Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

news.ycombinator.com

181–190 of 289 posts

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny concept. Re-arrange the layout so that the ad units are on the left and right of the photos, not all the way down on the bottom. Also, allow for tagging so that the ads are more closely related. Also, after clicking the vote, it just takes me to the next page after quickly displaying the score, I want to know if the person is actually homeless or hipster? There are a few directions you can take this, and while…

Hey thanks for the tips :) This was my first actual site done from scratch. I've come a long way now and work for an awesome company, and have another website that I am eagerly trying to find time to complete, but I definitely will try to attack some (all maybe?) of those ideas that you've shared!

No problem, if you need any other tips or clarification, fee free to drop me a line... Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#182

In august I made about $122,000 from display ads, mostly Adsense. 5-10% of that is spent on stuff like server space and freelance employees. I can imagine that this will not be taken seriously due to lack of details, but for anyone interested, I'm open to answering non-specific questions. Edit: I see 'from what' is also the question; I have a bunch of entertainment related sites.

wow, congrats. I'm sure a lot of hard work and energy went into this over the years!

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#183
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site looks awesome and appears to have great monetization with links to amazon and ads from the BlogHer network. I recommend you experiment with "Add To Cart" links and buttons instead of "View On Amazon" because the cookie with a link to Amazon only lasts 24 hours and if they come back later and then buy the item you will not receive credit. But if you use the "Add To Cart" button, the cookie lasts 90 days! This…

So that essentially gives you credit on their next purchase assuming they don't remove it from their cart immediately?

It gets added to the cart and it doesn't matter if they checkout then or not, as long as they don't remove it from the cart. If they come back within the next 89 days and end up purchasing it, you will get credit...

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#184
post #38

Created an iOS dev company few months ago w/ a friend. We made $50k in August from a successful free iphone app. (around $40k in a regular month). We are only two in the company and we are still college students. Don't know what to say more about this but feel free to ask any question (except what is the app ^^)

That's awesome! You said it's a free app. What's your business model? Free+ads, In app purchase, freemium? And how do you market, do you use CPI/CPC networks?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#185

I make about $5/month on Food Trucks Near Me [1] through ads. At least it's not losing money! [1] http://foodtrucksnearme.com

Vegas has a great and growing food truck culture, and I'd dig a site like this for the area. Not sure what's involved in expanding to new cities, but I figure I'll throw this out there anyway.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#186

I make about $5/month on Food Trucks Near Me [1] through ads. At least it's not losing money! [1] http://foodtrucksnearme.com

PUT MORE ADS! In between each row should be an ad unit! Contact all the Food Truck owners and get them to put up an ad on a monthly basis. Food Truck owners are relatively easy to sell to (I have experience here) because their business is small. Take that money and reinvest it back into generating traffic and build your own list of food truck customers and then charge for blasts etc...

Fair enough! I'm writing a Stripe page to allow food truck owners to buy a 'priority listing.' It's currently set at $100/month and you are put in the top row. I'm thinking of dropping it to $20/mo. Any input on pricing?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I appreciate the sentiment, I would appreciate it even more if you that that I was impressive for shipping stuff and gradually doing process tweaks targeted at things that actually matter. People jump directly from "X is a god" to "I am mortal, and therefore, cannot be like X." Pretty much all HNers capable of shipping product are equally capable of doing the sort of things I do to tweak those products' success…

Now that I have your attention.. my site: http://www.golfingstat.com Should I quit it (brokeback style), spend some time making it mobile + setting a annual fee and trying to find the magic adwords amount to grow my userbase without losing money or keep on keeping on (trying to make some ad revenue with my current userbase of 150ish)

I think there's definitely a market for this type of tool if you target it correctly. I'm only a casual golfer, but my dad's a golfing nut. He plays everyday with likeminded golf nut friends, and they all track and talk about their stats to varying degrees. They also watch golf on TV and play fantasy golf leagues. I could see my dad and his friends getting utterly obsessive about a tool like this if it was done right. I could also see them paying for it if they liked it. Golfers tend to be pretty well off on average. I don't think they're likely to be very price conscious about a That said, I think you need to work on your presentation and design. It doesn't inspire much excitement. Instead of listing features and talking about the app, I would focus more on capturing the user's imagination. Don't tell them what the app does. Tell them why they should care. Communicate more on an emotional level. That's where the decision to use/buy will be made.

The screenshots also look a bit dull. I know it's just an analytics dashboard, but I think a shiny interface is going to be important. You don't want someone's subconscious visual impression to be 'glorified excel spreadsheet', you want it to be 'futuristic intelligent stat crunching engine that magically improves your score'. Regardless of what the app does, the way it looks will deeply influence how powerful it is perceived to be. Imagine a golfing scene from some sci-fi movie set 100 years in the future. What's the interface on their super advanced tablet going to look like? That's what to aim for.

Last piece of advice: I would look at the ads in golf magazines or on TV for guidance on design and language. Selling equipment, gadgets, and media to golf nuts is a huge industry. The companies that have been around for awhile are experts at marketing to this demographic. The same techniques that convince someone to buy a new $500 driver or instructional dvds or some useless magnetic bracelet could definitely convince them to buy software that provides useful statistics if you present it right.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#188

I make about $5/month on Food Trucks Near Me [1] through ads. At least it's not losing money! [1] http://foodtrucksnearme.com

Vegas has a great and growing food truck culture, and I'd dig a site like this for the area. Not sure what's involved in expanding to new cities, but I figure I'll throw this out there anyway.

Awesome, I'll do Vegas next! Kansas City is set for release this week - the data is already loaded, just need to do some aesthetic tweaks.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#189

http://testplanmanagement.com = $2,000/month http://courtdatereminder.com = ~$100/month http://enigmatic.me = ~$200/month http://jobs.consultutah.com = ~$30/month http://rubytoolbox.com = ~$10/month

I'm assuming you mean https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/? Props! I use that site all the time... surprised that it only nets you $10/month

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#190
post #17

I make between $200 - $400 per month off my HTTP testing tool: http://www.uresk.net/httpclient/ Not very impressive (who knew selling a niche tool in an environment where $5 is considered "expensive" wasn't the road to instant riches?), but it has been fun to make and it is always cool to hear about how useful the tool has been to fellow developers.

That's kind of a strange attitude to have. Your competition (more or less) charges $50: http://www.charlesproxy.com/
Post reply on HN