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Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

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Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#21

Post by exline »

exline wrote: post #4

It has taken longer to get to where I am that I thought. I have a number of spreadsheets I've made of the time showing cash flow based on number of customers. The growth has been much slower than I wanted. Part of that is the software aspect is much easier to me than the marketing. I would say that software is absolutely critical, but it is only the first 10% of the business. The rest is sales/marketing etc. That is…

Just found this link on HN:

http://blog.chrometa.com/you-launched-your-app-now-what

Related and a good read.

Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#22

Post by callmeed »

We had no goals–which is great because anything you get is gravy. Let me explain: 6 years ago I built something for a friend. "Hey, this is great. You should try and sell it," he said. "Meh, ok, whatever ... " I replied. Sent some emails. Got some good response. Fast-forward and we've got thousands of customers, 6 employees, and 7 figures in revenue.

Was the revenue easier than we thought? Well, yes ... because we never thought anything. I know that doesn't really help, but what I'm getting at is maybe it's a bad idea to waste energy "setting goals" to any degree beyond covering costs or being ramen profitable.

Just focus on finding a need, saving/making people money, doing customer development, and iterating/adapting. Most everything else is beyond your control.

And don't forget, when you're setting goals, there are a lot of numbers less than 1% (that came from an HN post/comment IIRC)

Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#23

Post by JangoSteve »

I've built 2 B2b products now, and I can say that it depends entirely on what type of business is your target market. Case in point:

-RateMyStudentRental sells to colleges and universities. Schools are essentially large corporations, and the sales cycle is excruciatingly long (a year or more). To top it off, my absolute maximum market in the US is around 5500 possible clients if I garnered 100% of the market (probably actually less because some schools are commuter campuses which puts them outside my market). I've been doing it since 2007, and I'd tell you that you may get 3 customers in 3 years if you're incredibly lucky.

-LeadNuke on the other hand is a B2B product that can be useful to almost any type of company, startups to multi-national corporations, franchises, and freelancers. I haven't even really told anyone about it yet (except the occasional HN post), and it already has around 30 companies signed up and using it. In this case, I'd tell you, pshh that's easy.

My point: it depends. The only way to know is to try it. Any speculation before trying it is just that.

Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#24

Post by switch »

Why don't you focus on providing value before you start worrying about how much money you'll make.

From your questions it seems you want someone to tell you it's going to be easy - a piece of cake. It's not.

Why not flip the equation and focus on how you can add enough value to 100,000 people a month. That though you're charging them $30 a month they've benefitting to the tune or $3,000 or even $30,000 a month. Plus do this without focusing on your own need for a side stream of income.

Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#25

Post by bigsassy »

A little off topic, but you should know there's a better way than the Yellow Pages to find customers. The ReferenceUSA database will give you all the companies in a given area that fall under the entered NAICS code. Here's a small sample of the information you'll get:

* Business Name

* Address

* Contact Information

* Number of Employees

* Number of PCs

* Location Sales Volume (in dollars)

* Credit Rating Score

* Names of Management and their Titles

* $ spent on accounting

* $ spent on contract labor

* $ spent on advertising

And this information is all free to you thanks to your local public library. It's pretty awesome if you ask me. Here's how to get access to it:

1) Get the NAICS code for the industry you're selling to. This code is used by the government to classify businesses. http://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/

2) Go to your local library to access the ReferenceUSA online database. You may even be able to do that through the library's website (I can through mine).

3) Click on U.S. Businesses under Available Databases

4) Customer Search

5) Enter the NAICS code in one of the boxes at the bottom of Business Type -> Keyword/SIC/NAICS.

Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#26

Post by skream »

Asa-Nisse wrote: post #6

Most everything I ever did has been totally random. Things that I thought was safe bets went out the window. Stuff I did when hacking on beer and booze over a weekend has netted me $100/yr. Key is to not spend to much time thinking about it, just do it. The more you play the higher your chances of winning are.

Can you elaborate more on what this was that earned you $100(k) from a weekend of hacking?

Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#27

Post by ryanhuff »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #20
mahmud wrote: post #7

This morning I shopped our idea to 20 potential users. Cold-called them. They have been extremely nice and supportive, but it's been 4-5 hours since I sent them links and I am sitting on the edge of my chair staring at a blank tail -f /var/log/access :-| -- Edit: They have come! it's been 50 minutes since I wrote the above and already got two beta users. My other startup went for 43 days before I got a 2nd client, an…

B2C = business-to-consumer. Contrast to B2B (business-to-business). Slightly confusing as he mentions his former employer as his first customer, I presume he means his boss in a personal capacity.

I read it different. Last start-up was b2b, and his former company was one of this first clients. This time (b2c) much easier to attract interest. I bit its an apples to oranges comparison though.

Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#28

Post by waterside81 »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #18
edw519 wrote: post #15

I continue to be amazed by 2 things: 1. How difficult it is to get a raw prospect to understand how my offering will benefit him. 2. How easy it is to get his money once he does.

I think that is the case for most good software. Many engineer-led companies think the engineering is the hard part, so get totally surprised by #1, to the point that their business fails. Of course, there is a name for #1. It is a name mocked and derided by engineers world-side: Marketing Learn it, love it, earn from it.

Spot on. Don't club me for saying this, but once I got my MBA, I was able to see tech products from more than just a nerd's eye view (I did my undegrad in CS)

Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#29

Post by visava »

One of my friend created a Desktop software for small business.He was giving free trial license and download for 30 days. Adwords gave him 50 daily propsects.It took him 6 months to get his first customer and 2 years to reach 200 total sales. But in the process he learnt a lot about that specific industry ,added lot of features to his product and also added an online offering. Now he is selling 60 a month.

Re: Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

#30

Post by dtegart »

waterside81 wrote: post #28
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is the case for most good software. Many engineer-led companies think the engineering is the hard part, so get totally surprised by #1, to the point that their business fails. Of course, there is a name for #1. It is a name mocked and derided by engineers world-side: Marketing Learn it, love it, earn from it.

Spot on. Don't club me for saying this, but once I got my MBA, I was able to see tech products from more than just a nerd's eye view (I did my undegrad in CS)

The same for me (Mechanical Engineering undergrad). I think part of the problem stems from thinking that marketing == advertising. In fact if you are going to create any part of a business plan, I think it should be your marketing plan. It will force you to really think about your product, what features will bring the most value to your customers, and how to reach those customers.
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