81–90 of 190 posts
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Checked out your iPhone DJ software; how do you handle interruptions due to incoming calls or text messages? Whenever someone is using their iPhone to DJ they always occasionally get messages or calls and the noise is played over the loudspeakers. Does the SDK provide a way to turn those off?
Airplane mode?
I live off of TekPub ( http://tekpub.com ) and Adzerk ( http://adzerk.com , http://theloungenet.com , http://rubyrow.net ).
S3stat ( http://www.s3stat.com ) brings in enough to live on, and funded me while I was traveling last year and bootstrapping the next thing. It also has the advantage of pretty much running itself on autopilot, so I can sometimes go entire months without opening the IDE or doing anything beyond responding to the odd customer email. I'd highly recommend building something like that (a low-maintenance income generatin…
Could you talk about how you go about finding customers for the site?
http://www.s3stat.com/web-stats/cheap-bastard-plan.ashx
It's a strange niche to be in because it's something people are looking for but there was basically nobody doing it when I started out. It goes squarely against the two most fundamental pieces of business advice you can get: "Never build a business based on a missing feature of a popular software product", and "If there's no competition in the space, be warned: there's probably no market there".
Evidently, there are actually a few good left ideas out there that nobody ever thought of doing before.
I am with my startup Codesketch ( http://www.codesketch.com ). We've been designing and coding apps (mostly iPhone, but some web apps too) for various companies. We are also working on some apps that we will sell directly to consumers on the App Store. - 2 partners (one of them is me) - 3 board member who contribute several hours a week gratis I took some funding at the beginning, but we are now completely self-susta…
I'm curious to how you got a free office. Would you mind sharing?
I think there are differences between an "aspiring startup" i.e. self-employment, small business, cooperative etc. and a startup. To me you are running a startup when you are ready to take funding that will mainly be used for growth. People can of course call their businesses whatever they want, but using a term like "seed stage startup" would be helpful for clarity.
Why does being a startup have anything to do with taking external funding at any particular stage? I would say being a startup is more defined by whether you are at an early development and market research stage or whether you have an established, significantly profit-making product/service. How that early development and market research happens to be funded seems irrelevant.
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I get about 10k and 15k uniques per day. I charge direct advertisers between $0.75 and $2 CPM. I fully realize this is a pretty low number (considering how targeted the audience is) but I've spent some time contacting businesses and the only companies that can afford to pay me can only afford $1 CPM rates. I basically get around a million page views per month, which is the figure I use when I sell ad space.
How are you selling your ads? Do you have your own ad server? You should really check out isocket if you're interested cutting out all the logistical crap. Granted I'm biased as the sales guy, but seriously, you should check it out/email me (jason@isocket.com)
If so, I talked to you :-)
(I currently use Google DFP)
ThatHigh.com pays my rent in SF. Currently working on Djangy.com, hopefully that will "supplement" thathigh :-)
how did you advertise ThatHigh?
I got lucky with a good name and a ton of early exposure from college humor.
I am living off http://www.AwesomenessReminders.com and http://www.CustomerFind.com . For AwesomenessReminders, you can use the referral code HACKERNEWS to save money.
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yes please share that info with 1000's of would-be competitors with the right skill sets and entrepreneurial drive ;)
If having a niche is your main competitive advantage, I'm not sure success will last long anyway.