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The simplest app that makes money

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Re: The simplest app that makes money

#41

Post by lordnacho »

chii wrote: post #33
ehnto wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Noone parts with money for an exchange that they don't find useful. I think this is true at face value, but when we consider addiction and self-destructive behaviors it is clear that while the definition of useful my still apply, the result is a negative impact on society. The easiest most inflammatory example is drugs, but a more nuanced example might be slot machines. I won't wax lyrical about the examples, but I…

> drugs ... slot machines i would assert that drugs or slot machines both provide value - they are entertainment, and the people using them are deriving value out of it. Why is that those people's enjoyment doesn't factor into society as being positive? Are they somehow not part of society? If you imply that because they must've committed a crime to obtain the money to pay for their entertainment, then it's not the e…

I think there's a tautology hiding here. It's unstated, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

The tautology is that what people exchange for has value, but it has value because people pay for it. Specifically that it has the value people are paying or more.

This is a sort of free market idea: why would someone swap for something that isn't good for them? People must be swapping for stuff they want. To a degree this is totally reasonable. Why does a guy buy a razor if he doesn't think shaving is worth it?

The problem with this kind of thinking is it can never check itself. There's no independent way to give an item a value, so how do you know the exchanged values are correct? There's an assumption implicit that the market gives everything the right value, but it's not checkable without some other way to come up with a value.

And there are reasons to think this value might be wrong. For instance externalities, but also plain old "consumer misjudged the value".

I met a guy who exploited every trick in the book when building his business. He always picked addictive stuff. Online casinos, vapes. He would also put in fine print that people were buying a minimum subscription, so they would they surprised when they got billed a second time. On top of that he found a way to trick Facebook into showing his advertisements that were against the ToS. I doubt anyone got what they thought from this fellow, but he's rich now.

This isn't to say everyone who sets out to just make money makes a mess, far from it. I'm sure there are people whose get rich quick scheme is genuinely useful to other people. But it does mean we need to keep eye on behaviour to make sure there aren't abuses.

Re: The simplest app that makes money

#42

Post by logicallee »

chii wrote: post #29
logicallee wrote: post #12

Looks like a great app! Congrats on getting two paying customers. One tip for the author: In setting prices, remember the price elasticity of demand, which is how much people respond in terms of the quantity they buy depending on the price. The demand curve might be such that as demonstrated two people want the app for $20 (the price charged). But perhaps ten people would buy it it for $9, maybe fifty people want it…

> Starting at $20 and going down from there seems reasonable. slowly reducing the price doesn't work because the consumer would see that the price is being reduced, and wait for the reduction to stop, even if the current price would've been worth it for the consumer to purchase (aka, they would've gotten excess value at a higher price, but still wait for the reduction to finish). After all, buying the app isn't urgen…

Good point!

Re: The simplest app that makes money

#43

Post by omeze »

ajkjk wrote: post #25

The weird subtext of this article is that it's an example of a certain kind of person, the type for whom the entire point of making things is to make money, and it's only by accident that it's about doing something useful. Here's a person who reads entrepreneurship books and takes notes on good ways to find business opportunities, makes an app to help people basically cheat because that's where the money is, naturall…

This is so unfair to the article author. People do things to make money because you need money to live in society! People want to be financially and creatively independent and starting a business, or learning how, is a completely fine thing to do. You can do volunteer work, contribute to open source, or whatever else for free, but why do you have to deride someone for trying to sell software?

Re: The simplest app that makes money

#44

Post by JoeyJoJoJr »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #34
ajkjk wrote: post #25

The weird subtext of this article is that it's an example of a certain kind of person, the type for whom the entire point of making things is to make money, and it's only by accident that it's about doing something useful. Here's a person who reads entrepreneurship books and takes notes on good ways to find business opportunities, makes an app to help people basically cheat because that's where the money is, naturall…

Is it the weird subtext? Seems to me like someone who properly thought about what he could do, did build it and then actually sold it to customers. You know, like, the basis of proper honest entrepreneurship. Or are you concerned about the use of preflop charts? Because they are clearly allowed in the rules of most tournaments and not actually cheating.

> Subtext

The legitimacy of the preflop charts was also mentioned in the article - ya know, the actual written, non-subtexty text.

Re: The simplest app that makes money

#45

Post by chii »

lordnacho wrote: post #41
chii wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> drugs ... slot machines i would assert that drugs or slot machines both provide value - they are entertainment, and the people using them are deriving value out of it. Why is that those people's enjoyment doesn't factor into society as being positive? Are they somehow not part of society? If you imply that because they must've committed a crime to obtain the money to pay for their entertainment, then it's not the e…

I think there's a tautology hiding here. It's unstated, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. The tautology is that what people exchange for has value, but it has value because people pay for it. Specifically that it has the value people are paying or more. This is a sort of free market idea: why would someone swap for something that isn't good for them? People must be swapping for stuff they want. To a degree t…

> but it's not checkable without some other way to come up with a value

which is the whole point - the value doesn't exist independently of what someone else values it for their own purpose. There's no objective measure of value, like the objective measure of some quantity like weight or energy.

