nolastan

It's open to _everyone in Dallas_, not available _in all of Dallas_.

I haven't done enough research yet on UK. I will circle back to this comment once I do.

I did have a user sign up from Canada, but it's so much simpler there that it probably doesn't make sense for Canadians to pay for Mel:

  1. Fill out the CMA Do Not Mail form: https://cmadnm.cawebhosting.ca/submit.asp

  2. Put a note on your mailbox that you don't want to receive Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail.

While I don't intend to register as a non-profit (there's CatalogChoice already), I could see registering as a Benefit Corporation / B Corp. Would that hold any weight, or would you still just view that as "an SF tech startup"?

There is no pitch deck for Mel as I don't intend to raise VC funding – precisely because I don't want to be pressured into doing something that goes against my values like selling user data.

I'm in the process of reaching out to existing customers, with an aim of getting some reviews on TrustPilot. Do you have any other ideas?

I accept that there's a certain percent of folks who will not trust me with their address, so I'm not trying to change anyone's mind or pressure anyone into signing up if that's the case.

Back when I worked at SaveUp, and we gave real cash prizes to people every day, we always had people claiming we were a scam. We even posted videos to YouTube of our selection and giveaway process, and posted new testimonials to our site every single day, but certain folks simply couldn't be convinced.

The image with the bird and the mailbox I generated directly from DALL•E. The asset on the Stripe checkout page for the Assistant plan I generated using Midjourney. All of these assets are placeholders while my partner is working on drawing a custom mascot to represent Mel.

In the Messages app, next to the text field, there is a camera icon.

That would be nice. However, the postal service is required to deliver your mail, and they make money by doing so. They have no interest in reducing mail and in fact have been advertising their “Every Door Direct Mail” service which is nearly impossible to opt out of. Look for “EDDM” label on mail and you’ll see what I mean.

Totally understand the privacy concern. If it helps, I'm a person, not a company—and I put my photo and personal links right on the homepage so folks can decide if they would like to trust me with this sensitive information.

+1 I have a plug-in Prius and I haven't put gas in the tank since January, when I drove 10 hours to visit family.

So it's like Algolia, with a UI baked in? How does ongoing support and maintenance work?