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Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

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Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#121

Post by nischalshetty »

roel_v wrote: post #115
nischalshetty wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not put any numbers anywhere about our profits. We have a freemium model. Ads are just a small part of the revenues we make.

"making me more money in 2 months than my day job was paying me for an entire year!" Day job of 50k / year, over 2 months, so per month 25k. 'Making money' = profit, otherwise I could be 'making' 250k / month by opening a BMW dealership and selling 2 per month - which in the real world would bankrupt me Very Quickly. So, maybe I'm misunderstanding, but didn't you say that you were making 25k or more?

I'm from India, we make money in our currency which is Rupees (INR). I do know that 'making money' = profit and that is exactly what we are making. I'm not selling BMW cars. I write code which takes my time but needs no money, host it on GAE and AWS, which is not so expensive and so make a very good profit.

Yes, you are misunderstanding what I said by pushing those figures.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#122

Post by nathanbarry »

nischalshetty wrote: post #69
nathanbarry wrote: post #12

I did. My iPad app was at $19,000 in profit before I quit my job to focus on it. The details are here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3238834

I had read your post when it was published. Very cool, has a social touch and inspiring!

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#123

Post by bretr »

iguanayou wrote: post #89

I have a (barely) profitable SaaS app that I wrote while having a full time job. The advantage I have is that my day job is teaching, which gives me chunks of time off during the summer and winter. I think that if I had a job coding all day, the last thing I'd want to do is come home and do more coding.

this. it's my biggest struggle.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#124

Post by [deleted] »

ry0ohki wrote: post #20

I'm not sure if they are considered startups per say, but I've started two profitable companies while working a day job (to the point where I could quit my day job!) http://www.AUsedCar.com and http://www.BudgetSimple.com . I should say I also created a failed startup during that time. The biggest difference between the successes and the failure were that the successes did not require me to answer phone calls, make s…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#126

Post by rgraham »

ry0ohki wrote: post #20

I'm not sure if they are considered startups per say, but I've started two profitable companies while working a day job (to the point where I could quit my day job!) http://www.AUsedCar.com and http://www.BudgetSimple.com . I should say I also created a failed startup during that time. The biggest difference between the successes and the failure were that the successes did not require me to answer phone calls, make s…

I'd be interested in talking about BudgetSimple and some specifics of tactics and implementation if you have the time and interest. Handle at whitetailsoftware dot com.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#129

Post by therandomguy »

Jun8 wrote: post #68

I wanted to do this so jumped in and read the comments to this post to try to get some ideas on how to do this. They made me a bit depressed: Most people achieved this while working as a consultant (i.e. flexible hours, etc.), not as a big company employee, like me. Also from what I gather, many data points come from young people, unencumbered with a family life and kid(s). So, my more specific question is: Has anybo…

I'm exactly at this point. A big company, wife, 1 yr old, always wanted create something of value, don't really need it to be super profitable, etc. I have outsourced everything except product management and my only marketing plan is "Show HN".

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#130

Post by roel_v »

nischalshetty wrote: post #121
roel_v wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"making me more money in 2 months than my day job was paying me for an entire year!" Day job of 50k / year, over 2 months, so per month 25k. 'Making money' = profit, otherwise I could be 'making' 250k / month by opening a BMW dealership and selling 2 per month - which in the real world would bankrupt me Very Quickly. So, maybe I'm misunderstanding, but didn't you say that you were making 25k or more?

I'm from India, we make money in our currency which is Rupees (INR). I do know that 'making money' = profit and that is exactly what we are making. I'm not selling BMW cars. I write code which takes my time but needs no money, host it on GAE and AWS, which is not so expensive and so make a very good profit. Yes, you are misunderstanding what I said by pushing those figures.

Oh OK, so then you were making in the magnitude of $250 - $500 / month back then, that seems plausible. I wasn't saying that you are selling BMW's, what you sell doesn't matter - my point was that people use 'make money' when they mean 'revenue', so the BMW is my standard example for illustrating the difference.

I'm not sure why I'm being down voted - my numbers are quite plausible, I was just doing a sniff test. It would've been quite remarkable if a simple site like that would've been making several k / month after just 2 months.

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