I think he meant 9/10 times a business will fail if trying the first time in a field. If it is your 2nd time trying after a fail or success, the chance has to be different because you’ve boosted your chance from the learnings
A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
101–110 of 256 posts
Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
#102The math on this makes no sense at all. > - Live off of $15k a year. Don't buy a house. Don't buy a fancy car. Just save. - Do this for a year. - Land a job that makes you $100k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. - Celebrate by living off of $30k a year. - Do this for three years. - Land a job that makes you $140k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. Get a Roth, put $5k a year in…
Those numbers are ridiculous. I saved up about $100k in 3 years at a tech job and I haven't worked in the last two years on that, no problem (living in a not-inexpensive US city with a car, also).
It isn't that you cannot live for 10 years off a large chunk of change... it is that you don't know what will happen during those 10 years. If you are fully stocked up on health, disability, life, and home insurance, you are probably OK. But most people I know who are taking time off are not fully insured for all possible scenarios, with backup plans in place. So instead, they hoard their savings.
Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
> . . . grammatical errors.. Normally we only put one period at the end of a sentence.
Apropos of the value of his comment, I'm sure you can appreciate that there's a difference between grammatical errors of the "don't understand the rules of language" type, and "poor keyboard/typing".
Since you brought it up, what WAS the value of his comment?
Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
#104Finally created an account, just to say this "A Dark Room recently hit the #2 spot _overall_ on Google Play (pro tip: stick to iOS, the revenue is almost an order of magnitude better)" I bought the game on android to support the developer despite the game being VERY late to android. With that said, the android port is horrible . It's behind garbage. Amir cannot talk about love for the code and release crap like that.…
That sucks. I’d spend more time on the Android version. But there is a really high piracy rate. Buy a Samsung Galaxy S8, it was tested on there. Both Michael and I appreciate the hat tip you gave us by buying it. Email me and I’ll glady refund your $0.99.
My 2 cents:
1. Charge more than 99c. Double the price and your sales will likely drop by less than half, making it profitable to do so.
2. If you’re going to half-ass the port to Android, why even bother? It will do more damage than it’s worth.
Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
#105The math on this makes no sense at all. > - Live off of $15k a year. Don't buy a house. Don't buy a fancy car. Just save. - Do this for a year. - Land a job that makes you $100k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. - Celebrate by living off of $30k a year. - Do this for three years. - Land a job that makes you $140k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. Get a Roth, put $5k a year in…
Yeah it doesn't make any sense at all. He grossed over 800k on a video game, loves programming, but after another three years he has to go back to his day job? It sounds like he's burning over 100k/year and lying about his expenses in this report. In any case, there's a lot of information left out.
He has a revenue sharing agreement with the original creator of A Dark Room, which I think is 50%. Self-employment taxes plus regular taxes will be somewhere around 35%. Apple takes 30%. So, ($800k * (100 - 30)%) * 50% * (100 - 35)% is $182k. So not bad, but it's only $60k/yr for three years.
Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> . . . grammatical errors.. Normally we only put one period at the end of a sentence.
Apropos of the value of his comment, I'm sure you can appreciate that there's a difference between grammatical errors of the "don't understand the rules of language" type, and "poor keyboard/typing".
I guess my point was, by demonstration, that nitpicking little aspects of the articles we link here is without positive value. I'd have been wiser to leave my comment unwritten, but sometimes I can't help myself.
Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sucks. I’d spend more time on the Android version. But there is a really high piracy rate. Buy a Samsung Galaxy S8, it was tested on there. Both Michael and I appreciate the hat tip you gave us by buying it. Email me and I’ll glady refund your $0.99.
My 2 cents: 1. Charge more than 99c. Double the price and your sales will likely drop by less than half, making it profitable to do so. 2. If you’re going to half-ass the port to Android, why even bother? It will do more damage than it’s worth.
It works great on the devices I’ve tested on. Which is like 4 out of the 15,000 possible OS+Device+Carrier combinations.
Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
#108I'd like to think there's a middle ground between 'corporate america' and 'at home alone'. Hitting the jackpot the first time around may have actually led the author away from a place he'd feel most comfortable in - a small company with other people who love what they do.
During my free time I did a good amount of contract work with small companies. They loved what they did and it was energizing. But what they love working on isn’t what I love working on which is in essence: “artistic, evocative experiences”. Yes I’ve invested in a closet full of turtle neck sweaters while I continue my search for my “magnum opus”.
Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
#109Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k
#110The math on this makes no sense at all. > - Live off of $15k a year. Don't buy a house. Don't buy a fancy car. Just save. - Do this for a year. - Land a job that makes you $100k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. - Celebrate by living off of $30k a year. - Do this for three years. - Land a job that makes you $140k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. Get a Roth, put $5k a year in…
4% withdrawal rate is a conservative figure often used to live “forever” from a portfolio (use 3% if you want to be more conservative, 5-6% for more risk friendly). To get $30k a year, that’s a starting portfolio of $750k. [0] If you’re making $140k a year and living frugally, you can amass $750k in less than 10 years, perhaps even 5-7 if you are really frugal + lucky with the market. It’s within reach of most softwa…
>[0]: http://www.firecalc.com/ gives us an 80% chance of success for a $750k portfolio on $30k withdrawal a year over 50 years.
Which will be good 4 out of 5 times.
This is using all available 50 years "stretches" since 1871.
If you try limiting the "since" to 1960 the success rate goes to 25%.
Still since 1960, 40 years are 44%, 30 years are roughly on par at 79%.
And while sticking at the shorter 30 years, if you start from 1970 the percentage of success increases at 94.4%, if you start from 1980 you finally get 100%.
If you start from 1970 with 40 years period, you are at 75%, more or less the same.
Now what happens if - still starting from 1970 - you increase the period?
41 - 71.4%
42 - 66.7%
43 - 40.0%
44 - 25.0%
45 - 33.3%
46 - 50.0%
47 - 0.00%
And the troubling issue with the last one is that in the two cycles available you hit 0 US$ respectively after 25 and 40 years.
Not to put anyone down, but even the 3% is not that much safe when you go over such lengthy stretches, still as an example drawing 22,500 US$ out of the 750,000 portfolio, which gives a 100% rate of success limiting since 1960 gives 8 cycles, of which one is not a problem as it ends ove 20 millons, but the other 7 (or 87.50%) are IMHO too close to 0 to be reassuring.