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Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

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Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#41

Post by monsterix »

ahoyhere wrote: post #36
bdunn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. AMAZING advice Jason. I took Amy Hoy's 30x500 course, which opened my eyes to how a 10% month to month growth rate can be crazy in just a few years. The chart shown in a recent post of hers is mind boggling: http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-...

Thanks for the link :) That graph is nice but this is the real graph you want to see: https://img.skitch.com/20120331-ft3faju2jpqseq3ucff1fgi31h.p... That's the "estimated" (all open trials) revenue growth for Freckle over its whole life time. Look how stagnant it was, then slow, and for how long. And compare that to now :) NB: real billing, trailing a month behind any given date, is 5-15% less than the estimate (due…

Uh oh! Didn't know you were here too.

It's nice to see entrepreneurs like you, coming out openly with business figures. Helps newbies like me, to go on and keep focus only on the product. Unabated by tiny bubbles we see in funding side of story - aka "herd mentality".

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#42

Post by whileonebegin »

jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Do you think recurring billing makes more sense to web apps than desktop apps? I think users are entrenched with the idea of "buying" a desktop app and "subscribing" to a web app.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#44

Post by bdunn »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #40

How did you manage to get 500 subscribers before launch? Marketing? Leveraging existing networks? SEO?

This is where some "celebrity" came into play. Since we weren't getting organic traffic (nothing to index but the sales letter) and didn't have a blog up (big mistake!), a few people with lots of Twitter followers RTed me. It's a lot easier to get signups to non-binding "I'll notify you once there's something build" than it is to get actual signups. Only about 20% of the announcement list ended up converting.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#45

Post by leon_ »

euroclydon wrote: post #29
jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Thanks. I agree with your post. Sales for CupcakeWrapperCreator have gone like this: March 0.02 April 38.85 May 64.75 June 76.75 July 122.60 August 99.80 September 129.75 October 109.75 November 199.60 December 119.75 January 149.70 February 249.45 March 369.25 So, for nearly a year I didn't have any motivation to do more work, but then I signed up for a free month of SEOMOZ, and just fixed the low hanging fruit from…

Well - you need to watch the traffic quality. The 20 uniques from some blog comment might be non converting users.

You don't want just traffic - you want high quality traffic.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#46

Post by ahoyhere »

monsterix wrote: post #38
bdunn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. AMAZING advice Jason. I took Amy Hoy's 30x500 course, which opened my eyes to how a 10% month to month growth rate can be crazy in just a few years. The chart shown in a recent post of hers is mind boggling: http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-...

That story from Amy, is super awesome stuff. Not many have made it to that point - 3 years - however. On the other hand, all this discussion seems more like a silver lining towards disruption in angel investing space too. Sublime for entrepreneurs, disastrous for others may be. It's threads like these that make my day at HN :)

Not many have made it to that point - 3 years - however.

This is true, but there are only 2 reasons I see:

1. Choosing the utterly wrong product. Smart people like us are drawn like moths to the flame of "great ideas," rather than "things which could help people and be really profitable." Something I teach against in my class, called Idea Quicksand. My philosophy about this is explained the first 3 free samples available on http://unicornfree.com/30x500

2. Barring "great ideas" which aren't businesses, people give up way too soon. They have no idea that it takes so long, and they don't prepare for it, and they think they've failed when they're really just normal. Which is a huge part of the reason why I blog & show up here.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#47

Post by ahoyhere »

whileonebegin wrote: post #42
jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Do you think recurring billing makes more sense to web apps than desktop apps? I think users are entrenched with the idea of "buying" a desktop app and "subscribing" to a web app.

Quite a few "desktop" apps have hybrid models - Evernote, Dropbox, CRM software, iCloud, etc, no doubt there are more which I can't think of at the moment.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#48

Post by ahoyhere »

monsterix wrote: post #41
ahoyhere wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link :) That graph is nice but this is the real graph you want to see: https://img.skitch.com/20120331-ft3faju2jpqseq3ucff1fgi31h.p... That's the "estimated" (all open trials) revenue growth for Freckle over its whole life time. Look how stagnant it was, then slow, and for how long. And compare that to now :) NB: real billing, trailing a month behind any given date, is 5-15% less than the estimate (due…

Uh oh! Didn't know you were here too. It's nice to see entrepreneurs like you, coming out openly with business figures. Helps newbies like me, to go on and keep focus only on the product. Unabated by tiny bubbles we see in funding side of story - aka "herd mentality".

Hi. That's what I'm here for.

Why "Uh oh"? I'm not the boogeyman ;)

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#49

Post by muhfuhkuh »

euroclydon wrote: post #29
jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Thanks. I agree with your post. Sales for CupcakeWrapperCreator have gone like this: March 0.02 April 38.85 May 64.75 June 76.75 July 122.60 August 99.80 September 129.75 October 109.75 November 199.60 December 119.75 January 149.70 February 249.45 March 369.25 So, for nearly a year I didn't have any motivation to do more work, but then I signed up for a free month of SEOMOZ, and just fixed the low hanging fruit from…

You think seeding some of your designs on pinterest might pique interest further? If anything, it can be a "proving grounds" for your newest wrapper designs.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#50

Post by rwillystyle »

bdunn wrote: post #25
jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Wow. AMAZING advice Jason. I took Amy Hoy's 30x500 course, which opened my eyes to how a 10% month to month growth rate can be crazy in just a few years. The chart shown in a recent post of hers is mind boggling: http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-...

You had to take a course from another "how to get rich" type to realize the power of compounded growth?
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