Who is living off their startup fulltime? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#141

Post by javery » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 2:07 PM UTC

sgallant wrote: post #82

javery wrote: post #33

I live off of TekPub ( http://tekpub.com ) and Adzerk ( http://adzerk.com , http://theloungenet.com , http://rubyrow.net ).

The design of your sites is great. Do you outsource that?

Yeah, I have a designer I use on contract. I would give you his info but I have him booked solid for awhile. :)

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#142

Post by zackattack » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 2:08 PM UTC

philfreo wrote: post #103

zackattack wrote: post #40

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.

Would you like to buy SuckinessReminders.com from me for a very reasonable price? ;)

No, thank you though

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#143

Post by zackattack » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 2:09 PM UTC

iamgoat wrote: post #89

zackattack wrote: post #40

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.

Awesomeness Reminders is hilarious. Wish I had known of the referral code, but regardless, it was money well spent!

Glad to hear it was a dose of awesome!

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#144

Post by zackattack » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 2:14 PM UTC

spIrr wrote: post #70

zackattack wrote: post #40

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.

What percentage of your income is coming from CustomerFind? Just curious, because it seems like a really lean startup.

CustomerFind (http://www.CustomerFind.com) is built around an idea: enter in keywords, then get notified about who is mentioning them on Facebook & Twitter. Then you get a neat way of replying to those people, in case you have a targeted solution to their problems. A small number of people pay for the software, perhaps because it is poorly marketed, or perhaps because there is a lot of competition in the social media monitoring space. Most people just use it for the email report functionality.

However, most people don't take full advantage of the powerful software I built. One entrepreneur was savvy enough to realize that I had something powerful on my hands, and now he's paying me handsomely to manage and grow his Facebook and Twitter profiles. I use CustomerFind to find people (targeted by geography and keywords) who might be interested in his services, and then one of my employees sends them a personalized direct message to start building the relationship. It's like SalesForce but for Social Media. I'm excited for what the future holds there...

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#145

Post by jjudge » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 2:27 PM UTC

Blocks8 wrote: post #117

jjudge wrote: post #80

Signal ( http://www.signalhq.com ) supports 13 including myself, co-founded in 2006. First few years as a founder we're incredibly tough (paid others but not ourselves), but we're doing great now.

I love the design - did you do it in-house?

Thanks - yep, design was done in-house by our design/UX director (http://www.signalhq.com/about-us/team/drew-myler). We're now focused on cleaning up our message so that you immediately know what the product does when hit the home page. I think a few walk through videos will be helpful, it's a great product.

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#146

Post by jjudge » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 2:28 PM UTC

heyjonboy wrote: post #7

ParkWhiz ( http://www.parkwhiz.com ) is fully bootstrapped and paying full-time salaries to both founders. It took us 3 years of being ramen-profitable to get to that point, though.

Congratulations guys

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#147

Post by ericlavigne » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 3:01 PM UTC

Andrenid wrote: post #123

kylebragger wrote: post #6

Forrst ( http://forrst.com/ ) makes more than enough to cover all costs, including some of my salary. The rest comes from a seed round I took in March.

I'm a big Forrst fan, thanks for the site! It has become my new place to go for inspiration/motivation when I need it. Now when do we find out what Acorns are for? ;)

I just signed up to try it out. May I have an invite?

Name: Eric Lavigne

Email: lavigne.eric@gmail.com

Twitter: ericlavigne

Something I made: https://github.com/ericlavigne/island-wari

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#148

Post by nir » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 3:10 PM UTC

http://prixfeed.com/ just makes some beer money - but it's ok for a single short PHP script..

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#149

Post by nischalshetty » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 3:38 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #32

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…

I so very much agree with you. And once you make a small self sustaining site, you can then think of stuff that need not necessarily bring in money instantly but can be exciting to work on.

Re: Who is living off their startup fulltime?

#150

Post by speleding » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 3:38 PM UTC

http://www.supersaas.com Doing exceedingly well, thank you, and growing like mad still. (no funding needed, cash positive from day one)