… we are operating on a one-time independent grant for the time being. We will seek long-term funding in the future contingent on demand.
This project seems like a plausible fit for being a for-profit company, which could be good as it would help ensure you make products that people really value. The argument against this would be that the merch has positive externalities through branding so warrants a subsidy, but in practice I think the ‘avoid waste by subjecting projects to the market test’ argument is stronger. My impression (though maybe I am wrong) is that selling merch is a profit center for a lot of organisations, online content creators, etc.
One of my first thoughts when reading was ‘I hope this is not a grant’. Additional details about grant size and this being for setup may be a fair given further thought, and I cannot properly comment without knowing more details, but given that this was my first reaction says something about potential optics. I am very happy to pay for a markup on t-shirts (if I didn’t want the particular t-shirt I would not buy it at cost anyway, and there seems to be a lot of EA stash going around from EAGs etc which can be used to spot EAs) if this enables more money to go to other projects. This seems like an obvious thing that can be monetised if enough people are keen to buy it.
In addition to positive externalities from merch, another important reason not to be for-profit is that that causes higher prices. Raising prices increases deadweight loss and transfers money from EAs to the company.
A domain name, a wix store with and a print on demand platform attached to it is something you can set up in a day for less than 50 dollars and in my opinion does not need a grant, unless that grant is 50 dollars. I assume the grant is larger and would support those working on it, but I would have also like that to be for-profit to see if the market demands this. I personally would love to know what the grant size is with a rough breakdown of how it’s going to be spent.
Apart from that I’m not against this. The website needs a bit of work if you ask me (I’ve been an ecommerce marketeer for 8 years). I’m not a fan of the design and I think there are off the shelve themes on wix that would look a lot better, but I know this is just an MVP and things will improve and it’s great you’re getting this out there early.
This project seems like a plausible fit for being a for-profit company, which could be good as it would help ensure you make products that people really value. The argument against this would be that the merch has positive externalities through branding so warrants a subsidy, but in practice I think the ‘avoid waste by subjecting projects to the market test’ argument is stronger. My impression (though maybe I am wrong) is that selling merch is a profit center for a lot of organisations, online content creators, etc.
One of my first thoughts when reading was ‘I hope this is not a grant’. Additional details about grant size and this being for setup may be a fair given further thought, and I cannot properly comment without knowing more details, but given that this was my first reaction says something about potential optics. I am very happy to pay for a markup on t-shirts (if I didn’t want the particular t-shirt I would not buy it at cost anyway, and there seems to be a lot of EA stash going around from EAGs etc which can be used to spot EAs) if this enables more money to go to other projects. This seems like an obvious thing that can be monetised if enough people are keen to buy it.
In addition to positive externalities from merch, another important reason not to be for-profit is that that causes higher prices. Raising prices increases deadweight loss and transfers money from EAs to the company.
Yeah, this seems like the kind of project that might need a grant for getting off the ground, but should then be self-supporting after that.
A domain name, a wix store with and a print on demand platform attached to it is something you can set up in a day for less than 50 dollars and in my opinion does not need a grant, unless that grant is 50 dollars. I assume the grant is larger and would support those working on it, but I would have also like that to be for-profit to see if the market demands this. I personally would love to know what the grant size is with a rough breakdown of how it’s going to be spent.
Apart from that I’m not against this. The website needs a bit of work if you ask me (I’ve been an ecommerce marketeer for 8 years). I’m not a fan of the design and I think there are off the shelve themes on wix that would look a lot better, but I know this is just an MVP and things will improve and it’s great you’re getting this out there early.