Hi,
I started my passion project back in college in 2018 and learnt by myself programming. My idea was to create a recommendation website for movies and TV shows. I was so passionate about that idea to the point that I dedicated countless hours coding and searching about algorithms.
Back then, I didn’t even think about business plans nor promotion (a big mistake I know). My main drive was creating the best possible version of my idea with all the features I always dreamt of: in other words, an enhanced version of IMDb and Letterboxd with an emphasis on recommendations. This was the plan.
After two years of efforts and pain, my website >!www.tastoid.com!< was released in 2020. I find that, in some instances, my recommendation engine is superior to the other similar popular websites (that I won’t name). Also, I provide for free features that are paying on other apps (such as advanced search filters). The main differentiating factors are that, for each movie, tags are assigned to describe the mood, plot, etc. and based on that classification, recommendations are generated.
But, here is the thing, although I like my project and it is like my baby, I am paying the server charges myself (ca. USD 300 per month) and it started to take a toll on my personal finances. I had a huge increase in views over the last 30 days (14K sessions – more than +100% compared to the last period). But I only rely on Adsense revenues which amounted to $7. As you can see, it is unsustainable for me to continue this way. I did everything possible to reduce the costs: but medium computing powers are needed for the database which is constantly growing and machine learning to assign tags to movies.
Last month, I created a subscription option (taking inspiration from Backloggd which is also maintained by one person) to allow users to support me for a monthly fee of $5 in exchange of a few perks. I am not after any monetary gain, only trying to have a self-sustainable service. However, not even one user subscribed… even though so far the feedback I received is mostly positive and I have some active recurring users.
This is a hard pill to swallow and, today, I made a realisation. There is no solution to my problem. My mistake was to think that passion and hardwork were sufficient to overcome all obstacles. I thought about selling my service as an API, but again this is my side project, I am the solo developer and I do not have much time dedicated to market it, etc.
So the only rational option, if I don’t want to burn my hard-earned cash, is to close the website. The thought breaks my heart, as I had dedicated so much time and love creating this dream project, and losing all that will be very hard to bear. I feel that my website has potential to help people finding new interesting movies based on their taste and that it provides a certain value, only I have not the budget anymore. Reality check, I guess…
What would have you done? Any advice?
TL; DR: I worked on my passion project for years, a movie recommendation website (launched in 2020). I am paying the server charges myself ($300 monthly). Introduced a $5/month subscription option for user to support me, but no one subscribed. Considering shutting down due to financial strain, despite positive feedback and my attachment to the project. Seeking advice.
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Your situation is the same as mine.
Maybe create your own local server? Hop on marketplace and eBay and get some cheap hard drives. Also this isn’t as important but maybe consider a name change?
It’s always difficult to advise when it’s about whipping out your bliss and playing with it in public. Plenty of people have been shocked the positive comments they receive were never accompanied by any money.
My product validation is completely different then real results. Advice?
So shocked they write “zero” in all capital letters. Point being, from a pure business standpoint it will be very difficult to monetize at any more than ramen level. What you actually decide is up to your preference for keeping this going.
Menu isn’t very mobile friendly
Thank you for the feedback
If you can find a cheaper monthly hosting, and don’t really expect this to be anything more then a hobby, then I suppose go for it
That said, your UI/UX feels mega dated, very mid-90’s.
In order to really get a userbase, especially one that pays, you would need to revamp into something far more visually appealing and modern and offer alot more then what you currently do
trakt.tv is a good example
Thank you for your feedback. As the solo and hobby developer, I had unfortunately to make concessions and focus more on the technical side. Indeed, the UI is far from being perfect and trendy.
By “offer a lot more then what you currently do”, do you mean in terms of the perks offered to paid users? If so, yes, this was a deliberate choice to provide exclusive features but at the same not to penalise free users by restricting existing features. A difficult balance to find…
this was a deliberate choice to provide exclusive features but at the same not to penalise free users by restricting existing features.
I just left another comment about episodecalendar. Being completely honest, the reason I paid for a premium sub on that site is that he had a 20 show limit and I wanted to track more shows.
If I look at your free plan, it’s got “unlimited titles”, “unlimited lists”, “unlimited reviews” etc.
There might be some better startup advice around freemium feature pricing models, but I’d do something like workout a behaviour threshold that the top 20% of your users are in - then say okay, anyone who keeps using it like those people should be considered premium from now on, and will have to pay.
You’d have to come up with a strategy to transition those people from free to premium (restrict future behaviour or just give them premium for free as a loyalty thank you), but you could at least make sure that anybody else who crosses the threshold now has to become a paid user if they want to keep using the site.
