There's no way I'd pledge to pay a significant enough amount of money to motivate me to some random people who hacked together a fairly simple app.

On the other hand, I would consider pledging the money to a charity, and giving a small cut to service that facilitates it.

Starting is easy, shipping is hard.

I have a folder on my computer with a number of unfinished/unshipped projects. We created Sink or Ship to address the problem of following though and shipping what you started.

http://imgur.com/BdtwZ

Great idea, instantly reminded me of 'Lose It or Lose It' which is the same concept but for weight loss (loseitorloseit.com). Putting money on the line is always a great motivator.

Whenever you get some completed projects it would be cool if there was a gallery to check them out.

We did a startup that used the same model in stopping online procrastination: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2268710, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuc0_ZMQ4P8 and our competitor in productivity space blogged about us :http://blog.beeminder.com/timecarrot/. My experience is that, it is really hard to build a business model around behavioral economics, be it weight loss, quitting smoking, or anything else. Based on the data I have seen, people who will think they need commitment device are also sophisticated enough to know that they might fail, hence won't signup. In the end, you always end up serving significantly smaller number of consumers than you have initially assumed.

i just pledged my upcoming game project

try this addon feature : create a "gallery" of to-be released projects (don't need to reveal title/details due to secrecy). Possible candidate:

"@ashtonkutcher just pledged a secret project, $5000 to charity if he fails by 10th May. Watch progress here"

Just to be clear... the company makes money only if their customers fail. Considering we fail more than we succeed, that might work out good!

Although, I can see a $1 charge for the tweet as a marketing fee so you make SOME money if the planets align and the product ships.

So what happens if I unlink the app from my Twitter account before you auto-tweet?

Also, it doesn't say how much it'd cost if I don't ship in time, just "Free if you ship it in time. Pay $5 only when you want to make changes." -- what if I don't ship in time and I don't make changes?

Cool idea, though :)

I would consider this if the proceeds go to a charity (at least partially).

Amazing concept, great name. It's the insurance model flipped upside down. Or just "Insurance from your own laziness".

This mentality will just encourage fire drills and burnout.

It does nothing towards improving core problems of software development lifecycle planning issues.

I would suggest reading a book like Peopleware, before embarking on public shame or penalties as solutions. These band-aids are almost always self-imposed, and they almost never work.

I don't know if a constant $5-per-infraction is really enough to spur people (e.g., me) along. How about going exponential, ala Beeminder[1]?

[1] https://www.beeminder.com/money

Nice idea. Similar to something I've considered recently: an email client concept that would charge postage for every message sent with proceeds going to charity. Might cut down on inbox overload.

(Just kidding): this incentivizes sinkorship trying to sink everyone else's projects :oP Maybe they'll start organising startup WoW guilds...

For these types of sites that offer negative reinforcement by donating to the charity of choice, I wonder how much a stronger an incentive it would be to donate to a cause the user is against rather than one of their choosing (e.g., donate to the presidential candidate you don't support).

This would be a good idea if the announcement came with the extra cachet of being on time. For example, you could agree to socially promote projects that ship on time, and remove such promotion if it slips. This would need to be curated, though, and so an expensive service (perhaps $50?)

I thought that you were more likely to achieve goals if you hadn't told people about it? http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_you...

I think it would also be cool to link your projects (shipped or failed) to some type of karma system. This way you can show your scars and your successes. Maybe even target the karma report for VCs.

Maybe you could use most of the money to invest in kickstarter-type projects, who in turn use sinkorship with much higher costs for not shipping, creating a loop of funding

I would increase the first amount exponentially for each change, also make first amount adjustable..