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Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

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Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

#1

Post by sanity »

Back in 2010 I had an idea for a service that would allow people to easily create semi-permanent email aliases so that they could give an email address to people and websites without revealing their real email address. These aliases will continue to work indefinitely unless you choose to block them.

My brother and I spent a few months building the initial version and launched the website in July 2010. For the first year we had about 50 signups per month, by 2013 this had increased to 1500 and it's currently around 3500 per month.

Similarly, our revenue grew consistently but slowly - doubling about every 18 months, reaching its current level of around $8k/mo.

Over this time we redesigned the website, and found a company to create an explainer video for the service (both through 99Designs).

We have not spent much on paid user acquisition, we experimented with it a bit a few years ago without positive results. I think the difficulty is that some user education is required for them to understand what the service does and the value of it.

The website is called 33Mail (https://33mail.com/).

My plan is to spend the next few weeks focussed on trying to accelerate 33Mail's growth, in particular I want to try Google and FB advertising, and we've also been thinking about setting up an affiliate program through something like Commission Junction.

But before diving into that it would be really helpful to get some feedback and suggestions, it can sometimes feel like we're too close to it to see it objectively.

I would be super grateful if you guys could take a look at it and see if any suggestions come to mind.

Re: Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

#2

Post by noemit »

Hire someone who has done this exact thing at another startup. You don't know how to do it, and even if you learn a few things here and there, you're clearly not an expert in marketing (just based off your post.) Not trying to offend you, but I'm being straight - hire someone. Someone good, who has done exactly this before, preferably several times, at several different companies, with several different strategies. Someone that can see what's happening with the numbers and feedback and tweak smartly. Pay them well or give them equity. Then retire.

This idea is excellent, useful, and very timely. You have a huge potential customer base out there.

I don't like your pricing structure, but that's just my opinion. Don't want to go too in depth on this.

Good luck.

Re: Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

#3

Post by sanity31415 »

noemit wrote: post #2

Hire someone who has done this exact thing at another startup. You don't know how to do it, and even if you learn a few things here and there, you're clearly not an expert in marketing (just based off your post.) Not trying to offend you, but I'm being straight - hire someone. Someone good, who has done exactly this before, preferably several times, at several different companies, with several different strategies. S…

Thank you for the suggestion and kind words.

Do you have any thoughts on how to find someone like that? I've had mixed experiences with marketing people.

Re: Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

#4

Post by jqpabc123 »

Nice simple forwarding service. I need something slightly more complex --- I want store and forward/routing/hub mailbox with API control.

I need API access to obtain sender and destination address of mailbox item and then decide how to dispense with it, either delete, retrieve or forward to a different destination. "Destination" may involve dozens of addresses. Reply address may be changed.

To minimize storage and costs, any item over 24 hours old can be deleted.

Re: Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

#5

Post by sanity31415 »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #4

Nice simple forwarding service. I need something slightly more complex --- I want store and forward/routing/hub mailbox with API control. I need API access to obtain sender and destination address of mailbox item and then decide how to dispense with it, either delete, retrieve or forward to a different destination. "Destination" may involve dozens of addresses. Reply address may be changed. To minimize storage and co…

Interesting, may I ask what you would use this functionality for?

Thank you for the suggestion.

Re: Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

#6

Post by noemit »

sanity31415 wrote: post #3
noemit wrote: post #2

Hire someone who has done this exact thing at another startup. You don't know how to do it, and even if you learn a few things here and there, you're clearly not an expert in marketing (just based off your post.) Not trying to offend you, but I'm being straight - hire someone. Someone good, who has done exactly this before, preferably several times, at several different companies, with several different strategies. S…

Thank you for the suggestion and kind words. Do you have any thoughts on how to find someone like that? I've had mixed experiences with marketing people.

A good shortcut is hiring from high fame startups. Not foolproof, but marketing people at uber outclass the average marketing person that might answer an ad.

Another shortcut is ask other business owners who are similar to you. Hopefully you have a small network or community. If you don't, it's worth finding 2-3 people who run businesses similar to yours to regularly connect with.

You might not even need to find a marketing "person" - there are agencies that do full service. You can talk to a few, listen to the pitch, and ask them for references. Few people do this, but you can and should, and its a great way to meet other business owners like you.

Re: Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

#7

Post by jqpabc123 »

sanity31415 wrote: post #5
jqpabc123 wrote: post #4

Nice simple forwarding service. I need something slightly more complex --- I want store and forward/routing/hub mailbox with API control. I need API access to obtain sender and destination address of mailbox item and then decide how to dispense with it, either delete, retrieve or forward to a different destination. "Destination" may involve dozens of addresses. Reply address may be changed. To minimize storage and co…

Interesting, may I ask what you would use this functionality for? Thank you for the suggestion.

I want to integrate email management and routing services as part of my client service package.

My clients have a lot of hourly employees that they need to communicate with but for privacy reasons, they don't necessarily want to use a corporate or private email address.

For example, a manager may want to use his private phone to send an email to a group of employees. Any replies would be routed to his secretary at the office --- with all addresses remaining semi-anonymous. My software will handle all this with the help of your service.

I currently have several hundred clients with a total of over 20,000 employees.

In other words, this all strictly opt in --- no marketing.

Re: Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

#9

Post by sanity31415 »

lrossi wrote: post #8

Thank you for this service. Although I have not used it, I have used something similar in the past. They really help with reducing spam.

Thank you for the kind words! If you try it let me know what you think, we're always looking for constructive feedback.

Re: Show HN: After 10 years my side project has hit $8k/mo in revenue

#10

Post by sanity31415 »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #7
sanity31415 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, may I ask what you would use this functionality for? Thank you for the suggestion.

I want to integrate email management and routing services as part of my client service package. My clients have a lot of hourly employees that they need to communicate with but for privacy reasons, they don't necessarily want to use a corporate or private email address. For example, a manager may want to use his private phone to send an email to a group of employees. Any replies would be routed to his secretary at th…

Very interesting, and probably not difficult for us to implement. Would you mind emailing me to discuss? I'm ian [at] 33mail [dot] com.
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