Things We Believe After Building Maptia
medium.com"And secondly, that we weren’t motivated by making a lot of money "
You've learnt a lot, that's worth fair bit. Going forward, you will need to make money. How are you making any money from this?
Jonny (a Maptia co-founder) here. Thanks and yes we know that it is incredibly important to get this aspect of Maptia right (having a sustainable way to grow will enable us to have more of an impact) and we also believe in being 100% transparent.
We have felt comfortable supporting Maptia ourselves for now. However, it is our long-term aim to grow Maptia into a sustainable organisation whose primary aim is to re-invest in its community to directly fund and support talented photographers and writers to tell impact-driven stories.
We are currently in the process of deciding whether to convert to a non-profit foundation or to another similar structure of organisation that is better suited to our long-term mission and our values. At the very least, over the next two years, we are committed to launching a non-profit sister organisation for Maptia, and are already working on a number of storytelling partnerships with non-profit organisations (like charity: water) from all over the world.
As a first step towards our goal of becoming sustainable, we are investigating a small number of partnerships with inspiring brands and organisations who share our values, who believe in our vision, and who will add value and engage with the storytelling process.
Our primary aim is to be able to start compensating some of the talented storytellers on our site for their work, and to be able to cover the running costs of the Maptia platform. We pledge never to stick logos or other branding on (or anywhere near) Maptia stories unless the authors are being well compensated and are fully on-board with the idea, and furthermore, we will only partner with authentic organisations who believe in the power of storytelling as much as we do.
If our persistence over the last few years is anything to go by, we will figure it out... and even if all else fails, then Dean (our CTO and also a talented musician) has promised to busk part time to cover our costs. In other words, we will do everything humanely possible to make sure that Maptia will be around for many years to come!
You're as mad as a sack of ferrets. Can't knock your enthusiasm.
Sounds like of those 1000 days you also gained an education in business and coding. It may be 1/30th of your life, but so is college. Even if everything goes south, you guys have an entirely new and highly useful skill set, and have shown a willingness to go to an extreme to get things done.
If you keep it up, you are definitely going somewhere!
Moroccan here. Hope you enjoyed the country.
Did you try to hire any local coders or even interns at your start-up?. There a are a lot of aspiring engineers in morocco who would have benefited from an experience of working for a start-up like yours.
We were still building v1.0 of our product and so weren't looking to hire during that early stage. However we did connect with a group of Moroccan entrepreneurs who travelled all the way from Tiznit, Marrakech and Agadir and have kept in touch ever since. It definitely feels like there is a passionate startup community growing over there.
You have an idea, or vision, that you're passionate enough to move, learn, chase, fall, get back up, and continue to chase. This is so much more important that the Technical or Marketing knowledge that so many people have. Its something to be intimidated by, even if you're the worlds greatest Marketer or Full Stack Developer. Finding an idea you're passionate about is infinitely harder than learning skills required to make that happen. Most people's reaction to seeing that is a sense of inadequacy in their own life, which leads to jealousy & some "advice" that is meant solely to make you question your cause....bring you down to their level, and impart a feeling of superiority in themselves again.
How hard was/is it to decipher advice from jealousy?
Indeed Kudos! Doing the same thing, but doing it myself while I make a game. Need to put together a blog like you guys. Got some writings and paintings down...just need to build the site. Thanks for sharing!
What an awesome place in Morocco. Thanks for touching on life style balance. I think it's a struggle most of us deal with.
Hey guys,
Fellow Chilean here, just glad to hear Startup Chile was in some way useful to you guys. Would have loved to meet you when you where around ;)
Cheers!
Nice article - always fascinating to see your insider perspective. Kudos on the transparency.
I enjoyed reading that very much. The quote at the end is fucking amazing.
Great story guys
Love this post.
Thanks Jared – it has been a crazy journey since Startup Chile back in 2012!
that's an awesome story :)