serious programming errors and customer service issues to take place
>> > without informing me. The final straw was when he said, "John, you
>> > should sell your part of the business to me because the Austin Police
>> > department is thinking about filing charges against Fundable. Get out
>> > while you can." That's when I shut down the credit card processing
>> > and took the domain away from him.
>> > For those of you who insist on thinking that the truth always lies in
>> > between two accounts of a situation, I urge you to drop that misguided
>> > notion, especially for this situation.
>> > I feel that this story is important to tell you because
>> > Kickstarter.com copied us. I tried for 4 years to get people to take
>> > Fundable seriously, traveling across the country, even giving a
>> > presentation to FBFund, Facebook's fund to stimulate development of
>> > new apps. It was a series of rejections for 4 years. I really felt
>> > that I presented myself professionally in every business situation and
>> > I dressed appropriately and practiced my presentations. That was not
>> > enough. The idiots wanted us to show them charts with massive
>> > profits and widespread public acceptance so that they didn't have to
>> > take any risks.
>> > All it took was 5 super-connected people at Kickstarter (especially
>> > Andy Baio) to take a concept we worked hard to refine, tweak it with
>> > Amazon Payments, and then take credit. You could say that that's
>> > capitalism, but I still think you should acknowledge people that you
>> > take inspiration from. I do. I owe the concept of Fundable to many
>> > things, including living in cooperative student housing and studying
>> > Political Science at Michigan. Rational choice theory, tragedy of the
>> > commons, and collective action are a few political science concepts
>> > that are relevant to Fundable.
>> > Yes, Fundable had some technical and customer service problems.
>> > That's because we had no money to revise it. I had plans to scrap the
>> > entire CMS and start from scratch with a new design. We were just so
>> > burned out that motivation was hard to come by. What was the point if
>> > we weren't making enough money to live on after 4 years?
>> > During those 4 years both of us had to take full-time jobs from time
>> > to time. Neither of us were that well-connected in the tech community
>> > or Fundable would have grown a long time ago. It wasn't for lack of
>> > trying to reach out to people. The company was making barely enough
>> > money for us to cover expenses and pay ourselves on the side. Our
>> > server space was donated during the entire 4 years.
>> > I cannot tell you how painful it is to watch 5 assholes take your idea
>> > and run with it and not even give you credit. I hate all 5 of them
>> > for that. If I see them, I may punch each one of them in the face.
>> > If you have never started your own company and then had someone else
>> > steal the credit for what you worked hard to develop, you don't
>> > understand.
>> > The Fundable/Kickstarter fundraising model matters. It's huge. It
>> > could change the development of funding the arts as well as the
>> > political process. We had an idea of this 4 years ago, but it was
>> > very difficult to bridge theory to practice. To be honest, I didn't
>> > even know if it was going to work most of the time and I sometimes
>> > wondered if I was wasting my time. We laid the groundwork for
>> > Kickstarter to exist. Don't forget that when you use it. If you were
>> > in a similar situation, I would remind people of your contributions as
>> > well.
>> > If you have met me in L.A. and you dismissed Fundable before or you
>> > failed to return my calls or you flaked on me in person or just said,
>> > "oh that's a cool idea" and then left our conversation, don't make the
>> > same mistake this time with my new project, located at PDXCell.com.
>> > PDXCell is an entity that will produce a decentralized wireless phone
>> > service for the city of Portland, where I now live. The goal is to
>> > establish a very low cost wireless system that provides quality
>> > unlimited internet access and local wireless phone service for around
>> > $10 month, very likely through WiMax. That's the goal.
>> > The details can be found at PDXCell.com. You are welcome to help, as
>> > this is not a web startup or a non-profit. This project is not a
>> > startup. It will require the collective desire of many people to make
>> > it come into being. I think, however, that if you read the web page
>> > you will become and advocate.
>> > I got burned with Fundable in a lot of ways, but at those times I get
>> > a better perspective on the situation I am not very bitter because I
>> > realize how much I learned and how much I got to experience. More
>> > importantly, all Kickstarter projects are Fundable projects, I just
>> > don't receive any money from them. The Kickstarter founders know
>> > this. The web community knows this. Now you know this.
>> > I won't be making the same mistakes with PDXCell.
>> > Be a part of it.
>> > -John
>> > --
>> > BarCampLA Wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLosAngeles
>> > BarCampLA Blog: http://www.barcampla.org/
>> > BarCampLA Group: http://groups.google.com/group/BarcampLA?hl=en
>> --
>> Sean Bonner
>> http://www.seanbonner.com - homebase
>> http://www.metblogs.com - get local
>> Unless agreed upon, assume everything in this e-mail might be blogged.
>> --
>> BarCampLA Wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLosAngeles
>> BarCampLA Blog: http://www.barcampla.org/
>> BarCampLA Group: http://groups.google.com/group/BarcampLA?hl=en
> --
> BarCampLA Wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLosAngeles
> BarCampLA Blog: http://www.barcampla.org/
> BarCampLA Group: http://groups.google.com/group/BarcampLA?hl=en
