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Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

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Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#91

Post by patio11 »

unshift wrote: post #8
guynamedloren wrote: post #3

I know this is not the norm for projects here on Hacker News and I realize that it may be seen as rather exploitive, so here's a very very brief background and my thought process: - Idea was conceived around 2am this morning. Saw a few events on facebook picking up speed (hundreds of thousands of attendees) so decided to leverage that instant-market - Wasn't sure whether or not it would work, but I didn't have too mu…

i wouldn't call it exploitive, rather i would say it's very savvy. even if it's a one-time shot, it's real money and you're not doing anything shady to earn it. that's how people build wealth -- seizing opportunity. congrats on the success.

Total agreement. There is no rule, law, or moral stricture against earning money efficiently. (Some people seem to accept that a lawyer can bill $4,000 in a day of work but an engineer who does the same thing must be cheating somehow. I've never understood this.)

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#92

Post by [deleted] »

Shooter wrote: post #89
guynamedloren wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, I really didn't think that far into it, and probably should have A/B tested it... but I have never even setup an A/B test before and that certainly would've slowed things a bit. With things like this, time is of the essence, so I don't regret not running an A/B test. Based on non-statistical analysis: the only comments I've heard about that particular line are that it was really funny, so mission accomp…

It didn't offend me personally at all, but I like to try to put myself in the shoes of potential customers when I view sites like this and my wife is one of the 'personas" I use. [Honestly, she probably wouldn't have been offended either, unless she saw it right after after she saw the news. It's a context/frame-of-mind thing, I think.] Many people are emulating that type of ThinkGeek/Groupon writing these days, and…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#93

Post by [deleted] »

Shooter wrote: post #87
aruban wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the D , no need to be aggressive, my point is just that if you offend a very few and get attention of the mass, somewhere, you win. Piss off a potential client isn't a big deal when you got hundred other to laugh! I also think that making fun of dramatical situation might help to get over the trauma. But I guess you are to sensitive to follow this.

I think most people on HN like case studies because they help them learn things that they can apply to their own businesses. If you have no interest in improving your business, or learning new techniques, or getting "fresh eyes" - then I'm sorry you are here. Part of hacking culture is testing and trying out things, not just making assumptions and saying fuck it. Little things on landing pages can make a big differen…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#94

Post by Jem »

guynamedloren wrote: post #39
Mz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get your first order in 4min? I mean, how were you promoting it? I have decided I would like to leave my current job and town (as in "post haste" instead of "someday") and I need funds to do so. A quick influx of money would do wonders for moving that goal forward. Would love to learn anything you can share.

Right now I can tell you I didn't do much to market except designed a good product, a good presentation, and took advantage of the ridiculous amounts of traffic going through the Facebook events mentioned in OP. No magic or silver bullet here. Will go into more detail with a blog post soon. Madebyloren.com

You should link madebyloren.com from the footer of your t-shirt page - the benefit to your blog because of a link from a viral page will outlast the t-shirt sales. :)

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#95

Post by fduffner »

guynamedloren wrote: post #3

I know this is not the norm for projects here on Hacker News and I realize that it may be seen as rather exploitive, so here's a very very brief background and my thought process: - Idea was conceived around 2am this morning. Saw a few events on facebook picking up speed (hundreds of thousands of attendees) so decided to leverage that instant-market - Wasn't sure whether or not it would work, but I didn't have too mu…

I tried a similar thing about a fad in Germany during the soccer WC but it didn't go anywhere as I sucked at marketing it. Can you tell how you did marketing and especially how did you became the official T-Shirt for that facebook event?

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#97

Post by [deleted] »

Shooter wrote: post #89
guynamedloren wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, I really didn't think that far into it, and probably should have A/B tested it... but I have never even setup an A/B test before and that certainly would've slowed things a bit. With things like this, time is of the essence, so I don't regret not running an A/B test. Based on non-statistical analysis: the only comments I've heard about that particular line are that it was really funny, so mission accomp…

It didn't offend me personally at all, but I like to try to put myself in the shoes of potential customers when I view sites like this and my wife is one of the 'personas" I use. [Honestly, she probably wouldn't have been offended either, unless she saw it right after after she saw the news. It's a context/frame-of-mind thing, I think.] Many people are emulating that type of ThinkGeek/Groupon writing these days, and…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#98

Post by guynamedloren »

For what it's worth, I just remembered two somewhat interesting points:

1) There were several copycat shirts that came out on Cafepress/Zazzle shortly after mine started gaining traction. The shirt concept itself is not completely unique as we've all seen "I SURVIVED ..." shirts before, but the copycat shirts used the same font, word placement, and everything. Am I upset? Absolutely not. Those just validate my idea. And I wasn't too worried about losing sales as the copycats were way overpriced ($24+s/h vs $16) with lower quality and far inferior presentation. I would be surprised if they sold any at all, really.

2) The copycat shirts went as far as using very similar descriptions for the shirts. Not only does this show a complete lack of creativity, it shows that I may have been onto something with the humorous/witty/questionable description that has been mentioned here a few times. Is it offensive? Possibly. But I think it did more good than harm (in terms of measurable things like sales and hits).

Just thought I'd throw those thoughts out there for pondering.

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#99

Post by naithemilkman »

guynamedloren wrote: post #53
naithemilkman wrote: post #50

what stack did you build it on? Really impressive from conceptual to live site in 8 hours. Your profile says you're currently learning RoR. Is that the stack you built on?

Nope, this one was just straight up css and html. Nothing fancy here - no reason to, its only a single page :) oh and its hosted on whatever my cheap web hosting is. Is it sad that I don't even know the tech specs? Maybe that's s reason for the success - only focusing on what matters.. now there's a good takeaway point

So when someone orders a shirt, where does that data go? via email?

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#100

Post by aruban »

Shooter wrote: post #87
aruban wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the D , no need to be aggressive, my point is just that if you offend a very few and get attention of the mass, somewhere, you win. Piss off a potential client isn't a big deal when you got hundred other to laugh! I also think that making fun of dramatical situation might help to get over the trauma. But I guess you are to sensitive to follow this.

I think most people on HN like case studies because they help them learn things that they can apply to their own businesses. If you have no interest in improving your business, or learning new techniques, or getting "fresh eyes" - then I'm sorry you are here. Part of hacking culture is testing and trying out things, not just making assumptions and saying fuck it. Little things on landing pages can make a big differen…

I keep thinking that auto-censoring to gain some sale isn't a good thing. That line amused a lot of people (me included) and as you'll always offend somebody at some point, specially when you play with humor, I think that playing as far as you feel like is the way to do. It keep the thing spontaneous and that the strength of that project, natural joke quickly implemented and that amused and talk to the target. ------ Re: my 'aggressiveness.' Abt the "Dickhead" word, I have no idea if it's a casual or a tough word, as a non-native speaker I can't really say, and I don't really care, was more the tone that bugged me, but as my first reaction wasn't really well formatted either, let's say it was certainly well deserved, the "get over it" wasn't a good thing to write, I agree. .
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