Hey PH! Copper is a new app we're developing here at Vidme. We're focused on helping content creators make more money and Copper is one of the new products we've built to help do that.
Our team noticed that creators on Patreon, Twitch and elsewhere sometimes offer one-on-one paid chats with fans. We decided to build a simple utility app that can help creators scale this activity and make payment painless. After some user interviews, we quickly realized the app could work for a number of other interesting use cases, and many we probably haven't thought of yet.
This is the earliest MVP version of Copper — we hadn't planned for PH visibility yet — but we'd love your feedback on what we have so far.
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@abenzer Love the idea. To stay close to the game of baseball (7 yrs pro w the Nats), I like to do 1-on-1 lessons with younger players of the game and this platform may make it feasible to do lessons remotely. Really cool!
@abenzer can you ask Chase Dimond to stop spamming our users on Clarity? Even though I'm no longer involved (acquired Feb 2015), the community is an extension of my personal network and they forward me all emails from bad actors.
I can appreciate a clever growth hack, but it's breaching our terms of service and next step is to have the lawyers get involved.
Assuming you'll get this resolved.
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@kovlex, thanks for sharing this :)
One feature that we think is particularly novel about Copper is that you can offer to pay someone for their time, e.g., “Would love to pick your brain on this new app idea… can I buy you a cup of coffee for a 5 minute video call? Here’s my Copper link...”
We think this opens up a lot of interesting use cases: getting the attention of your favorite creator/musician/celeb, soliciting advice from an expert (fashion blogger, coach, electrician, etc), compensating people for customer development, among others.
Also, we’re adding in the ability for the sellers of time to seamlessly donate their proceeds to charity, so you can raise money for a good cause, just by talking.
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@wwshaef@kovlex So, like clarity.fm, but more targeted to celebs? LIke what kakaotalk did with their celeb endorsement streams and chats?
@andmitsch@kovlex We think of Copper as more of a broad utility that can be used in a variety of use cases. The goal with this initial product is to make it stupid simple to pay or get paid for a video call. We're seeing it used for fan to influencer hangouts, lessons (music, English language learning, tutoring), consultations, coaching, and even as an easy way for contractors to get accurately paid for their time.
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@wwshaef@kovlex You should definitely try to focus on 1-2 personas at best and thus do not make the use-cases to broad. You'll only dilute its functionality without giving your users a clear message and user-journey.
Don't go all broad - basic business rule.
@andmitsch Thanks for the suggestion. Still early days, but I'm sure some verticals will use the app more than others. Will continue to iterate accordingly.
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@wwshaef I think this is a pretty strong use case. Especially even for myself where while I don't consult anymore, I've had folks who've wanted to do some brain picking. It was actually the one that first came to mind for me. Especially depending on how viral/simple you make the request.
It looks like you guys have it all mobile focused right now, but another use case you mentioned related to twitch and similar are "pros" that charge for coaching time (video usually also involved, but from a PC). Not sure if there's already a player in that niche or not, but most of what I've seen is a payment processor + skype (not integrated in any way).
Very cool idea! I can see a lot of use cases for this. Think mentoring, tutoring or just any type professional advice giving.
The tool simply connects two people and also has payment baked in. I can easily see this as something that I would use not to sell more one on one sessions, but basically the technology that connects and takes care of payment.
An awesome use case for this would be to add a link to transactional emails for my app inviting customers to a quick cust dev call to talk about new features and be able to easily compensate them for their time - can't wait to try.
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this reminds me of Google Helpouts which Google closed down a few years ago. Hopefully you guys can make it work. https://support.google.com/helpo... I've always wanted to build a product like this.
@matthewboyle25 thanks! A few major differences between Copper and Helpouts:
1.) Copper is mobile-first, Helpouts was focused on desktop;
2.) Copper is more of a utility, rather than a marketplace (really hard to solve for the empty-room problem in the latter scenario). Also, a utility approach makes it easier for the call hosts to have dynamic pricing.
3. Copper will allow you to easily donate your proceeds to charity (alleviating the awkwardness of charging someone for your time for a quick consultation)
Would love any other feedback... maybe we can chat sometime on Copper :)
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I really dig this concept. Something you guys may not have considered yet (and I am not sure how it would work exactly) is how this could be used in journalism.
I am a journalist and one of the biggest challenges is getting paid for on-the-ground reporting if you are a freelancer, especially these days when publications are struggling to pay their own reporters. I can imagine that this could be a fast, seamless way for a vetted freelance reporter to message, say, CNN, and provide live coverage as it happens and get paid for it.
@henryltmiller awesome use case, and we'd love to encourage it. Let's chat more about it over Copper? Send me an invite so I can comp you for your feedback :)
@traderdxb yes, totally. There are a ton of vertical that this could be used in - the first example being music lessons, but also thinking about financial planning/advice, highschool/college tutoring, cooking, relationship advice, etc. The idea is to enable people like content creators, bloggers, and social media figures to sell their time. Whether it's to fans or to people out there that just want to pick their brains for a few minutes, there should be an easy way to chat with someone and for both sides to feel like they're getting value out of it. It's still really early, but we're excited to see what communities will find value in using Copper.
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