Original founder here, took the prototype of Kout from a dorm room in the UK to SF in about 3 months (Stereotypical dropping out start up story) - so im emotionally inclined to defend product related posts ha.
Anyway.
Just wanted to cover a few points people have mentioned...
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We merge in the ecommerce platform with the payment processor. We really just process payments so we can control the whole experience, but if you have your own gateway you can just plug the api keys in. Most ecommerce platforms require you to go signup with a 3rd party payment gateway, and the quick hack for most people is to go with paypal.
Our focus is really on the ecommerce side. eJunkies lame. 1shoppingcart's lame. Yeah a few others have poped up this year (quixly & gumroad) they just really validate the need. If you don't need a fully fledged frontend store your options are pretty limited.
We're not targeting big head merchants (shopify style merchants). We're targeting micro merchants, the long tail of ecommerce; think the blogger who's still using ejunkie and paypal to sell online, or the kickstarter style sellers who just have one product and need a quick simple way to sell it. www.mmfixed.com - is a prime example for a merchant we are targeting.
That's pretty much the current MVP. We've been live with around 200 merchants for just over a month, and we've processed a few k, again in the first month. We have a couple thousand on a waiting list, but waiting lists never convert at 100% :(.
And yeah. This is just initial build (mvp), our "linked based selling" app wont disrupt the industry, but what we want to build and our vision will... Well, it gets us up in the morning, which is the important thing, so we'll see how everything plays out.
shoot any questions or whatever to devan [at] kout.me
Don't feel like you have to defend your product to anyone.
At this stage, it doesn't matter how similar or different you are from competitors, outside of the effect it will have on real customers. There's plenty of room for more e-commerce platforms and I'm sure you'll make money.
Anyway.
Just wanted to cover a few points people have mentioned...
---
We merge in the ecommerce platform with the payment processor. We really just process payments so we can control the whole experience, but if you have your own gateway you can just plug the api keys in. Most ecommerce platforms require you to go signup with a 3rd party payment gateway, and the quick hack for most people is to go with paypal.
Our focus is really on the ecommerce side. eJunkies lame. 1shoppingcart's lame. Yeah a few others have poped up this year (quixly & gumroad) they just really validate the need. If you don't need a fully fledged frontend store your options are pretty limited.
We're not targeting big head merchants (shopify style merchants). We're targeting micro merchants, the long tail of ecommerce; think the blogger who's still using ejunkie and paypal to sell online, or the kickstarter style sellers who just have one product and need a quick simple way to sell it. www.mmfixed.com - is a prime example for a merchant we are targeting.
That's pretty much the current MVP. We've been live with around 200 merchants for just over a month, and we've processed a few k, again in the first month. We have a couple thousand on a waiting list, but waiting lists never convert at 100% :(.
And yeah. This is just initial build (mvp), our "linked based selling" app wont disrupt the industry, but what we want to build and our vision will... Well, it gets us up in the morning, which is the important thing, so we'll see how everything plays out.
shoot any questions or whatever to devan [at] kout.me
D.