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

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