[HCoop-Discuss] Comments on recruitment/fundraising

[ntk at hcoop.net]

Lots of good ideas all around.  The discussion on expansion and
recruitment has been going on a long time before Graham joined so he's
probably not familiar with all the background.  A few of our members were
satisfied with our size when we had 60 members (as a handful were when we
had 30), but we generally agreed that having one managed server and one
dedicated server on a second-rate network was not a good solution for
providing a high level of service, and secondly, with our organic growth
we were already starting to get within range of outgrowing our current
arrangement.  Fyodor was a small step (our current 100 members would swamp
Abulafia), but Peer1 was the next big step.

It's hard to talk about absolute growth targets, but in the near-term when
we finish setting up at Peer1, I would say we should target 300 shared
host members at a minimum, and see how that goes on the way.  Obviously if
we have Xen or colo members, they would utilize much more of our quarter
cabinet.

In response to the techniques:
1. It is okay to accept donations from members, as we already have.  It is
not okay to accept them from nonmembers, e.g. Amazon commissions.  We
actually can, up 15% of our income, but it is a pain to deal with.  Also
we are not a charity, we are a cooperative serving our members, so it
would be ludicrous to expect outside donors, and we certainly should not
expect outright donations from our members, although a number of our
members have done just that with in-kind donations to help us get off the
ground.

2. We could do advertising promotions like a free year, or adsense, but I
think we should concentrate on the more grassroots techniques that have
proven effective so far.  Like what I talked with Justin about flyering
universities.  What Terry has been doing for a long time very effectively,
in referring people on the internet in a nonspammy fashion and listing us
on tables of providers, he has brought in quite a few new members and
deserves a lot of thanks for that.  I did traditional ads on
www.ghastlycomic.com (warning: very NSFW and ghastly) that brought in at
least one member, and on Kuro5hin.org that brought a good bit of interest.

Adsense is crowded with hosting providers though and I think it would be
expensive and not as effective.

more later,
-ntk