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Ask HN: Please destroy my startup idea so I don't waste time on it

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Re: Ask HN: Please destroy my startup idea so I don't waste time on it

#21

Post by rcavezza »

robryan wrote: post #12
rcavezza wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the comment nedwin. If nothing else, I'd like to at least make it easier for startups and small companies to have somewhere to find what these requirements are. Maybe this ends with howtosubscribe.com being a labor of love to help organize the net's plethora of newsletters. If your proposal of selling one or two and then expanding from there. This idea would probably be suited better for someone with histo…

I guess that in the early stages of your idea your in a way going to have to be selling the inventories anyway, not going to be easy to build both sides of the market without some legwork on your part. One of the advantages to being small I guess is you can actually go above and beyond to broker deals rather than only having time to really be doing it passively through a webapp.

Great point. It'll be a solid way for me to gain some domain expertise at the same time.

Re: Ask HN: Please destroy my startup idea so I don't waste time on it

#22

Post by asanwal »

rcavezza wrote: post #18
asanwal wrote: post #15

We run a niche, high-value newsletter and so from experience, I think there is a market for this. To validate, I'd find a newsletter(s) you think you can sell an ad(s) in and talk to the newsletter creator and say "If I can get you a sponsored ad for $x, would you (1) want it and (2) give me a Y% cut?" If you get positive response from them, then try like mad to sell the ads you promised. I'm not sure the size of the…

Great points. From lean startups & cust dev principles, I think you should start charging from day one. Well, the margins would come from venture backed startups looking for high growth. I am also a huge fan of lean, so personally, I'd also like to hook up very small newsletters (less than 5,000 subscribers) with bootstrapped startups. I also think these newsletters would be easier to start with - since many aren't m…

Glad to hear of market validation you've done.

I'd caution against small newsletters which may have low-value audiences. The "CPM" you'll get will be low and so $20 CPM on a 5k newsletter is $100 and if $80 goes to newsletter, that gives you $20. (And $20 CPM may be very aggressive)

You have to find and get an absolute cr^pload of those newsletters on board to make any amount of real cashish.

And bootstrapped startups as advertisers strikes me as a terrible segment as they have little to no money and may often be PITAs.

Re: Ask HN: Please destroy my startup idea so I don't waste time on it

#23

Post by rcavezza »

mattcurry wrote: post #16

You may want to checkout http://www.heyamigo.net and http://www.barenakedapp.com/category/amigo/ HeyAmigo sounds like exactly what you are talking about. It was built by Carsonified a few years ago and sold (I think). The Bare Naked App blog was a chronicle of them building it.

Thanks for the link. I just visited and toyed around. I hate to be "that guy", but I didn't really love it. Does anyone here use Hey Amigo? What do you think? Good results?

Re: Ask HN: Please destroy my startup idea so I don't waste time on it

#24

Post by rcavezza »

eli wrote: post #17
jasonlynes wrote: post #9

who the hell signs up for newsletters? interesting how your other business was created because newsletters are lame. these problems don't seem like ones normal people deal with. they're just problems for people trying to add something to their domain squatting businesses. spam my inbox with lame content, and then spam the newsletter with ads? ugh. how about, people want really good content through email (huge assumpt…

Many people sign up for email newsletters -- in fact lots of people spend their whole day in Outlook or on their Blackberry, so it's far more convenient than configuring an RSS reader. More people send/receive email in a given day than run a Google search or check Facebook. Ads in an email newsletter that you intentionally signed up for is no more "spam" than ads on a website you routinely visit is "spam."

I'd also like to add that well targeted magazine ads can even ad value. Who is to see this can't translate to email newsletters?

