Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#101

Post by jdvolz » Fri, May 20, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC

DaveChild wrote: post #26

I set up a web dev blog in 2003, at ILoveJackDaniels.com, and after a few months of rubbish blogging starting doing free cheat sheets to download. At its peak, from AdSense and text link ads, it made about $1200 per month. I had to move domain (trademark heat), and moved to AddedBytes.com. Lost lots of traffic and links, unfortunately. Ad revenue dropped over time (around $100 at its lowest), and I recently ditched t…

I can attest that Jack Daniels is litigious and they will actively defend their trademark. Jagermeister will also. And Chuck Norris. I speak from personal experience.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#102

Post by DenisM » Fri, May 20, 2011, 4:54 PM UTC

Sukotto wrote: post #63

hnsmurf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be surprised if you don't do well with AR too. You could probably benefit from an active sales force a lot, though I could certainly understand why one wouldn't want to go down that route. The place I get my hair cut at, for instance, makes dozens of these calls a day yet would probably never hear of your service without a cold call.

Or a referral Hey Patrick, any chance for an affiliate account with your service (as opposed to your white label)? I'd gladly refer my barber, dentist, plumber, etc. As a stats junkie, Id like to see how many of my referrals actually sign up. Getting a reward for it would also be pretty sweet.

This bears pointing out. People like knowing about their influence, so affiliate program may not need to give out money, just rewards and kudos.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#103

Post by joshowens » Fri, May 20, 2011, 4:55 PM UTC

So I run http://tweethopper.com/ and we are up to $300 a month in paying accounts. I also have http://webpulp.tv/ which brings in around $1200 a month in ads.

Nothing major, but certainly room to grow!

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#104

Post by strick » Fri, May 20, 2011, 4:57 PM UTC

Until 5/1 I was making about $1,440/mo from google adsense on my site dodgit.com and a network of other sites I had purchased from flippa. Then I received an email 'your google adsense account has been disabled' and Google seized about a thousand dollars from my account. I had been using a personal account and a brand new account I set up for a business I wanted to build and sell (acceptable, per google's TOS) but they shut down both. Google's claim was that the website content was lousy and the multiple accounts were forbidden.

To be honest, the blogs did have some crappy content. I would be happy to pull the ads off the bad blogs and put them back on dodgit, a service I have lovingly maintained for 7 yrs. Sadly there appears to be no way to appeal to Google once they drop the axe.

I'm pondering next steps. I know a few people who work at Google but haven't contacted any of them yet. I've played around with adbrite and some other ad networks, but none of them seem to generate money the way adsense can.

I've also created a number of websites that generate revenue over the years, that aren't dependent on adsense in any way. I'll definitely make more!

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#105

Post by jdvolz » Fri, May 20, 2011, 4:57 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #79

hnsmurf wrote: post #58

I once had a collection of poker-related software that did in the low 6 figures per month. Unfortunately recent government actions kicked that in the nuts.

Is it because you're US based?

Wouldn't that be a good enough reason to move?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#106

Post by dangravell » Fri, May 20, 2011, 4:58 PM UTC

bliss (http://www.blisshq.com) hovers in the $1k - $1.5k bracket at the moment. It still is under active development though.

The main sales channel is SEO, but I have also had success by trying to integrate, both technically and marketing-wise, with other products and services. Referrals from blog reviews and forum posts also help a little. Adwords is very low, and is something I'm trying to improve all the time (thanks patio11 for the blog posts).

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#107

Post by throwaway9898 » Fri, May 20, 2011, 5:02 PM UTC

Periodic wrote: post #97

throwaway9898 wrote: post #22

Short Version: Hosted Web App making just under $10,000/mo. Using a throwaway account for this because I'd rather not share our numbers publicly yet, but in about 2.5 years since our hosted web app went live, we're generating just under $10,000 per month in revenue. That's working on it part-time for the first couple of years and, more recently, full-time. It's targeted at developers/designers, and the growth has bee…

You say "our" numbers. Is that $10k/mo split among a larger team? $10k/mo for eight people is very different than for two.

We have multiple people involved, but I'm the only one working on it regularly. We aren't paying any dividends yet, so the majority of that goes to pay my salary. At some point, we'll begin paying dividends to everyone. That's a long way of saying there are multiple people involved, but I'm the only person getting anything out of it at this point.

I own about 70% of the company and have done the majority of the work by myself thus far. (That's beginning to change.) My investor/business partner put up a small amount of money to get us off the ground, and he helps handle more of the business side of things so that I can focus on design/development. However, I'm still pretty involved in every aspect of the business.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#108

Post by ericabbott1 » Fri, May 20, 2011, 5:04 PM UTC

Make about $40/mo on a couple iPhone apps (one paid, one free with a pay what you want in-app purchase). Mechanical engineer but taught myself iOS programming in my spare time for fun.

For those curious, the apps are "US Tax Receipt" (free) and "Candy Counter - The Candy Jar Estimator" ($0.99)

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#109

Post by Two9A » Fri, May 20, 2011, 5:11 PM UTC

acangiano wrote: post #89

About $2K-$6K a month from my blogs. (Plug: I'm writing a book that will help people do the same: http://technicalblogging.com )

A question for you. I have a technical articles site, but I write something fresh around once a month, and my articles are massively long; would you recommend breaking them up and releasing parts more often?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#110

Post by suprasanna » Fri, May 20, 2011, 5:13 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #20

http://www.bingocardcreator.com/stats/sales-by-month These days BCC is in maintenance mode (i.e. I respond to emails, cut checks, and put out fires, but I don't do active development or marketing). It works out to a bit more than my old salary for roughly 69.5 less hours of weekly work. I have two other businesses: I do consulting and I have Appointment Reminder. Appointment Reminder pays its own way now, but doesn't…

With such a vast shift away from desktop downloadable applications, I'm curious to see what you've done from a marketing standpoint to get those numbers. How did you promote your application and drive sales?