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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

#41

Post by kchoudhu »

stevenwiles wrote: post #40
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.

The idea behind passive income is that it keeps coming.

Since this is going to get shut down for abuse, it's not exactly passive.

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

#42

Post by Spivak »

mark242 wrote: post #11
vessenes wrote: post #8

I both understand the demand for this and dislike it. But, assuming ethical questions stand aside, I do have some pricing reactions: This should be a monthly service, full stop. You mention users use it once, and then not for a while. That is the best possible scenario for a recurring revenue business. You should stop offering one-off purchases immediately if you want to see revenue grow. I can think off the top of m…

"This would also let you charge spammers a lot" should be rewritten to "This would also let you charge unwitting victims of credit card theft a lot, and get a ton of chargebacks".

That seems to be true of any business that accepts credit cards.

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

#44

Post by Spivak »

paulcole wrote: post #35

So spam?

Marketing!

I really wish the marketing cycle was reversed, where I post what I'm looking for and businesses respond with offers, because when I'm looking to buy something I would love to be shown options and offered discounts.

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

#45

Post by chinathrow »

the_watcher wrote: post #38
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.

You even need consent and proof of it. Cold email can't have that consent...

http://www.selligent.com/blog/inspiration/think-differently-...

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

#46

Post by [deleted] »

kchoudhu wrote: post #41
stevenwiles wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The idea behind passive income is that it keeps coming . Since this is going to get shut down for abuse, it's not exactly passive.

[deleted]

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

#48

Post by mpeg »

mrmch wrote: post #4

I would be very cautious using Anymailfinder.com to generate email lists -- based on this copy on anymailfinder.com: Anymail finder uses many approaches to find emails—it searches billions of web pages and performs direct server validation. The original SMTP spec allows for email address validation, and there are tricks like opening an SMTP connection to a mail server and dropping it half way if the address is verifi…

The thing is no one respects the CAN-SPAM act in high touch b2b sales, and no one cares about it.

Most people that are getting email addresses in this way are using it as a cheaper and more effective alternative to LinkedIn inmail, cold emails and cold calls are a great way to sell and if you do it right the recipient of the comms doesn't even care that you harvested their details.

Doing it right means the message is very targeted, and most of the time you have people or companies in common with the person you're reaching out to.

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

#49

Post by the_watcher »

chinathrow wrote: post #45
the_watcher wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You even need consent and proof of it. Cold email can't have that consent... http://www.selligent.com/blog/inspiration/think-differently-...

This is for email marketing, not cold emails. Email marketing refers to using automated systems to send emails to a list. A cold email is a human sending an email individually. They might use a template or software to aid in creation, but each email is sent to an individual separately. You might think that this sounds identical, but it isn't.

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

#50

Post by jwatte »

the_watcher wrote: post #36
downandout wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I get dozens of unsolicited sales emails every day. Just answering "thanks but no thanks, and please take me of your mailing and prospect lists" takes time out of my day. It had a real cost.

I have to answer, because the sales people will keep mailing every week otherwise, and marking as spam reduces the quality of the spam filter rules.

I'm the kind of person who will use inbound information if I'm actually looking to solve a problem, and I will resent your wasting my time if you go outbound at me. You literally end up on a "prefer not to do business with" list, hurting yourself.

Meanwhile, enough people apparently can't research their own problems enough, that cold marketing works. I just can't really understand why that is.

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