Re: Ask HN: Please destroy my startup idea so I don't waste time on it

#25

Post by rcavezza »

asanwal wrote: post #22
rcavezza wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points. From lean startups & cust dev principles, I think you should start charging from day one. Well, the margins would come from venture backed startups looking for high growth. I am also a huge fan of lean, so personally, I'd also like to hook up very small newsletters (less than 5,000 subscribers) with bootstrapped startups. I also think these newsletters would be easier to start with - since many aren't m…

Glad to hear of market validation you've done. I'd caution against small newsletters which may have low-value audiences. The "CPM" you'll get will be low and so $20 CPM on a 5k newsletter is $100 and if $80 goes to newsletter, that gives you $20. (And $20 CPM may be very aggressive) You have to find and get an absolute cr^pload of those newsletters on board to make any amount of real cashish. And bootstrapped startup…

I agree. The margins on this are pretty terrible, and it's not a long term scalable model, but I think it's an easy way to get a foothold in the market.

Here's my thinking (please feel free to tear my logic apart):

(1a) The very small newsletters will be much more likely to signup. (1b)The bootstrapped startups would be very interested in relatively inexpensive ways to target (other than Adwords).

I think 1A has been semi validated.

(2) Success with small newsletters will help show larger newsletters than this model can work. Will probably transition from very small newsletters to medium, to large.

(3) Some bootstrapped startups will grow, get funding and continue to use us.

There are some jumps in this logic, and it would need validation.

Re: Ask HN: Please destroy my startup idea so I don't waste time on it

#26

Post by asanwal »

asanwal wrote: post #22
rcavezza wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points. From lean startups & cust dev principles, I think you should start charging from day one. Well, the margins would come from venture backed startups looking for high growth. I am also a huge fan of lean, so personally, I'd also like to hook up very small newsletters (less than 5,000 subscribers) with bootstrapped startups. I also think these newsletters would be easier to start with - since many aren't m…

Glad to hear of market validation you've done. I'd caution against small newsletters which may have low-value audiences. The "CPM" you'll get will be low and so $20 CPM on a 5k newsletter is $100 and if $80 goes to newsletter, that gives you $20. (And $20 CPM may be very aggressive) You have to find and get an absolute cr^pload of those newsletters on board to make any amount of real cashish. And bootstrapped startup…

Addressing your comment below as I couldn't find a reply on your comment.

Why go into a business with terrible margins from the start? Usually successful biz have great margins to start and then those get eroded with competition, technology, etc?

In general, it also seems easier to go from big to small vs the other way. If I'm a large newsletter owner, I want to know you've worked with folks like me. I don't care that you've done work for 100 newsletters of 5k people.

Waiting on bootstrapped startups to get funding and hoping they'll continue with you is dependent on lots of variables you have no control over. Business is already uncertain and this is just compounding that uncertainty.

I'm all for validating the market but do it in a lucrative area in my view where there is a real ROI on your effort.

Re: Ask HN: Please destroy my startup idea so I don't waste time on it

#27

Post by noonespecial »

Its a niche market. You have specifics. Sorry, I kind of like your idea. After a zillion "its like teh facebook of x" or "its kind of a social-ad-media-blogging deal", that's really refreshing.

I'm not going to be able to shoot down an idea this specific, Content Newsletters are. Find a few. If they think its a good idea, see if they'll pay you something, or even trial some stuff for you. You should be able to quickly determine if there's anything here worth pursuing.

Re: Ask HN: Please destroy my startup idea so I don't waste time on it

#28

Post by toddynho »

(disclosure: I founded BuySellAds.com)

I think it's a great idea, actually. At BSA we've been talking about newsletter ads for a while, but haven't been able to commit to executing on it properly. We went as far as acquiring the NewsletterAds.com domain, but have since stopped there. One of the biggest hurdles with selling ads in newsletters is getting enough valuable inventory. Even with our existing publishers (and with 150-200 new sites submitted every day) we would struggle to have enough meaningful inventory to put together to sell. That being said, I had many people tell me the same thing before I started BSA - that I would never be able to get enough inventory together to make it work.

The other piece of advice I can give you is that operating at 25% commissions (like BSA does) is definitely a bootstrapping path. If you can sell ads in newsletters that they aren't already selling, then it's something I would do at a 35-40% level. Maybe that sounds crazy, but if you're able to make sales that are normally not made you can charge whatever you want.

So, I'd say go for it, hustle, and make it happen if you are passionate about it.

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