Why are you targeting for "funders" (I think you mean the people getting paid)?
In general, getting the money into systems is the hard part. If money is there, people will come - easy! Getting people to give money - whether to a company or for donations - that's hard!
Also, frankly, this is a nice proposition from the POV of the "funders". You seem to have built it for yourself. But, the value for the donors? Sounds like a tough sell.
So making donors happy is most important. Without them you're toast. With them you can AT LEAST support yourself, if nothing else :)
You spent too much time thinking creatively on your own, and not enough time understanding how the world works. If you want to improve the world you have to understand it better. Go understand whether you can design a business process (involving your software) that's better than the ones they brick and mortar stores are using now, and then sell it to them (or "give it away for free" - or is it worth it to pay them?). THEN think about the implications.
Deep-down the unresourceful founders are afraid, which causes anxiety that their decisions are wrong, so anything that approaches being wrong causes the anxiety to repress and get in the way of the freedom to explore things.
Resourcefulness is also about letting new ideas and opportunities come to you, which helps if you listen to your unconscious, which you can't do if anxiety makes your conscious mind jumpy.
You don't think there are any genetic differences between people?
The mind is plastic, but there's a strong genetic component too...and this all has been debated soooo much...
I find it natural - not hard at all - to think in the abstract for extended periods. Most people don't.
Also I agree with you that it's a slippery slope. But only if you choose the wrong ski lift: The ski lift of assholeness. (How's this analogy going?) The truth is, there are plenty of facts out there that you could use to become an asshole with. Like the fact that your little brother is physically weaker than you. But that doesn't mean that you should beat him up. And it doesn't change the truth.
Something to think about...coding well takes a certain type of mind that most people don't have. Code is, as Fred Brooks says, "pure thought-stuff." You need to be able to build and understand multiple layers of abstract stuff all at the same time.
Coding is like having a vivid dream in that you're occupied with something entirely mental and disconnected from your physical reality. But unlike real dreams, it's coherent and rigidly structured, and fits in your conscious mind.
Some people can think this way. Most people can't, even if their mind is advanced in other ways.
I don't think most people, even the ones who are interested in Codeacademy, realize this.
(That said, I think it's useful for people to try to learn to code to understand the basics. And surely lots of people out there could code, but haven't learned yet. But most people will not be able to build complicated "apps and websites.")
Frustrating. Hard to evaluate as a biz idea without knowing how valuable these things are - much energy/heat they would actually provide.
Also, I don't see a reason why it couldn't do realtime stuff as well...
And if this was at microsoft research why did microsoft not do something more strategic with this? They can't start running azure nodes in people's houses? Maybe it's because the economics don't work out...
We've found lots of opportunity to make email marketing more sophisticated, and not enough smart engineers thinking about it.
BTW There's a belgian company called 8seconds ( http://www.8seconds.net/ ) with some similar dynamic-image loading tech, combined with (I think) multi-armed bandit split testing on the backend.
If they "click out" and move onto another message, they'll probably never read your email again. So for the marketer it's the same as a delete (and likely is an actual delete).
If they click on a link inside the message, that shouldn't get counted as a delete.
Feel free to ping me with more questions - [email protected]. Always looking to chat with others in the email world :)
I've heard this idea before (maybe from myself? haha). I think it's great!
Why not just do a smartphone app? Or an RSS feed reader that speaks your feeds? Then you get the GUI from the smartphone too. Or could be an all-voice interface for when you're in the car...