Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

blog.fiplab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 41 posts

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#31

Post by wyldstallyn26 »

bignoggins wrote: post #28

As a fellow indie dev with some success in the app store, I'm always happy to hear of other indies become successful. I think the App Store has really flipped traditional software sales on its head and made it possible for the likes of you and I to compete head to head with billion dollar companies. It's quite remarkable and I hope this is just the beginning.

@bignoggins - Absolutely, I could never have imagined I would be running a business where we make our own products from scratch, without all the large scale corporate mumbo jumbo.

p.s. great website, good to see you're able to live the dream and travel the world!

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#32

Post by dxbydt »

On your website it says "If you have an interesting project to propose to us then we’d love to hear from you." Is that still the case, or are you guys swamped at the moment ? If you are still accepting new projects, would you perhaps go into some detail on the workflow/costs etc. Thanks much.

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#33

Post by n9com »

dxbydt wrote: post #32

On your website it says "If you have an interesting project to propose to us then we’d love to hear from you." Is that still the case, or are you guys swamped at the moment ? If you are still accepting new projects, would you perhaps go into some detail on the workflow/costs etc. Thanks much.

Not currently accepting new projects, hit us up in the middle of October - we might have more time on our hands then.

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#35

Post by [deleted] »

n9com wrote: post #25
gwhy wrote: post #21

Anirudh/Rishi, Great story, I'm a long time lurker but created an account to comment/question. From what I could gather in the 3 posts, it looks like neither of you guys were technical at the very beginning. Did one of you eventually learn to code/design, or is that portion still hired out? What qualities did you look for when hiring coders? Thanks!

Cool, glad we got you to sign up to HN :) Great question, I'm pretty technical since I've was developing websites for several years before starting FIPLAB. At times, I even figure out how to code things when our programmer can't figure it out. I always look for the simplest way to build something, especially when we are under a tight deadline and need to ship before the competition does. Also, I still do a lot of the…

[deleted]

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#36

Post by leon_ »

bignoggins wrote: post #28

As a fellow indie dev with some success in the app store, I'm always happy to hear of other indies become successful. I think the App Store has really flipped traditional software sales on its head and made it possible for the likes of you and I to compete head to head with billion dollar companies. It's quite remarkable and I hope this is just the beginning.

Hmm, the shareware market before the app store was pretty lucrative too.

The app store didn't really change anything for small shops. If you compete against big money on the app store you still have the problem that they have a lot more marketing money to spend. And marketing is still of #1 importance.

The only difference is that the download portal now takes 30% of your money for the privilege of being listed there. You still have to make some buzz so that people learn about your product.

I'm on the app store with my products but I really don't like the concept.

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#37

Post by [deleted] »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #26
dusklight wrote: post #22

Please don't take this the wrong way, this is a serious question, and I hope you give it some serious thought before you answer. Do you feel fulfilled? Do you feel like this is the most you can contribute to human civilization? If you could, how would you most like to make the world a better place?

I always am left wondering what people think gives them the right to ask that question of other people. Isn't it hard enough figuring that out for your own life?

[deleted]

Re: Bootstrapping a $30k profit/month company from our internship earnings (Part 3)

#38

Post by trussi »

wyldstallyn26 wrote: post #11
doomlaser wrote: post #8

I love these posts, and I am rooting for you guys, but find it a little depressing that you first started making real money by cloning someone else's crappy novelty fluff app.

Thanks doomlaser. With little money (especially back in September), it's incredibly risky to innovate, and in today's world, everything is a derivative of the other in some form. e.g., Facebook from MySpace, Lamborghini from Ferrari. Talking Gremlin was exactly this, on a smaller scale. This is our philosophy: Find a successful business -> Discover as much as possible about it -> Re-implement it all -> Then battle th…

You get even more bang for your buck if you combine two existing products.

Combine HootSuite and SocialOomph and you have a rockstar Twitter manager.

Synergy is a wonderful thing.

Post reply on HN