Give

Co-founder

2011 — 2017

We looked at the music world and found two things to be true: there was more music being made than ever and artists were getting paid less than they had in the history of recorded music.

Give was a tip button for any artist on the internet. I co-founded this company.

UX Strategy

Branding

Product Design

System Design

Marketing

Ambition

Build the gift economy for creativity on the internet.

Results

Created a first of its kind system for people to support musicians on the internet.
Built an entire multi-user-type application as a team of two.
Gained the attention of a wide array of artists from around the world that signed up to use the service.
Built a brand and unique marketing approach, hosting live music events with up-and-coming artists like Andy Shauf and Dan Mangan.
99.99% uptime for 7 years.

Created a first of its kind system for people to support musicians on the internet.
Built an entire multi-user-type application as a team of two.
Gained the attention of a wide array of artists from around the world that signed up to use the service.
Built a brand and unique marketing approach, hosting live music events with up-and-coming artists like Andy Shauf and Dan Mangan.
99.99% uptime for 7 years.

Role

Solely responsible for product design, brand, and marketing.
Jointly responsible for business research, strategy, planning, development, execution, management, and analysis. We approached everything with a focus on innovation and designing a system that was built for a new context rather than purely following precedent.

Solely responsible for product design, brand, and marketing.
Jointly responsible for business research, strategy, planning, development, execution, management, and analysis. We approached everything with a focus on innovation and designing a system that was built for a new context rather than purely following precedent.

Team

Give was a partnership between Johnny Rodgers and me.

Give was a partnership between Johnny Rodgers and me.

Phases

Phase one

2011-2012

Build

Phase Two

2013-2016

Experiment

Phase Three

2017-2018

Sunset

Breakdown of how the project evolved through each growth phase.

Breakdown of how the project evolved through each growth phase. Swipe right for more.

Area

Phase one: Build

Phase TWo: experiment

Phase three: Sunset

Year

2011 - 2012

2013 - 2016

2017 - 2018

Team size

2

Tempo

Colocated working one day a week.

One weekend a month.
Consistent remote work.

Colocated working one day a week.

One weekend a month.
Spikes of remote work focused on milestones.

Colocated working one day a month. Intermittent remote work.

Theme

Side-project with full time jobs.
Design / build a proof of concept.

Side-project with full time jobs.
Increase visibility of service.
Increase no. gifts and artist claims.

Side-projects take a back seat to life.

Product

MVP
Users could sign up and give to any artist in our system or add their own.
Artists could claim accounts and we can verify them. We could pay these artists.

Iterated on UX of landing page, gift flow, and artist claim flows.
Created separate landing page for artists.
Added artist dashboard.
Added ability for users too leave messages with their gifts.
Created a project artifact, enabling artists to set crowdfunding goals for specific projects.
Created API and browser extension for 3rd party integrations.

Maintained service uptime and gracefully shut down when it was time.

Connor is one of the most creative, perceptive, and sensitive technology designers I’ve worked with. His aesthetic instincts are exceptional and his sense for “what works” is unfailing.

Johnny Rodgers

Former principal engineer/product architect

Slack

Brand Design

The intent of the Give brand was to feel authoritative, timeless, and trustworthy, yet able to adapt to contemporary trends without a need to continually update it. We chose the humanist san-serif Myriad Pro and created a warm and natural colour palette with vibrant highlight colours.

System Design

Other services that offered direct artist support were limited by their supply of artists. You can only support the artists that adopt their platform (ex: Kickstarter, Bandcamp, or Patreon). The unique invention of Give was giving fans the control to support artists that hadn’t yet been to the platform. We wanted to make it easy for fans to support the artists they loved.

A simple Service blueprint

Key moments of the experience emphasized playful interactions

Product Principles

Our product design principles across each step of the user experience helped emphasize key moments with the right content and UI.

Find Artist

An impulse to give

Lightening fast search
Exhaustive list of artists

Delightful affordance to set amount
Make money feel like appreciation
Clarity about service fees

A near invisible transaction
Trust is paramount

Connect with the artist
Show appreciation

Select Amount

Pay

Make Give easy to find

Closing the Loop

Fans supported artists and reached out to them directly. This support would draw the attention of the artist and bring them into the system to use as a flexible crowdfunding tool.

Closing the Loop

Fans supported artists and reached out to them directly. This support would draw the attention of the artist and bring them into the system to use as a flexible crowdfunding tool.

Marketing & PR

Driven by a need for radical authenticity and genuine appeal to artists, we focused our marketing efforts on grassroots activations. We hosted house concerts, private cabaret, and secured placements in local media.

Closure

After 7 years of operating Give as a side project it was recieving less and less of our attention and the lack of activity showed. While we still saw a place for this idea in the world our approach had failed and we moved on.

Open dialogue

Thanks for reading. Get in touch if you want to dig into anything about Give, learn about my other work, or talk about opportunities to work together.

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The innovation of money

Published on Jun 1, 2023

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We looked at the music world and found two things to be true: there was more music being made than ever and artists were getting paid less than they had in the history of recorded music.