I just joined mixergy today, and a huge reason was to watch this video. One bit of information that I was hoping to find was how much it cost to develop the site 99 Designs. Matt talked about how he raised the money, but did not mention how much it was. I would love to know what the investment was to build the initial site.

Thanks so much! Great video :)

Bobby

Phase one:
I gave it a couple of shots in my spare time for fun – did not win anything… no problem there…still smiling…

Phase two:
During the lookout for more competitions, I ran through a whole lot and suddenly it struck me (I might be slow) – this IS competition but it is in a sense like the old Roman way; there will be a prize but only for the survivor. smile stiffening…

Phase three:
99designs is seriously harming designers; and I can take it – but what about a designer on the poor side? can he afford loosing his valuable time again and again on rejections / corrections / suggestions from contest holders on 99designs that in many case do not even understand about design but merely goes for prettiness. Especially when the designer risk getting dumped in the final round. Loosing his time; what you know? that might be the day he did not bring food home to the family and did not do that other low paid local job but he bought into the seller of hope.

Phase four:
They might not know it (see it) but 99designs is seriously using the designers hope of fame/work/food to get rich and their own business running – That is clever, that is capitalistic, that is in my world unethical.

I myself are in the area of outsourcing and could have been using 99designs, but never did we get people to do free work for us and then asked them to leave without pay. The day I would use 99designs is the day they change their business method (and it will cost them – yep! hard to be ethical)
- they need to re-think their setup. (what about designers with portfolio, get invited by contest holders (based on their portfolio quality) who then have to paid 2-4 hours on each designer they invite per round and a final bonus for the winner). A pay of a minimum of that originate country was the least 99designs could do. But I guess the customers of 99designs are not willing to pay more now they got used to 295$ for a million earning size company logo eg. 99designs.com/contests/37129

Exploit is a fast way to get rich but I guess it do not taste so good in the end – and someone did not get any food today because he was “stupid” enough to waste his time in the arena.