Dear Jim Gaffigan, Louis C.K. paid $35k for his website. We'll do yours for $0.

http://dearjimgaffigan.com/

by reso • 14 years ago

65 38 14 years ago

dearjimgaffigan.com

timClicks• 14 years ago

Liked the post until the needless mention of blowjobs came up.

reso4• 14 years ago

Apologies if we offended, it is supposed to be humorous.

kenrikm2• 14 years ago

Ok I'll take that, a bit of advice I would redact that line before you reach your "mark" unless you're 100% sure he's going to take it the way you intended it (as a joke)

kenrikm2• 14 years ago

Yeah me too, The same thing happend with that story about the super hard video game where they used dry humping as a joke. In both cases I was extremely interested until the infantile behavior ruined it. You came up with a creative way to get yourself noticed however you turned off 75% of the people you attracted when you made the vulgar remark.

TLDR: Don't shoot yourself in the head with stupid remarks when you're almost at the finish line.

fraserharris• 14 years ago

I think its apropo given its targeted at Jim Gaffigan

MichaelApproved2• 14 years ago

A lot of people see woot.com's copy and how some people curse and think it's easy to pull off but it usually ends in disaster.

The style of writing that can be childish, tasteless and crude is very difficult to successfully pull off. Most times you're going to need a professional writer on staff to manage that persona effectively.

rhizome• 14 years ago

New URL? This was up earlier this week.

k33n• 14 years ago

This reminds me of some of the bad ideas I've had when intoxicated.

workhorse• 14 years ago

The biggest issue with this is that they don't understand Jim Gaffigan's comedy.

The way to be humorous with something like this is to use a skit from one of his early comedy skits with a witty twist.

Iaks• 14 years ago

Isn't the point of self-publishing to cut out the intermediary that is taking a percentage of the artist's sales? Given that impetus I struggle with how this would be an attractive offer especially since Jim Gaffigan is more likely than not able to afford the $35k price tag.

csomar• 14 years ago

The design isn't disastrous but it looks cheap. Why didn't you invest more on the design? This could attract both his eyes and the community ones.

dmix• 14 years ago

It looks like it was made by two engineers with very minimal design skills.

Thats how I would put it politely.

eggbrain• 14 years ago

I'll be frank, if I was Jim Gaffigan, I wouldn't hire you.

The reason for me is twofold: The asterisk, and the lack of product.

The Asterisk: You make it very hard to understand what "Free*" actually means. When you later say "we'll need to take a small portion of revenue..." a lot of red flags go up in mind. What if I want to deploy the product on my own server, where I will take care of the bandwidth and other costs? Will you still give me your product for free, since the only money you asked for was to cover bandwidth?

The Lack of Product: I don't see a demo (tell me if I'm wrong) showing how you have this turnkey "Louie CK model" solution up and running. If you don't have that, that means I'll be your guinea pig as your first customer. If I'm putting a product out there, I'm not willing to chance being a guinea pig because if problems occur (data stolen, server outtages, etc) it's my reputation that will suffer as a result.

shawnc• 14 years ago

I was at this point of thinking 6 years ago - "Hey I know i'll find the content makers and i'll do allt he other work, and we'll split profits. It'll all work out so great because i'll make them so popular, but really I am totally expecting them to do all the work of getting people there".

It's a bad way to start a 'business'. It's a bad way to move forward on an idea. And it's a surefire way of setting yourself up to be looked at as worth... wait for it... nothing.

Instead of trying to entice him to pay you nothing, entice him to pay you 35k. Wouldn't that get you so much further in his eyes and also, in yours? Wouldn't that give you so much more runway to actually do the amazing job you're expecting of yourself, and also the one you're setting Jim Gaffigan up to expect of you also?

I see things like that, and I immediately think amatuer - because I was right there, thinking that way. And I didn't achieve anything of substance until I woke up from silly dreams of making it big by jumping on the backs of giants.

jcc80• 14 years ago

Agreed. This is a good deal for someone like me who wouldn't want to spend $35k, nobody knows me and I could take a flier on some random guys. But, if I'm a famous comedian, I'm looking for someone I can trust who has done this type of work before. Not the lowest price.

reso4• 14 years ago

Sorry that the asterisk wasn't clear, I've changed the language. I don't think you're our target market, the people we're going after don't know how to set up their own EC2 clusters and build a custom video player, so we handle the hosting.

As for the cost, the reality is that a project like this takes a lot of bandwidth, and wouldn't be feasible at all if we weren't taking 5%.

Lack of product is a valid criticism. We've been focusing on customer development before actually building the thing, specifically because we need feedback in order to formulate the product correctly. This is a special case in which we would build a version of it specifically for Jim, and then use the same code to create a repeatable version.

funkah• 14 years ago

There are times when I'm very thankful I'm not a designer. This is one of those times.

ralphsaunders• 14 years ago

Your new startup designs websites but doesn't have a designer? I don't think you've thought this through.

quanticle• 14 years ago

We'll do the initial web design for free, but you're going to be so popular that we'll need to take a small portion of revenue so that we don't go bankrupt from bandwidth fees! We can work this out later.

So, in other words, if Mr. Gaffigan isn't careful, he's going to end up paying a lot more than $35k for his site.

