I just joined Just Cause, a Seattle start-up in beta with a great idea.

The mission of JUST CAUSE is to shine a bright light on individuals, corporations and the change agents who are working for the greater good. To inspire people to get involved, to reveal and help people understand the relationship between charity and community, to educate people about how to MAKE A DIFFERENCE and impassion them to TAKE ACTION; to give them a technology platform to enable that action.

I particularly like their tag line — make some good news ™.  When I was an environmental studies major in college I would come back from my ES 101 class and seriously need a beer or 3.  The news was always bad.  It seemed like a helpless cause. 

Perhaps it was so overwhelming because environmental and social stewardship seemed so lonely back in the 1980’s.  It certainly wasn’t mainstream.  Thankfully general awareness has increased and technology has improved, allowing for the creation of new types of community like Just Cause.

Which brings me to my title — I was a bit overwhelmed by the Just Cause website.  Here are a few of my peeves.

1. All the text is BIG. WHEN EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT NOTHING IS IMPORTANT. 
2. There were lots of advertisements, which I have nothing against as I have ads here and I am all about business.  But they were as noisy as the content — oh wait, what I thought were ads really are content.  There are lots of distracting ads though.
3. As you can see the design left me generally confused, and most importantly for community development,  specifically about what I should be doing next.  I think there could be a better introduction into the site and how to use it.
4. Seeding a new community with content is a daunting task.  I am struggling with that myself, nothing like a blog with no content.  The site does a good job of limiting categories.  However, I saw a number of posts that were included in every top category.  And other posts that seemed way out of place — why is a Cause about Family Farming listed as an Art cause?  These were posts from the founders.  I think it is important for the first users to set a good example.  It also helps create credibility. 

I point these annoyances out not to nitpick but to emphasize an important point to start-ups, it is important to make sure that you make your visitors welcome and feeling like the experience is worth their continued investment.   Otherwise any subsequent marketing dollars won’t give you the return on investment they might otherwise have and it might just kill your company.

Just Cause is in beta, and the issues I mentioned might well have been corrected by the time you are reading this post.  I hope so, because I would like to see the idea succeed — their overall idea of creating a full fledged media property is a BHAG — a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  And that is what entrepreneurship is all about. 

Hopefully the founders will take what I have written with the spirit it was intended and will still grant me an interview.

Question: Will the cause related market be more tolerant of poor design or endure a longer learning curve because they are already passionate?  Another way of putting it – Do you think the cause (green, environmental, socially responsible) related market is different from the “mainstream” early adopter market?