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Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

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Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

#31

Post by chinathrow »

JoblessWonder wrote: post #23
kevinwang wrote: post #2

wondering if you disclosed that you were the creator of the service when you made the growthhacks list

Doesn't look like it. He seems to make no mention of his relationship to Anymailfinder or Makesmail in any of his posts. [3] It also looks like he is working closely with "Clavain Skade" or that is a sock puppet since they seem to publish everything for them to repost. [1] (My favorite) https://growthhackers.com/slides/30-brilliant-growth-hack-ca... [2] https://medium.com/@clavain [3] https://growthhackers.com/member…

What can you really expect from someone providing this service and also favours excessive growth hacking by saying "Oh lock, Airbnb did it too!!"

shakes head

Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

#32

Post by chinathrow »

aantix wrote: post #16
downandout wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why there is so much negativity in these comments. LeadGenius is nothing more than a well-financed spam enabler that charges more, and yet they are celebrated in the Valley and have been handed $18 million in funding. The only difference is that they aren't as up-front about how the data they sell is derived.

While I agree that it probably does enable a certain portion of spammers, cold outreach is a necessary component to growing a company. There is nothing more effective than a well directed email stating that 1) you can solve one of their problems and 2) are you willing to purchase it today? Skip your blog posts. Skip your viral marketing videos. Skip your media blitz. Find your customers. Find their emails (yes, using…

"There is nothing more effective than a well directed email stating that 1) you can solve one of their problems and 2) are you willing to purchase it today?"

That is considered illegal spam in lots of european countries unless you have a pre-existing relation ship with the recipients. YMMV.

Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

#33

Post by someone7x »

aantix wrote: post #16
downandout wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why there is so much negativity in these comments. LeadGenius is nothing more than a well-financed spam enabler that charges more, and yet they are celebrated in the Valley and have been handed $18 million in funding. The only difference is that they aren't as up-front about how the data they sell is derived.

While I agree that it probably does enable a certain portion of spammers, cold outreach is a necessary component to growing a company. There is nothing more effective than a well directed email stating that 1) you can solve one of their problems and 2) are you willing to purchase it today? Skip your blog posts. Skip your viral marketing videos. Skip your media blitz. Find your customers. Find their emails (yes, using…

I consider spam to be a on a spectrum of invasive advertising. Direct mail and telemarketers are other obvious examples.

A more extreme example: if a hustler approaches me on the street and tries to con me, is that still "cold outreach"?

To me if it's on that spectrum it's all sleazy, only to varying degrees. At least with blog posts and viral videos it's always my choice to engage with them.

Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

#34

Post by unwind »

I think this sounds shady. The most interesting part of the article to me was the use of "email" by itself to mean "email address". This is always so confusing to me, since "email" already is a noun meaning something else.

A button saying "Get email" to me would indicate that I would be sent email if I clicked, not that I would be shown the email address of the person the button was associated with, for example.

Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

#36

Post by the_watcher »

downandout wrote: post #25
aantix wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that it probably does enable a certain portion of spammers, cold outreach is a necessary component to growing a company. There is nothing more effective than a well directed email stating that 1) you can solve one of their problems and 2) are you willing to purchase it today? Skip your blog posts. Skip your viral marketing videos. Skip your media blitz. Find your customers. Find their emails (yes, using…

I agree that one man's spam can be another man's valuable service offering. But generally sending unsolicited email to people at work is considered spam. The alternatives are numerous. Adwords, Facebook advertising, LinkedIn ads, running ad campaigns on targeted websites, etc. I saw one a story about one guy that was acutally able to specifically target a single person at a specific company he wanted using LinkedIn a…

All those ad channels are substantially more expensive in almost all SaaS cases. Sending an unsolicited email is not spam. Sending mass numbers of automated unsolicited emails is spam. LeadGenius and the like simply provide email addresses.

I run large scale advertising campaigns. I wish that it was cheaper than hiring an SDR to cold email. It simply isn't. In the very early days, advertising is so expensive that it makes almost no sense to prefer it over cold emails. Cold emailing simply works, as much as it might irritate you

Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

#37

Post by the_watcher »

unwind wrote: post #34

I think this sounds shady. The most interesting part of the article to me was the use of "email" by itself to mean "email address". This is always so confusing to me, since "email" already is a noun meaning something else. A button saying "Get email" to me would indicate that I would be sent email if I clicked, not that I would be shown the email address of the person the button was associated with, for example.

It's pretty clear in context what it means. Also, email has become a noun that also means exactly what it's intended to here (hence it being commonplace for someone to ask for another person's email and omit "address"). There are numerous words that are nouns with multiple meanings.

Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

#38

Post by the_watcher »

chinathrow wrote: post #29

Don't use this in Europe. Cold emailing is forbidden in lots of countries. If you cold email me with your business/sales/whatever you make money with it pitch, I report you to your hosting provider and if necessary, to the local authorities.

How do they define cold email? If someone you know gives me your email address, and I don't tell you how I got it, is that illegal? Can you only email people who have actively given you an email address? This seems very unlikely, and extremely hard to enforce.

Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

#39

Post by joshka »

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-108publ187/html/PLAW-108p...

(1) Address harvesting and dictionary attacks (A) In general It is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission, to a protected computer, of a commercial electronic mail message that is unlawful under subsection (a), or to assist in the origination of such message through the provision or selection of addresses to which the message will be transmitted, if such person had actual knowledge, or knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances, that— (i) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means from an Internet website or proprietary online service operated by another person, and such website or online service included, at the time the address was obtained, a notice stating that the operator of such website or online service will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website or online service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages; or (ii) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means that generates possible electronic mail addresses by combining names, letters, or numbers into numerous permutations.

Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months

#40

Post by stevenwiles »

mark242 wrote: post #3

Please don't continue to run this. What you are doing is effectively recreating the VRFY command that nearly every major mail hosting service has removed for privacy and abuse reasons. You are opening yourself up to a huge liability, since spammers will quickly use stolen credit cards to crosscheck their lists against your API. This will cause you to have processing issues from Stripe. This will cause you to have a h…

The person doing this doesn't care about the ethics of this. He's got his passive income - he's going to take it and run.
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