MichaelApproved2• 14 years ago

The $35k CK paid for his site didn't include continuing cost of continued hosting, bandwidth and administration. These guys seem to be offering to cover those costs indefinitely. So apples to apples, development cost is $0 compared to $35k.

jack-r-abbit• 14 years ago

wait... didn't I see this yesterday right before it was dead. Dude... this is a crappy idea and it makes the site owners look like amateurs.

And for our next trick we'll make this calculator spell "BOOBIES". hehehe

lame

cleverjake• 14 years ago

Dupe - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3618061

mvkel• 14 years ago

So, $35,000 one-time, or potentially way more than that long-term? I think I'll take the first one, thanks.

blhack• 14 years ago

Cool idea guys, but poor execution. Here is some free* advice:

-The design on your website is terrible. You need to fix this immediately. This just looks like a tumblr post, or a twitter stream or something. Actually, it looks like a "The Oatmeal" comic. It's unbecoming. Go look at the design of companies that do stuff like this, evaluate why they do these things, and why you should too.

-Drop the "look how hip we are" photos. You get to post photos like that when you're talking about launching your next multi-million-dollar company, not when you're offering to work for free.

-Post some examples of stuff that you've designed. Post examples of times you've worked with payment processors and dealt with potentially multi-millions-of-dollars worth of transactions.

-Post some examples of stuff you've built that has been at the scale we're talking here. Vaguely alluding to your friend embarrassing himself in front of Mark Zuckerberg isnt' really a good example of why your service isn't going to come grinding to a halt when it gets some traffic.

*And now about that astericks. If you do any of the things I listed here, please give me a portion of the money you make in the future. Here is how to get ahold of me: http://thingist.com/users/Ryan

edit: guys. This: https://twitter.com/#!/RossRobinson/status/17026182091597824...

Several times a day for a week?

Not okay. Give it a rest. At this point I'm sure he's seen it and is probably annoyed with you.

edit2: I found the site that you're trying to launch: http://launch.matinee.io/

You'd probably be better served to host this there. Now it looks like you're trying to start offering this as a service to a lot of people, and you want Jim Gaffigan to be the first.

That's cool, and that sounds a lot better than "We're two guys who like to drink beer and play in the snow. Trust us with your millions"

bobbles• 14 years ago

Considering how little information there actually is on the page it's pretty stupid that I have to scroll to read it all.

laconian2• 14 years ago

BIG FONTS!

BIG ARROWS!

SCROLL WHEEL TIME!

reso4• 14 years ago

Thanks for the great feedback. The tone of the site is meant to be lighthearted, so as to appeal to a comedian. We're not aiming this at a corporation wanting to entrust us with their millions, but a particular person with a good sense of humor. Sorry that didn't come through. Its also just a hook; obviously he wouldn't hire us based on this site alone.

The launch page as it exists right now is not really related to this campaign. We've just been using it to a/b test marketing language so far.

I totally agree the design is crap, after all, I made it myself!

zaidf• 14 years ago

Remember, Jim is the comedian. He's probably not looking to hire comedians like him to run what's in his mind a bunch of geeky shit. So yeah, being lighthearted is okay, but not at the expense of losing your cred as someone serious.

laconian2• 14 years ago

Worth every penny!

drawkbox• 14 years ago

Louis CK paid 35k so that he didn't have to give a piece of the revenue. A better model would be to offer both ways in case a creator wants 100% ownership. Transaction fees, production costs, etc are enough of a cut.

wyck• 14 years ago

The color scheme, the shadows, the fonts, the horror, guys seriously hire a designer or UI person. A crucial link is missing, the one the USER sees, you know with their eyeballs.

peterwwillis• 14 years ago

Are you kidding? If i'm Jim Gaffigan i'm not gonna hire a couple of LMFAO rejects to design my website unless i'm paying them in Hot Pockets. Which would be disgusting.

Hooooooot Pockets.

chrisacky• 14 years ago

This is one of the worst executed pitches I've ever seen.

A few things totally infuriate me.

1. > The bate and switch. Using an asterix to play down your "free" "fee" is not cool.

2. > The site design is sub-par (this didn't annoy me, just a constructive criticism.) No one should be criticised for having poor design skills, heck I suck.

3. > You have posted this story multiple times. This isn't cool. This is the aspect that is the worst.

4. > This isn't some good will gesture, it's a business idea sugar coated as some ploy to make money.

5. > 5%?!! (I especially thought of 5 points so I could say five on point five!)

prawn• 14 years ago

Flagged. Same site submitted by the same user under a different domain, presumably because the last one was marked [dead].

newobj• 14 years ago

Why not just build the site and then offer it to him for free. I'm not sure why people think putting together these "dearxxxxx" websites is any better/different than a cold-call or email. If you'd built the actual site and offered to hand it over to him for free that would have been a whole other story.

kev009• 14 years ago

Seriously, GTFO. This is disingenuous.

Trying to make money by doing this kind of thing isn't wrong, but that's a private negotiation with the talent. You don't get to pretend you're doing it for "free" for upvotes and exposure.

Dear Jim Gaffigan, Louis C.K. paid $35k for his website. We'll do yours for $0.

Related Stories