'Ignorance Offsets Interview'

Name of your website?

Ignorance Offsets

Your name?

David Annis

Your Location (city, etc)

Okemos

Please give us a short summary of your website?

We sell ignorance offsets and donate the proceeds to educational charities. We allow the purchaser to retain the tax deduction. Recipients get a personalized ignorance offset certificate.

What inspired you to launch your own website?

My sick and twisted sense of humor.

When did you launch your first website, and what was it?

1994. A website that allowed online ordering of pizza for a local chain.

How did you decide on a name for your website?

Anyone who asks that question needs an ignorance offset.

What makes it different from other, similar offerings?

Donors know that their small donation actually makes it to the charitable recipient.

What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)

To educate the entire world and eliminate ignorance.

How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?

Let's just say that there's plenty of ignorance left.

If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?

Advertising, advertising, advertising.

If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?

Absolutely. There's so many worthy educational charities.

What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?

The difficulty of programming the interface to PayPal.

What has been your biggest challenge?

Getting traffic to the site.

What method has been most successful for promoting your website?

Paid advertisements.

How has running your website differed from your expectations?

I expected to be flooded with orders, hundreds, perhaps thousands a day based on the ignorant people that inspired me, but unfortunately many people don't understand what their real needs are.

How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?

It's been up about a month. If it doesn't raise money this year it's gone.

Any other related ideas?

At the risk of offending, I think perhaps you should try giving an abstinence offset for Valentine's day atAbstinence offsets

What is your website address?

Ignorance Offsets

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