Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sales of Bingo Card Creator Per Month

bingocardcreator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 40 posts

Re: Sales of Bingo Card Creator Per Month

#21

Post by patio11 »

10ren wrote: post #19
patio11 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say you're doing, I don't know, a lesson on cellular biology. After wrapping it up, on Friday afternoon, you want to play a fun game which still has some educational content. So you print out one Parts of A Cell bingo card for each student in your class and explain how bingo works (or not, because they've almost certainly played before). Then start calling things like "This center of the cell is where the chrom…

I've know about your Bingo Card Creator for about a year now, and for the first time I know what it is. Clearly an explanation is not necessary for your market (which I assume is the US); to expand internationally, evangelizing for the teaching method itself would reap great rewards, I believe. As a vague demonstration, Avatar has earnt 27.5% domestic, 72.5% international: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.h…

Evangelizing is tough, which is why most technology evangelists work for companies with enough money to buy small European nations and have vague job descriptions that they can't possibly fail at. I, on the other hand, have a limited budget and a well-defined brief.

The audience of biology teachers is much, much wider than the audience of "people looking for biology bingo", and it being more diffuse makes it harder to address via scalable marketing methods like SEO and AdWords. They're also much harder to convert, because I have to sell them on a) biology bingo, b) Bingo Card Creator, and b) paying $30 for it, whereas if I just try for folks who typed [biology bingo cards] into Google I get (a) for free.

I want to be someone's first bingo game about as much as Apple wants to make someone's first cell phone.

P.S. The game many Australians think of when they think of bingo is not the game on my website. Yay, internationalization.

Re: Sales of Bingo Card Creator Per Month

#22

Post by robryan »

Luc wrote: post #14
rjprins wrote: post #10

Why is it so unusual for businesses to be open about the income and expenses?

Because if you are successful it's asking for competition?

Make's it easier for your competition to position themselves to. In this case it's such a niche market that most people wouldn't mind releasing financials. Other things though, I think there is a big advantage to keeping the competition guessing.

Re: Sales of Bingo Card Creator Per Month

#25

Post by mcdowall »

patio11 wrote: post #2

Oh man, am I glad that page is cached now. (Generating it from a clean memcached takes 30 seconds.) Not sure why you guys are suddenly interested today, because its been up for quite some time now, but if you've got questions hit me. P.S. I hate summer.

I had wondered if it was an old post....if only....

"ssumed exchange rates: 1 GBP = $2, 1 AUD = 1 CND = $1, 1 EUR = $1.50"

I think I get about $1.47/£1 these days

Re: Sales of Bingo Card Creator Per Month

#26

Post by 10ren »

patio11 wrote: post #21
10ren wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've know about your Bingo Card Creator for about a year now, and for the first time I know what it is. Clearly an explanation is not necessary for your market (which I assume is the US); to expand internationally, evangelizing for the teaching method itself would reap great rewards, I believe. As a vague demonstration, Avatar has earnt 27.5% domestic, 72.5% international: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.h…

Evangelizing is tough, which is why most technology evangelists work for companies with enough money to buy small European nations and have vague job descriptions that they can't possibly fail at. I, on the other hand, have a limited budget and a well-defined brief. The audience of biology teachers is much, much wider than the audience of "people looking for biology bingo", and it being more diffuse makes it harder t…

Well thought out; but by "evangelize" I just meant to consider those people visiting your site who don't know what your Bingo Cards are, and to sell the concept of Bingo Cards, not just your product (sell in the sense of explaining the benefits, as you did above). Like adding a link from "for instructional and entertainment purposes" to an explanation page. It would be a long-term strategy, to grow the pie, not just your slice, so it might take a long time to show up in A/B testing (and probably would be minuscule compared to the existing low hanging pie... er, fruit).

So many sites assume the reader already knows what they're selling. Still, I can see that your customer acquisition costs must be much lower for those who already know, and your site speaks precisely to those people; and there seems to be enormous growth left in that segment.

I mainly mentioned it because it would be a beneficial thing to do for the world - a connotation of "evangelize".

Re: Sales of Bingo Card Creator Per Month

#28

Post by anamax »

patio11 wrote: post #17
Aegean wrote: post #16

I wouldn't expose too much of the company finances. Someone might find it profitable and start a copy-cat. What do you think?

I think it happened. Twice out of folks who know me from online forums, possibly more outside of that. Oh well.

I'll bet that most competitor attempts are a net positive.

Even the failed attempts help convince folks that they need bingo cards.

Re: Sales of Bingo Card Creator Per Month

#29

Post by volida »

patio11 wrote: post #21
10ren wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've know about your Bingo Card Creator for about a year now, and for the first time I know what it is. Clearly an explanation is not necessary for your market (which I assume is the US); to expand internationally, evangelizing for the teaching method itself would reap great rewards, I believe. As a vague demonstration, Avatar has earnt 27.5% domestic, 72.5% international: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.h…

Evangelizing is tough, which is why most technology evangelists work for companies with enough money to buy small European nations and have vague job descriptions that they can't possibly fail at. I, on the other hand, have a limited budget and a well-defined brief. The audience of biology teachers is much, much wider than the audience of "people looking for biology bingo", and it being more diffuse makes it harder t…

maybe a video with few people playing bingo cards with an explanation of Bingo Cards Creator itself, will do it.
Post reply on HN