Ads & financing

[KoroKira]

Hey everyone,

I wanted to bring up an idea for discussion regarding the project’s funding. As you know, this project is currently financed out of samimsu’s own pocket. Even though it's probably running on the free Vercel plan and that we're keeping things lightweight, I feel the project deserves some support.

I was thinking of a simple way to help: what if we added Google AdSense to one specific page (for example, the page displaying all the levels)? This would allow samimsu to earn a bit of income to help cover costs & to get some free money, without disrupting the user experience, since most of us don’t spend much time on that particular page anyway.

What do you all think? I believe this could be a nice way to thank and support samimsu for all the work that’s gone into the project.

[samimsu]

Thanks a lot for thinking about the funding. The project doesn't cost me anything except for my time. The vercel domain is free and I have no backend. I've started making some money from it from 2 methods:

1. Patreon monthly subscriptions
2. Purchasing the 5 level pack on Patreon (so you can add more community levels after your 1 free level)

At the moment, I have 3 monthly subscribers with the 1st subscriber coming on May 15 and 1 5 level pack sale. At the moment, my goal is to earn an income from it to support myself and eventually if I make enough money I will be able to invest money in the project. What I hope I can do if I get funding:

1. User account system (store your completed levels, created levels, puzzle times etc.)
2. Leaderboard system
3. Paid features
4. Give back to contributors
   and more...

Ads? Not a fan. I don't like them and I would like to avoid adding them. I also don't want to promote anything I don't agree with.

Another idea I had was to get a sponsor or several. I would have their branding on the site like "Sponsored by The Cool Company". I'm not sure if that's a good idea though. I reached out to a few people and didn't get a response. It doesn't have to be a company sponsor. It could also be a person and we could agree on how to promote them on the site. I thought about having a main sponsor and then possibly some minor sponsors. I don't know a good amount to charge a sponsor monthly but it would probably depend on my analytics. Maybe we are not at the level yet to have sponsors so this could be an idea for a lot further down the line.

[KoroKira]

I totally get your point about avoiding ads and honestly, that’s a really respectable stance! It’s refreshing to see someone prioritize user experience and values over quick monetization, especially when so many sites are overloaded with irrelevant or intrusive ads...

Back in the day, I did look into a couple of more ethical ad options:

EthicalAds
Carbon Ads
Both are pretty developer-focused and have a good reputation for being non-intrusive and relevant, mostly targeting the tech crowd. Not saying you should go that route, but if you ever reconsider, these could be worth a look.

Sponsorships could definitely be an awesome avenue, though I agree it’s not easy to get started, especially when you’re still growing your audience. Have you tried reaching out on LinkedIn? Because you are basically doing a very big upgrade to their game.