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Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

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Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm kind of amazed at it myself. I rank fairly well for some of the most relevant keywords now, and that's where almost all the traffic comes from. What I think I'm doing right: * Simple to start. As soon as you enter the page you see the table, you just need to press Deal and you've started. No "enter your name", no choosing options before starting, no nag ads. * Single page sites. The rules for the games are o…

Just played Spades for 1/2 hour. Fantastic work! You did the right thing in allowing the player to jump straight into the game upon landing on the homepage. The games itself are so simple that the process of starting a game should be simple, and you've done that here. Job well done!

Thanks!

Funny thing is that I never play them myself after I've finished them. The interesting part for me is creating the computer player, and seeing if I can make him win more than the human players, I have some stats in Google Analytics that can show me that. Since the computer plays like I would play it's kind of like I'm playing against all the players :)

When I'm testing I usually let the computer just play against itself, add ?autoplay to any of the game urls and when you press Deal you'll see four computer players playing against each other...

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

101domain.com offers it (along with practically every TLD): http://www.101domain.com/ng.htm

Actually it's this: http://www.101domain.com/com_ng.htm Like KingOfB, I wonder why "domain.ng" costs $50,000/year! Edit: Apparently, they're banking on the extension being attractive for things like "im.facebooki.ng". Hmmm. http://www.loyokezie.com/2011/01/05/at-50000-will-the-ng-cct...

Nah, they just want Microsoft to buy bi.ng ;)

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

#114
post #48

Launched http://cull.io 20 days ago. Revenue made till now $150. Spent: appengine $10, musicbakery: $47. (I don't really know how to cost my time, it's around three weeks to build).

I can improve my site based upon yours.

Please mail me if you want to integrate kaushik[at]cull.io

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

#115

I started Resumonk.com last month and it has already started generating some revenue.

Great work! I have one suggestion though. Let users immediately start filling in information and THEN let them create an account. I wanted to try it out, but then realized I needed to put my email in and select a password. Not a bad thing, but you'll get a lower bounce rate if you save the account creation for later.

(Also, this sort of thing would work great with Facebook connect -- you could pull name, education, work history, and phone numbers automatically. Maybe LinkedIn has an API to?)

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

#116
Wrote and launched http://app.net/emptyinbox with my wife as a spare time project over the course of a few months. It's an inbox zero assistant for Gmail on iPhone. I am my own app's biggest fan, I use it almost daily and love it to death. :)

Unfortunately a crash bug was in the first version for people running the iphone app on an ipad, which wasn't discovered until after an AppAdvice review came out which drove tons of downloads...so that led to a bunch of 1-star reviews. But reviews since the fixed version have been very positive.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

#117

I launched a Mac utility app called DragonDrop ( https://shinyplasticbag.com/dragondrop/ ) that got a lot of pretty good press (including getting fireballed — here's the HN discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3946404 ).

I bought your app after seeing a funny tweet chain between you and two of my co-workers, it's great!

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

#118
post #47
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have worked out the math behind one-time purchases supporting unlimited perpetual service? I suspect it is possible if a substantial amount of users leave the service after the purchase, but I can't see how this is not a form of pyramid scheme - new users effectively cover obligations made to eariler users. How is this sustainable with a non-trivial volume? Or do you (plan to) charge API users?

It's hard to work out accurate numbers because users can have such drastically different usage patterns. Some users have signed up with one device and have only received a few notifications, others have many devices registered and receive dozens of notifications daily from chat plugins. The API is free, though applications are limited to a reasonable number of messages per month. That was put into place out of fear t…

there: kudos to you for executing exact the idea I had as early as 2010! By any chance you could write an article on your experience with sells and marking? This is what most interests me! I am working on a project that will utilize Pushover so soon I will be a paid customer :)

Also, about your revenue model. How did you calculate that $3.99 would be sufficient to make profit AND give service to users on "all you can eat" terms? Wouldn't it be wiser to give one year for free (thats plenty of time to see whether I need and like your service or not) and then charge $9.99 per year after that? I mean, if this grows, I can easily see people eating up more bandwidth than this one-time $3.99 payment can bring into your pocket. If your TOS (sorry haven't checked) does not explicitly saying that in the future you may charge more, I think you may found yourself walking on a thin ice.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

#120

I launched a Mac utility app called DragonDrop ( https://shinyplasticbag.com/dragondrop/ ) that got a lot of pretty good press (including getting fireballed — here's the HN discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3946404 ).

Looks like a great app, going to give it a try
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