Generating Revenue

Ideas to Help CS Generate Revenue

Is CouchSurfing only about donations? Are there other clever ways that the project could raise money in order to cover the basic costs of operating, support Collective and other events, and give back to some of the people who work so hard to make it happen? List your ingenious ideas here...

• Honour Charge for CouchSearch Emails - What about an honour system whereby surfers pay $1 per couch request email? For more info / debate see the page...

• Some kind of information might be helpful - If CouchSurfing "will die in 60 days", that will generate much more effort, support and ideas.

• Check the groups on CS

Let's found this non-profit project [1]

Development: founding [2]

Thread about Money money money [3]

• With a clearer, more efficient structure, CS could easily become an NGO.

Who do we have to contact to gain this status?

• Couchparties. Get some CS DJs together, a piece of land, some tents and charge a nominal fee. Or make money off beer/food sales.

Or book a club on an "off day" get a CS DJ and charge a small cover entry. One of my friend does that to make quick cash. Always a fun night and with the right promoting you get a good crowd.

• Collect verification fees at CS meetings. Alot of people don't have credit cards or can't afford the full US$25

• What about selling CS branded travel notebooks? Not sure how many people are familiar with Moleskine notebooks, but they just recently announced a new "Moleskine City Notebook," which includes city maps and is claimed as "ideal for those who travel...as a way of organizing your trip and to preserve it for your memory and records." Check out the link for more info: [4] It could be possible to get them to create a CS edition. I can look into this more if anyone thinks this is a good idea.

• Why not generate travel guides for each major town and city (user generated and moderated by admins) which are then optimised for search engine rankings. Almost all cs members have blogs, websites, etc.. many related to travel. If they all linked to the relevant pages ( through a higher seo strategy), cs's rankings for travel related search phrases would be excellent, giving more exposure for cs and market position - paid inclusion directories of hostels, transportation, money exchange and such .. could bring in revenue whilst maintaining control over which sites cs link to - rather than just letting google ads display whatever they want.

This is quite a commercial idea i know, but it would actually be of use to surfers who need to find discounts on hostels and transportation as with a higher search engine presence for travel related keywords, couchsurfing.com would have access to bulk discounts for members as well as a tidy annual advertising revenue.

Other ideas? Don't be shy, click the edit button and post them here... :)

[Filmed Entertainment Revenue Model] I've worked within the industry many years. CS can potentially raise tens of thousands ($US) for quality tv series, documentary, or feature film. Key concern would be how to manage CS traffic once something like this gets to market? Also, there's the chance newcomers won't be a good "fit" in what CS was originally designed to accomplish (I don't need to elaborate other than to say problems could arise from harrassing users).

We have a network of 800,000+ travelers. Surely travel companies or organizations would pay for surveys which targeted to travelers? Personally, for a free service I don't see the harm of 1 survey every 1-2 months. Maybe one banner ad across the top of the web page. Airlines, bus companies, discount travel are the companies which benefit the most from couchsurfing.com. Before we talk about turning a free service/community into a chargeable / pay per request system, lets explore revenue through advertising.