So the free-market assumption is that everyone is always selfish but rational, and thus would only transact if the resulting transaction is beneficial.

in all the cited examples of otherwise, the transaction is fraudulent - someone tricking someone else (which is, technically already illegal, if somewhat un-enforcible all the time).

Re: The simplest app that makes money

#46

Post by ljf »

Congratulations to the app builder - only small bit of feedback is on the app landing page, under how much does it cost you call it a 'subscription' rather than a one of purchase. That could put some people off who think they will be charged again (weekly, monthly, yearly?)

Re: The simplest app that makes money

#47

Post by npteljes »

chii wrote: post #26
ajkjk wrote: post #25

The weird subtext of this article is that it's an example of a certain kind of person, the type for whom the entire point of making things is to make money, and it's only by accident that it's about doing something useful. Here's a person who reads entrepreneurship books and takes notes on good ways to find business opportunities, makes an app to help people basically cheat because that's where the money is, naturall…

> the type for whom the entire point of making things is to make money, not do something useful. the fact that somebody is paying for said app implies that it is useful. Noone parts with money for an exchange that they don't find useful. The idea that just because _you_ don't see it as being useful doesn't make it not useful. If you suppose that the exchange ruins the world somehow, because there's some externality t…

>Noone parts with money for an exchange that they don't find useful.

Come on, there's many. You can, for example, manipulate people to pay for something. You can get them addicted, so that they become repeat customers, despite rationality. You can lie to a lot of people, so that you will have one time customers, but you can do that to a large crowd. You can quasi-force people to buy something, if it's a prerequisite for something else.

Just because people buy something, it doesn't mean it's useful. Far from it.

Re: The simplest app that makes money

#48

Post by fullstackchris »

I really liked this post, it's what so many entire COMPANIES fail to do in the early days. IMO, ideally every startup should sit down basically the day after founding and ask exactly this: how can we make money (i.e. prove the business point) within a MONTH?

Also have to chime in to the fact you mentioned getting banned due to self promotion on reddit, samething happened to me and really rubs me the wrong way. I also used reddit to get my first sales with my product and then was also banned from some of my favorite subreddits. Such a weird conundrum since the reddit hive mind leans so heavily into "we hate huge companies and corporate slave life!" and whenever someone goes out on a limb as an indy dev or solopreneur to make something themselves they likewise are berated. I just don't get it.

Anyways, great post, couldn't help but mix in my sourness at reddit.

Re: The simplest app that makes money

#49

Post by verbify »

mcstafford wrote: post #13
boberoni wrote: post #7

I have a bookmark to a personal Google Doc called “SaaS Business Ideas”, for whenever I think of a project that I think I can monetize. The Google Doc is actually view-only and says “Stop ideating about projects to make money! You probably don’t need the money. Just work on projects that you find fun.”

Hi, I'm Bob... welcome to ideators anonymous. If you can't stop incentivizing perspectives, and monetizing paradigms this may be the place for you.

I think we can turn Ideators Anonymous into a successful business - seminars, book deals, retreats, rehab centres, the works!

Re: The simplest app that makes money

#50

Post by npteljes »

chii wrote: post #32
ajkjk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the fact that somebody pays for somebody else to show me ads is useful to all of them, but it certainly isn't useful to me... I'm not saying it's illegitimate in any legal sense. But morally it is not so clear. > doing the entrepreneurial endeavor is just trying to improve their own situation This person said they work as an engineer on growth teams in Silicon Valley, which is hilariously appropriate by the way,…

> somebody pays for somebody else to show me ads is useful to all of them, but it certainly isn't useful to me... presumably the ads being shown has subsidized the usage of the app that you're using for free. So i dont think it's not useful to you - it might be an annoyance, but you've made the trade to use the app for free (or for a lower cost than it otherwise wouldve been). > They're doing morally dubious and diff…

>presumably the ads being shown has subsidized the usage of the app that you're using for free

That's not how it works. Ads increase sales, every ad impression of yours is not an ad impression for your competitor, every ad impression makes you more familiar with the advertised - and there are other factors, I'm sure. But ads don't subsidize shit. I'm sure it seems like that in some products, but if that would be universal, cable TV, online news, and a lot of other stuff would be free. But what ends up being is that people buy things AND watch the ads. A lot of times the incentives are aligned in a way that this makes the most business sense, not lowering the price of the product.

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