Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#1

Post by gigamick » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 11:19 AM UTC

It's been a long slow hog and I almost gave up a few times (more than a few) but when covid hit this year it gave me some time to really focus on my product. There were stupid user journey things that I knew needed fixed. There were some features I knew needed added. And I knew the pricing was wrong.

I spent some hardcore time working on these things back in March / April and since then my MRR has continued to grow.

My product is SongBox (https://songbox.rocks) - it's an alternative to things like bandcamp and soundcloud for creators who need to share audio files privately.

I'm at a stage now where I've bottomed out all the work I've wanted to do and I'm looking for a fresh round of feedback. Would love you guys to check it out and see what you can think of.

Thanks!

Re: Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#2

Post by ryan-duve » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 11:38 AM UTC

What a nice, positive note to start the day off. Congratulations on your success.

Feedback:

- Could you remove the email requirement for getting started? Maybe figure out a way for people to associate an email account after they do the "Getting Started"?

- Could you put a back button on the tutorial?

- In addition to the poll at the end of the tutorial, I hope you are capturing implicit feedback data to determine how effective it is. Things like average time between clicks and whether users click the buttons you suggest immediately after are indicators of effectiveness.

- For the registration form, maybe get rid of either the label "Display Name" or the placeholder text "Your Artist Name..."? It was confusing having them be different.

As for actual content, unfortunately I can't help you. I don't have any personal music to upload so someone else will have to give you feedback. I hope my suggestions on registration were helpful. Congratulations again on your early success and good luck expanding in 2021.

Re: Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#3

Post by aazaa » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

Congrats!

From the Why I Built page:

> Years later, and I've taken a job in software at a large media company. I'll name no names but this company had music brands that were (and are) known globally.

How have you navigated intellectual property to SongBox with your current employer, who it sounds like works in the same industry and who might have claim on some part of what you've created?

Re: Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#4

Post by dahx4Eev » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

Slightly off-topic - how did you get started?

Re: Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#5

Post by gigamick » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

aazaa wrote: post #3

Congrats! From the Why I Built page: > Years later, and I've taken a job in software at a large media company. I'll name no names but this company had music brands that were (and are) known globally. How have you navigated intellectual property to SongBox with your current employer, who it sounds like works in the same industry and who might have claim on some part of what you've created?

I no longer work for that company, however the IP really doesn't have any crossover. They were a media company; magazines and radio.

Re: Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#6

Post by jillesvangurp » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

Good website with a clear pitch.

Some suggestions:

- maybe factor number of listens into your pricing rather than tracks to nudge people into higher pricing around the time they are broadening their outreach.

- think about automating distribution to soundcloud, youtube, spotify, etc. as a next step. Could be interesting for e.g. podcast creators to not have to micromanage each of those. Probably some or all of those have APIs for this.

Re: Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#7

Post by gigamick » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #6

Good website with a clear pitch. Some suggestions: - maybe factor number of listens into your pricing rather than tracks to nudge people into higher pricing around the time they are broadening their outreach. - think about automating distribution to soundcloud, youtube, spotify, etc. as a next step. Could be interesting for e.g. podcast creators to not have to micromanage each of those. Probably some or all of those…

These are good shouts, thanks. I had already put in the roadmap digital distribution a la iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal etc... however didn't think of the Soundcloud / Youtube angle.

Thanks!

Re: Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#8

Post by gigamick » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

dahx4Eev wrote: post #4

Slightly off-topic - how did you get started?

In terms of making my first sale or in terms of actually sitting down at the computer to write code?

Re: Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#9

Post by gigamick » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

ryan-duve wrote: post #2

What a nice, positive note to start the day off. Congratulations on your success. Feedback: - Could you remove the email requirement for getting started? Maybe figure out a way for people to associate an email account after they do the "Getting Started"? - Could you put a back button on the tutorial? - In addition to the poll at the end of the tutorial, I hope you are capturing implicit feedback data to determine how…

These points are helpful. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

- Yeah I don't actually use the email address for anything other than sending updates about the product and standard marketing stuff. So I'm open experimenting with this to see how it affects conversion.

- Yeah... this is a good idea. Consider it done.

- Yeah I use a service to make the tutorials and they have a great dashboard.

- Hundred percent... I didn't realise I had named them differently.

Thanks so much.

Re: Show HN: After 2.5 years on my side project, it has hit £500/month revenue

#10

Post by dogma1138 » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

gigamick wrote: post #5

aazaa wrote: post #3

Congrats! From the Why I Built page: > Years later, and I've taken a job in software at a large media company. I'll name no names but this company had music brands that were (and are) known globally. How have you navigated intellectual property to SongBox with your current employer, who it sounds like works in the same industry and who might have claim on some part of what you've created?

I no longer work for that company, however the IP really doesn't have any crossover. They were a media company; magazines and radio.

If you worked on this while employed without getting a waiver their lawyers might beg to differ in the UK pretty much every contract I’ve seen has “we own all your discoveries unless stated otherwise” clause in it.