Micro-biz #3: Giveku
How it started, what excites me, and the lessons learned
On August 2nd, I launched my 3rd micro-business: Giveku. Giveku is a crowdfunding site that makes it easy for people to support students who live in developing countries. I would say this is my most startup-ish micro-biz thus far.
How it started
For well over a year now, I have been providing mentoring and partial scholarships to several students in Indonesia. The amount ranges from $30 to $120 per month for each student, which covers about 50% to 100% of their monthly tuition. However, I realize that if I want to impact even more students, I need to be able to scale it and use technology as leverage. That is why I started Giveku.
What excites me about Giveku?
Because the payment system is powered by Stripe, anyone with a credit card can use Giveku to support our students. Which means that I am no longer restricted by my own capital or my existing geographical network for funding.
If Giveku gets enough traction and I’m able to solve the scaling and verification challenges, it can go global. Students from around the world will be able to create their own profiles and receive funding for education.
The Stats
As of August 20, 2023 (day 19)
Givers: 3
Total Contribution: $160.00
Profitability: Negative
Things I Realized
My past experiences with launching Bilangan.io and Esaiku.com, made me realize how hard it is to get strangers to use my product. So, for Giveku, I leaned towards my existing relationships with my friends and people I met from work. I didn’t put as much time and effort on other forms of marketing. But for day 1 of my launch, I decided to experiment and launch on ProductHunt.
Prior to the launch, my ProductHunt coming soon page had about 15 people sign up to get notified when I launch. However, due to my other micro-businesses, office workload, and the time it took to single-handedly build the site myself, I did very little marketing for my ProductHunt launch. I knew that given how much time I spent, it wouldn’t win a lot of upvotes on ProductHunt, but I decided to launch there anyways just to see and learn. Well, I got what I deserved. 24 hours since the launch, I got a mere 2 upvotes. 1 was the complimentary upvote from the site, and 1 from my housemate.
This “failed” launch taught me that I needed to spend at least a few months actively promoting my ProductHunt launch, getting to know the community, and understanding how to have a successful launch.
That said, I hope you found this post helpful. Subscribe to get updates on my entrepreneurship journey, things that are on my mind, and advice for high school & university students.