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Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

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Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#11

Post by lalos »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #4

Ug, is it just me, or does that he took money before actually having anyone to paint the pictures seem unethical? Would people have ordered if they had of known there were no artists as yet, or for that matter the artist were going to be friends of the website owner?

It's a common hustle/business tactic. Read up on how Microsoft was made into the giant it is today[1], similar trick. You are basically validating your idea, if you have a lot of orders coming in you have what I call a positive problem, a way to make money.

[1] http://gizmodo.com/5825184/bill-gates-spent-the-best-money-o...

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#12

Post by TAForObvReasons »

avitzurel wrote: post #9

"acquiring artists turned out to be far from the hardest part of the business." This. I consulted many businesses as an engineer and often times technology can get you so far. You have to "get your hands dirty" and do the work. Tech is rarely the bottleneck, it's often sales, understanding needs, contracting work to 3rd parties etc... Kudos to the owner, great job

... the author was saying the opposite. "far from the hardest" = "not the hardest" and you can see it in context:

> Shortly after the launch I was contacted by many artists, mostly from China (they already saturate other marketplaces like eBay, Alibaba, and Etsy). The initial batch of orders were break even, but once the market-rate artists contacted us, I knew it was going to be profitable.

Sounds like the difficulty wasn't in finding artists

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#13

Post by jacquesm »

chrischen wrote: post #6
aaawow wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you see deep learning artistic services as competitors to real artists? e.g. https://deepart.io/

To real artists, perhaps, but we currently only offer direct photo to painting services, which mean the only services offered by artists on our site are directly copying photos and turning them into physical artworks. So unless deepart.io is combined with a painting robot, we don't feel threatened. And in fact we already released both a painting robot and the first free-to-use neural network style transfer demo.

You keep saying 'we' whereas my impression is that this is a solo project, is the lady you mention in the article your partner in the business (since you mention no employees)?

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#14

Post by hiou »

Nothing like exploiting people to make a living. Maybe the people doing the actual paintings should get that $32/mo?

Gross US imperialism at its finest. So embarrassed to be from this country.

FYI: Exploiting artists isn't some kind of disruptive innovation. Ever wonder why the arts are much less likely to adopt open source licensing? People like this jerk.

Oh wait, I forgot. They aren't real artists because they happen to live in China. This is so so so gross.

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#15

Post by dhruvkar »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #4

Ug, is it just me, or does that he took money before actually having anyone to paint the pictures seem unethical? Would people have ordered if they had of known there were no artists as yet, or for that matter the artist were going to be friends of the website owner?

You pay a company to have a service or product rendered.

It's not my job to investigate Amazon's supply-chain to make sure that can actually deliver my toilet paper in 2 days. They are promising me this service and now it's their responsibility to deliver on that.

If those services/product aren't rendered, then a refund should/can be demanded.

I think this was completely within ethical bounds, assuming a promise was also made to return money if services weren't rendered.

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#16

Post by chrischen »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #12
avitzurel wrote: post #9

"acquiring artists turned out to be far from the hardest part of the business." This. I consulted many businesses as an engineer and often times technology can get you so far. You have to "get your hands dirty" and do the work. Tech is rarely the bottleneck, it's often sales, understanding needs, contracting work to 3rd parties etc... Kudos to the owner, great job

... the author was saying the opposite. "far from the hardest" = "not the hardest" and you can see it in context: > Shortly after the launch I was contacted by many artists, mostly from China (they already saturate other marketplaces like eBay, Alibaba, and Etsy). The initial batch of orders were break even, but once the market-rate artists contacted us, I knew it was going to be profitable. Sounds like the difficult…

That's true, the difficulty wasn't finding the artists. It was finding customers, and growing the customer base, if any thing.

That being said, the OP is correct also in that the tech wasn't the hardest part either. The tech was always something I had to worry about after the fact of acquiring more customers. You can always find customers first and support them manually, and then revise the tech later to reduce costs.

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#18

Post by kejaed »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #4

Ug, is it just me, or does that he took money before actually having anyone to paint the pictures seem unethical? Would people have ordered if they had of known there were no artists as yet, or for that matter the artist were going to be friends of the website owner?

Just had Sears cancel an online order that was 'in stock' when we purchased because they can't fulfill it. Did they ever have it in stock? Did they just run out and have poor inventory control? Who knows, but they couldn't fill it when they implied they could. Not sure I'd call that unethical.

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#19

Post by lilbobbytables »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #4

Ug, is it just me, or does that he took money before actually having anyone to paint the pictures seem unethical? Would people have ordered if they had of known there were no artists as yet, or for that matter the artist were going to be friends of the website owner?

> the artist were going to be friends of the website owner

What in the world is wrong with that part?

Re: Instapainting – From $4k in debt to $32k/mo in passive revenue with no employees

#20

Post by morgante »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #4

Ug, is it just me, or does that he took money before actually having anyone to paint the pictures seem unethical? Would people have ordered if they had of known there were no artists as yet, or for that matter the artist were going to be friends of the website owner?

If he delivers the products, what's the problem?

It's literally a cornerstone of many/most businesses.

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