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Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

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Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#301
post #93

Just wanted to add a note: Most people who aren't making anything won't be posting, so results will be drastically skewed. So for anyone here getting discourage because they think their a minority - think otherwise (And then get back to work on trying to get your own setup ;))

People on H1B, like me, simply can't. It is ilegal to have any income coming anywhere else other than the employer associated to the H1B... It is ilegal to even make money on ads on a blog... this completely sucks and is very frustrating.

IANL, but at one time I was on H-1B and now US citizen. It is not illegal to own a US business on H-1B. Also, there is no issue with business owned by H-1B having revenue, for example from ads on a blog. If you own a business, you can issue dividend to owners even on H-1B without any issue.

What you can't have on H-1B is the wage from 'unapproved' sources. You will need to get H-1B for every wage source. But there is no restriction on you receiving dividends, capital gains, etc.

Don't confuse "revenue" with income and "wage" with income. Income can be wage, dividend, capital gains, etc. H-1B only restricts 'wage'.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#302
post #275
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making $365K-$500K+ on this annually?

I just crossed $200k in sales since I (re)launched in May, so yeah - about that.

That's awesome, congrats. How did you create your sales path? Did you use another model. Also, do you still work a salaried job? I assume this is your main source of income.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#303
post #261
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of conversion rate do you get on this funnel?

About 8% right now, with an average sale of a little north of $200 (so it doesn't take many subscribers and sales to hit four-figures a day)

Does the end of your sales funnel have some sort of scarcity built into it? Or are you basically just linking out to the sales page, to an always available book/course?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#304
post #229

I sell math books and courses at http://betterexplained.com and on Amazon. It's about 3k/m currently, hoping to improve that with better landing pages, a/b testing, retargeting, drip campaigns, etc. [the patio11 playbook]. More details on how I got started here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=870015

Hi kalid. That's awesome to hear you're grown the business to 3k/mo. Clearly the model of free content online + sales of curated book-length content works. Imagine now if a bunch of people with tutoring experience in chemistry, biology, economics, etc. write textbooks on their subject. Wouldn't the life of the ugrad student get suddenly better? (Stop the exploitation of ugrads! )

BTW, since you cover a lot of high school topics, you should consider making a textbook that is aligned with the common core math state standards---the big textbook publishers are scrambling to update their books right now...

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#305
post #275
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making $365K-$500K+ on this annually?

I just crossed $200k in sales since I (re)launched in May, so yeah - about that.

That's crazy successful. I'm working on my own auto responder course. How did you build up traffic to the sales page?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#306
I make about $1,400 MRR from my SaaS app LinksSpy (https://www.linksspy.com).

LinksSpy is a tool for SEO agencies that helps them find better link opportunities for their client's websites. I started it at the end of April 2014 (7 months ago) and it has grown ever since.

Considering that I am moonlighting the app, it has been quite successful so far. AM(A)A

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much work went into advertising your Udemy courses? Was it something that took significant advertising / reach to gain students?

Honestly, no. One post to reddit, one to Growthhackers.com and the rest has all been organic.

Pretty good ROI it seems like. Thanks for sharing!

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Betterment over Future Advisor? I really like the latter, but haven't really looked into Betterment all that much.

They cost more. They charge .5 percent on assets vs betterment charging .15 if you have over 100k, and .35% if you dont. They both do the same thing, tax loss harvesting and automatic rebalancing. That fee difference over 30 years assuming an investment of 20k per year and an 8% return could cost you like 400k - which is not chump change.

How do these compare to https://www.wisebanyan.com?

It seems to be roughly the same idea, but without any fees at all (I haven't used any of them, so I'm likely missing something)

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#309

I make about $1,400 MRR from my SaaS app LinksSpy ( https://www.linksspy.com ). LinksSpy is a tool for SEO agencies that helps them find better link opportunities for their client's websites. I started it at the end of April 2014 (7 months ago) and it has grown ever since. Considering that I am moonlighting the app, it has been quite successful so far. AM(A)A

What did you do to market your app?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

#310
post #229

I sell math books and courses at http://betterexplained.com and on Amazon. It's about 3k/m currently, hoping to improve that with better landing pages, a/b testing, retargeting, drip campaigns, etc. [the patio11 playbook]. More details on how I got started here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=870015

Hi kalid. That's awesome to hear you're grown the business to 3k/mo. Clearly the model of free content online + sales of curated book-length content works. Imagine now if a bunch of people with tutoring experience in chemistry, biology, economics, etc. write textbooks on their subject. Wouldn't the life of the ugrad student get suddenly better? (Stop the exploitation of ugrads! ) BTW, since you cover a lot of high sc…

Hey Ivan! Been meaning to reach out about your mini reference guides, I really like the approach. I agree on aligning with common core, I've been out of school so long I forget what old textbooks are like (the courses I have are more like "enrichment"). Well-written, reasonably-priced books that teach lasting understanding would be awesome for undergrads.
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