Today is both up and down. I am sorting my way through the Stripe onboarding process for connected accounts. I already pay tax in the U.S. I don’t want to also be liable for taxes in other countries. I am seeking a simple partnership where I can make a difference in another community and another family, and make it worth my while doing so.
In the USA, (it’s easier to type that, even tho I speak U.S.) when a person wants to start a business, one of the first things we do is search for a domain name. In much of the world I have traveled, the first thing they do is post to social media. In Việt Nam, it’s either Zalo or Facebook. In Cambodia, it’s often Telegram.
From my perspective, I don’t understand why they think a billionaire needs more money or should use their platform. When I looked at a graph of website use around the world, the numbers basically reflected my perception. Most of the websites are in America.
Others see it from the opposite point. I have been pushing a river. I keep wanting to make websites for people and they look at me with a blank stare. They wonder why I would make a website where nobody visits. Good point. I have begun to consider marketing from their point of view.
That brings me to today’s task. Working on the intake form for a mini website as part of a community platform. Up to now I had been focused on a web form admin page that could publish the website from input fields. And, it had to be as small an concise as possible to be faster than any competitor, especially for the 2G and 3G markets.
I’m also grappling with Stripe’s categories for onboarding connected accounts. I already pay taxes in the USA, I don’t want to be liable for these partners and pay taxes in their countries. That should be their responsibility. Stripe is excellent and powerful, and there should be a way forward, but right now the bottleneck is that I must choose and can’t change my mind.
The choices in v1 are Express, Standard, and Custom. Both Express and Custom expose me to risk for the partners’ actions. Not OK. Standard has other problems. Fortunately V2 is available and offers API and other features. I asked my coder about this. We are still discussing. This could be SaaS or a Marketplace or a POS. I’m not sure yet.
I want this to be simple. I’m 76 and don’t have all my marbles. And, I’m tired. Soon I will have to start marketing and telling people what is best about this – and there is a lot that is great. The process is simple, make the intake form, sign up hundreds of users with free accounts. At the beginning I will pay some underemployed tuktuk drivers to take photos and fill in the forms.
This is a great idea, if I do say so myself. Build the community marketplace, filled with mini web pages. The shops pay something to be in the ‘mall’ and handle their own customers, payments and refunds. Add Google Ads to get some cashflow at the beginning and prompt upgrades. These upgrades would include adding products and services, being able to take orders and payments automatically. All of this would bring a small community closer together.
The first thing we can do is install Google Ads. This I have already begun. I resurrected SailVietnam.com from almost certain doom. (I had built this many years ago when I though Vietnam was going to have a marina. It’s not. I built many pages, and then abandoned the project. Recently I mistakenly deleted the install for that domain.) Yesterday, I called support and found the one remaining backup, which was hours away from oblivion. Saved!
After we start promoting the site, there will be visitors. Once the number of sites reaches a critical mass level, these businesses will start to get orders from it. Then some sites can upgrade to removed the ads, edit their shop info, and other perks. Then it should be self-sustaining, and profitable.
As I have begun looking into this new angle on this venture, I have discovered POS systems. Stripe was pushing me to choose a path. The coder is asking me to wait. So, back to the task at hand. Today’s task is to make the intake form. So, onward through the fog.