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

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

#181

Post by sanity31415 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #110

sanity31415 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the kind words :) Most people don't hit the bandwidth limit unless they're really using 33mail a lot. I've been using 33mail heavily for a decade and my monthly usage is 40MB which puts me in the premium tier, but I'm near the top percentile of bandwidth usage. The premium tier also has a lot of other benefits, like custom domains and anonymous replies - so lots of users upgrade to it without being clos…

Cool, thanks I signed up and set up a custom domain so hopefully I won't get caught by the disposable email blacklist that other commenters were talking about. the only other issue I'm seeing is that the website isn't really great on mobile, my wife mostly does stuff on her phone (despite us having like 10 computers lol) and that might be a small barrier, though after sending a test email I see that it can be managed…

Thank you. Yes, making the site mobile friendly is high on our todo list.

However, you are correct that most of our users rarely need to login to our website after initial sign up.

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

#182

Post by sanity31415 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

andciufo wrote: post #133

Superinteresting! How much does it cost for 10 years to mantain a service like that? I think about server, domain etc... without computing time costs. I have a side project related to books and I would like to forecast eventually 10Y of server/domain/ect costs

Thank you :)

Our monthly server costs are a little under $1k/mo.

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

#183

Post by aembleton » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:09 PM UTC

codethief wrote: post #136

Incredible project! I've been using custom email aliases for the better part of the last decade (I'm running my own mail server) but it never occurred to me that this could be a profitable business. My main pain point with my current setup is the following: It takes a few minutes to set up a new email alias. I therefore wonder: How long does it take with your service? Would your users maybe appreciate an app (a super…

They don't need to register a new one, just have emails going to it. They have a sub domain so that it knows who to forward the mail on to.

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

#184

Post by sanity31415 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

motdiem wrote: post #100

Just chiming in as a happy user of 33mail - congratulations and I'm happy to know that it is sustainable and growing. One suggestion would be to better advertise new features to existing users - I was going to suggest adding 2FA authentication, and went for a quick check on my account, and it was already available :-)

Thank you for using 33mail - and for the suggestion.

We try to walk the line between keeping users informed of new features without defeating the purpose of 33mail by sending emails they don't want.

About how often would you be happy to receive emails about new 33mail features? A few times per year - perhaps?

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

#185

Post by sanity31415 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

phonebucket wrote: post #127

I do not have much to add except my congratulations. Committed execution on a good idea, and the results to show for it. Consider me inspired!

Thank you :)

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

#186

Post by sanity31415 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

TenJack wrote: post #39

Is your main acquisition channel organic search (SEO)? Are there other good acquisition channels that you have found?

Yes, SEO - and also organic mentions in relevant forums. We haven't had much success with paid acquisition.

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

#187

Post by sanity31415 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

andciufo wrote: post #134

Why don't you apply for YCombinator?

I think for that we'd need a clearer idea of how we'd deploy the capital we had raised to significantly accelerate growth beyond what we're currently getting organically.

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

#188

Post by sanity31415 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

eddyg wrote: post #93

Any plans to allow forwarding mail to a webhook instead of via SMTP? A lot of residential ISPs block port 25, which prevents running a self-hosted mail server... but a web server is fine. By delivering messages via a webhook, a service like 33mail could act as a “mail relay”. A 200 response would mean the message was delivered successfully; 4xx or 5xx would queue the message for retrying. Use nicely structured JSON (…

Thanks for the suggestion.

We're thinking about this feature, trying to decide whether it would be best as part of 33mail or a separate sister product.

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

#189

Post by Bakary » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

It's always nice to see a project succeed! How much time does it take you per week to manage this service?

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

#190

Post by jdurham » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

First, this is a great idea, and congratulations on hitting $8k/mo in revenue. The fact that you've stuck with the business for this long and grown it is great, and better than most people do.

I Strongly recommend engaging directly with your customers whenever/wherever possible (Twitter, Slack, Discord, etc). One thing I immediately noticed on Twitter is that your name overlaps with a email newsletter published by @Doctor_V

Lastly, I would do a quick read over of your site and content. If you're going to start advertising, make sure everything is professional. For example, when I opened the link, I immediately noticed this:

"with ...@joesmith.33mail.comwill be" - that missing space between .com and will is super glaring for someone like me. Make sure you clean that stuff up before you start advertising. When I see that kind of stuff, I go from "this is a professional service I might pay for" to "this is not a real business." I know it seems small, but just being honest.