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Ask HN: How to turn a “toy” side project into a business?

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Re: Ask HN: How to turn a “toy” side project into a business?

#32

Post by memn0nis »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #14

- Actually phone up at least one new sign up per day. Ask why they signed up, what they use it for, how it compares the the others they have used and what would they pay for - unlimited time, number participants whatever. They will try to be nice - assume they lie. most importantly how did they hear of you. Pay attention to the vocabulary they use. What you are trying to get here is your elevator pitch - but told to…

Thanks for the advice! We don't store phone numbers, but that's great advice to ask users for language to use.

Regarding channels, we posted on product hunt and then I think they are mostly word of mouth

Re: Ask HN: How to turn a “toy” side project into a business?

#33

Post by riceluxs1t »

Long time League of Legends fan/player + a hedge fund SWE here. Got intrigued into modeling basics (data engineering/research/simulation/pnl monitoring) and decided to try a quant approach to Daily Fantasy Sports for LOL, which has been empirically successful because the game is against other human participants, not the house. Wanted to share my experience of turning a real life hobby+job experience into a side income generating project

Re: Ask HN: How to turn a “toy” side project into a business?

#34

Post by memn0nis »

snarf21 wrote: post #13
kd5bjo wrote: post #5

The same way you turn anything into a business: figure out who will pay how much money for what. Then, figure out how much it will cost you to provide that to them and tell your future customers that you exist. If the former is more than the latter, you might be able to make a viable business. Your existing users might be good leads, or they might not. At the least they see enough value in your offering to use it for…

Interest is measured in how many will pay and how much. As said above, you need to talk to your users and figure what features have value and what that is. Rinse and repeat.

We've priced it relatively high at first, but we've also put the language "If you want to get on the paid plan for Hallway, but don't want to pay, just email us at support@hallway.chat with a link to yourself sharing Hallway on social media and we'll give you a discount"

Re: Ask HN: How to turn a “toy” side project into a business?

#36

Post by memn0nis »

wolco wrote: post #17

Price is too high for most. Needs a third pricing tier. 8 dollars 50 video chats. Highlight as most popular. Lower free tier to 5 chats. Get more users.

We've priced it relatively high at first, but we've also put the language "If you want to get on the paid plan for Hallway, but don't want to pay, just email us at support@hallway.chat with a link to yourself sharing Hallway on social media and we'll give you a discount"

We can look into adding tiers

Re: Ask HN: How to turn a “toy” side project into a business?

#37

Post by memn0nis »

bachmeier wrote: post #20

First question you need to ask: why would someone pay you $30/month to add something to Slack? The answer to that question is going to be a mystery to anyone reading your homepage. "make working from home less lonely" - I don't know what that means, but I don't know many individuals that want to pay $30/month for it, and it's not a very compelling argument for a business either when the economy is in the toilet and g…

Yeah we need better language. It's just a fun way for teams to stay connected. So for $1 a day a company can add it to as many channels / use it for as many teams they want.

Re: Ask HN: How to turn a “toy” side project into a business?

#38

Post by wiz21c »

afandian wrote: post #16

This isn't the answer you want. But I have a hobby side project that I've kept going for a decade, and which gets high enough use to feel like it's worth keeping going. It costs server money to run, a couple of take-away-coffees per week's worth. In the past I did agonise about putting ads on it, or otherwise monetizing it. But at some point I decided that as I was lucky enough to have a paying job, the marginal retu…

This.

Will add my experience.

The project is not the problem. The problem is the mindset. A mindset for business has, at least in my experience, a very different set of goals than one to make a hobby project, not even a product.

If you make a business, money must be your driver, your hobby time is just a mean to achieve an end. So it's transformed into a background task.

Also, don't forget that if your business fails, then you'll most probably have to stop your hobby project as well (too many bad memories...). You may have to kill your baby, which is very difficult to do.

A business oriented person transforms opportunities into business/money; another opportunity, another business. A programmer raise his program-child. If one has to make another one, he'll have to kill the previous one (unless he has infinite time to work on both :-)). Making hobby project assume you're emotionally involved in it. That's not compatible with business I think.

Ah, and doing business, you'll attract other people who're in for the business. The kind of people who'll put a price tag on what you do (which will be so less worth than what you think, very tough to ear)

So, be sure you have the business mindset.

Re: Ask HN: How to turn a “toy” side project into a business?

#39

Post by 1123581321 »

afandian wrote: post #22
gordon_freeman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind sharing the link to your Hobby project for me to check it out? :)

I'm reluctant to because I've had zero time to dedicate to it for a couple of years and there's a laundry list of improvements I have been intending to make. But, with that caveat, it's https://www.folktunefinder.com It's a mix of clojure and java. And there's a half written rust search backend waiting for a rainy day...

So cool. Thank you for being willing to share!
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