So behaviour threshold could be something like adding X titles to their library, or something like that.
No, don’t you dare killing your efforts. People here are looking the problem the wrong way. You are not trying to pay less. You are looking to monetize your stream of clients. HOW?!?! Just make a shop man. Sell things yourself. You Understand your customers better than no one. Start selling.
I mean the best option here would be to increase your traffic to a point where it’s sustainable off adsense, you can choose to do this through investing in SEO, branding and marketing to try to get it to that point, or youll have to kill it. If you’re not good at that stuff, consider pitching for a co founder to join that can take you to that level. But it seems like a cool product, if you do end up killing it, put the idea and inner-workings out there and maybe another indie founder manages to execute it that is just as passionate about this. Another idea is to try your luck pitching to integrate with a bigger website that already has traffic but not as advanced features.
Hey! I think that $300/month is outrageous. I’m interested to look at this problem with you and help you reduce the costs. At the end of the days, this is part of my job. I got myself a great computer for £1200 for my projects, and by hosting everything at home, I’m saving money and gathering more data. Contact me if you are interested on my help.
ui is huge turn off for me
Thank you for the honest feedback
This sounds like a passion project, not a business. Take a page from the wikipedia/Godot/etc book and simply ask for monthly donations from users with no perks because you’re one person offering a free service. I’m sure you’ll get some bites.
This is a feature not a business. If you have proprietary code try licensing that to a bigger movie website, but otherwise I don’t think anyone’s going to pay for this on its own.
Thank you, the idea often came up in this thread, it seems indeed clever to pivot to B2B financing model rather than B2C, would need to explore
Why not put affiliate links to all the shows/movies for them to buy on whatever platform they are available? I.e Amazon links
To some this may seem like a daunting task but I’m sure a script and a few external facing api calls could probably make it happen. As far as finding other ways to make it profitable, I would suggest trying to sell ad space directly to independent long form content creators, create an email list that eventually converts into affiliate sales or ad rev, published sponsored posts, add a members only section to your forum, or even just advertise the paid service better (it’s not super clear to me that you are asking for donations like Wikipedia for example).
As far as offering this service as an api, I think that is good too and don’t think it’s as much work as you might think, the bulk of the code already exists, it just needs to be repurposed and delivered… you also can start with basic features and build it out, but I get that development work takes time and is annoying. Congrats on the traffic and good luck!
I came to post this. Some people still buy physical dvd/bluray (especially since some movies cannot be found on streaming services), so by putting an Amazon affiliate link of the recommended movie you could get some commission.
I like the thought of offering it as an api or even repurposing, many startups pivot and their code gets used for something else. generating some traction though is always a good sign, people are looking cant give up now!
and find a way to let people sign up for alerts. Ex: “Alert me when the cost to rent this movie on Amazon falls below $3.99”
Affiliate links + pricing alerts = OP has their $300/mo covered
Also he could list all the streaming services that offer any specific movies or show and add affiliate links to them. Also, if the show isn’t available in the country that the user is in, you could add affiliate links to vpn’s such as NordVPN so people can watch shows that aren’t available in their country or specific streaming service they use.
I believe the business model is wrong. The way is currently set up is not and won’t bring you revenue, not only for maintenance but to grow it to a bonafide business. If you have no direct competition or your search filters are unique compared to other websites that are similar, you can partner up with someone who can market it to, perhaps, a streamer or a platform that already has a good monetization strategy. I think you bring something of value and if you’re inclined, reach out to me to talk more.
Hey first off, I’ve found passions projects as the best way to learn.
Many of mine have only resulted in expense, but what I’ve gained in learning has almost always been worth the expense.
There are some good ideas here on reducing cost or increasing revenue. Maybe they will work…
However what I like to do from these learnings is find a way to turn my learning into profit, not necessarily the project.
For example, I’m sure you can find a client who would be interested in building a “discovery” app that uses algorithmic abilities to serve its customers the best recommendations.
And apparently you know how to do this, here is the proof right in front of us. You even found a potential path to profitability for an entrepreneur who has the right marketing skills.
That is how I would use this…
Sell your ability to deliver this concept or sell the entire thing on a website like flippa to a marketer who doesn’t have the tech ability
Good work
Co-signed on this. Turn your current content into a portfolio piece (or your whole portfolio). Otherwise, it seems like you’re experiencing sunk cost fallacy, which is normal, but I’d decide to either pull the plug or accept that it simply costs that amount of money to run.
Maybe another site would be interested in buying the technology. Have you approached anybody yet? IMDB?
No not yet, selling can be a way to exit, thank you for the suggestion