How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products • Hacker News Board

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#51

Post by orangethirty » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 5:51 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #46

bdunn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sort of like saying "the depressing truth about relationships is that you need to go out and meet people to get involved in one." I take a lot of pride in promoting my products. Marketing is just storytelling, and when your story aligns with the needs of someone else, a transaction occurs. Honestly, if you want to just write code all day (and there's nothing wrong with that) don't create a product - work for s…

That defeats the purpose. If I have a great idea for a product and I want to work on it, why would I go work for somebody else instead? A much better idea would be to join forces with a marketing guy or girl or hire one.

Life is not so simple. A lot of people don't have the option to develop their ideas. That is why joining people who are building something similar ends up being a good option for them. They might not get the same financial benefit, but they may get other intangible benefits from it (pride, sense of accomplushment, experience).

Saying that joining a marketing person or hiring one is not the recipe for building a business. Realize that a business is not solely its marketing, nor programming. You cannot just take a program and market it, and become rich. Not so easy. It takes a lot of hustle (which is not marketing), and luck.

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#52

Post by orangethirty » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

johnrob wrote: post #34

The depressing truth about the software business is that most of the success stories take the form "and then I started spending all my time on marketing, and my business took off!". I say depressing because most software developers didn't choose their profession out of a burning desire to become a marketer.

A software developer can be one without being in the software business. No need to market anything, ever. Now, if you want to sell software, then you better learn how to sell.

The depressing truth about the software business is that most of the success stories take the form "and then I started spending all my time on marketing, and my business took off!".

What's depressing is this line of thinking. You just can't program something and expect people to buy it. You have to sell it.

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#53

Post by amix » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 5:59 PM UTC

Let me present another view why I dislike this kind of selling. I think this author sells a story of how they got rich and how you also can get rich (and how you can do this easily) It's a common scheme and I think the only people that are getting rich by this are the people that are selling this kind of knowledge.

The problem (at least based on my experience) is that building anything successful takes a huge amounts of dedication and effort -- there's also a large margin for failure. It's simply not something that's easy to reproduce and you probably won't make five-figures a month by selling things to a mailing list. Or create a 30x500 product and instantly be your own boss. And sure, there are some that are going to succeed at this (and great for them!), but presenting this like anybody will get rich by just following a scheme rings off alarm clocks, especially when this kind of knowledge is sold at a high cost.

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#54

Post by bdunn » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:02 PM UTC

amix wrote: post #53

Let me present another view why I dislike this kind of selling. I think this author sells a story of how they got rich and how you also can get rich (and how you can do this easily) It's a common scheme and I think the only people that are getting rich by this are the people that are selling this kind of knowledge. The problem (at least based on my experience) is that building anything successful takes a huge amounts…

Going to disagree. I think the level of likelihood for failing when you're shooting in the dark with your idea dú jour is SUBSTANTIALLY higher than when you mine audience pain points and build products around what people are asking for.

That's all I'm doing. There's nothing that I'm doing that someone else can't.

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#55

Post by drusenko » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:04 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #46

bdunn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sort of like saying "the depressing truth about relationships is that you need to go out and meet people to get involved in one." I take a lot of pride in promoting my products. Marketing is just storytelling, and when your story aligns with the needs of someone else, a transaction occurs. Honestly, if you want to just write code all day (and there's nothing wrong with that) don't create a product - work for s…

That defeats the purpose. If I have a great idea for a product and I want to work on it, why would I go work for somebody else instead? A much better idea would be to join forces with a marketing guy or girl or hire one.

Doesn't this sound oddly like the often reviled "I have a great idea, now all I need is to hire a programmer!"

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#56

Post by ryanwaggoner » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:13 PM UTC

larrys wrote: post #48

patio11 wrote: post #41

I had an experience very similar to Brennan's recently. Appointment Reminder, the SaaS which I wish was the center of gravity of my business at the moment, is profitable but not profitable enough to hire the folks and buy the things that I want to accelerate growth of it. So I have been supporting it by consulting, but when I'm consulting I'm not selling Appointment Reminder accounts, and consulting is always more di…

I think there is a key difference between appointment reminder and the two other things (consulting and the course). AR is something that will provide residuals that will continue for quite some time. During that time you will have to improve the product (at your leisure) and basically keep the infrastructure running. In return you will collect $29 to $199 per month, every month. No need to resell those that are alre…

The real problem with consulting right now is that it's so freaking lucrative that the opportunity costs for building long-term recurring revenue projects like AR are not insignificant. It's just much more of a gamble, and I too often fall prey to the allure of the large check in the next six weeks, rather than the hundreds of small checks over the next six years, even though the small checks may eventually add up to dwarf the large check. Well, hopefully, but that's the gamble.

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#57

Post by larrys » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:22 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #56

larrys wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a key difference between appointment reminder and the two other things (consulting and the course). AR is something that will provide residuals that will continue for quite some time. During that time you will have to improve the product (at your leisure) and basically keep the infrastructure running. In return you will collect $29 to $199 per month, every month. No need to resell those that are alre…

The real problem with consulting right now is that it's so freaking lucrative that the opportunity costs for building long-term recurring revenue projects like AR are not insignificant. It's just much more of a gamble, and I too often fall prey to the allure of the large check in the next six weeks, rather than the hundreds of small checks over the next six years, even though the small checks may eventually add up to…

"The real problem with consulting right now is that it's so freaking lucrative"

I suggest for anyone doing consulting or building an app that they build into the price a monthly maintenance fee as a residual. We have an app that was written for us about 6 years ago (+-$65000) and we pay $6000 per year just to have the developer make minor changes and answer emails quickly. Very little work on his part but it gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling. (He originally asked for $1000/month). We'll probably negotiate this down when we get around to it.

"hundreds of small checks over the next six years, even though the small checks"

Hundreds of small checks are also "forced savings". You can't spend them before you receive them. You tend to keep your finances inline this way.

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#58

Post by ricardobeat » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

I don't see how riting and workshops are "bootstrapped products". They won't be bringing nearly as much revenue in six months. A better title would be "How I'm financing my startup by selling books/courses" but I guess that doesn't fit the sales pitch so well.

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#59

Post by scorpioxy » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:51 PM UTC

I've been thinking about trying one of the mentioned courses because I am trying to transition from side projects just to scratch an itch to services that people would actually use. So figured that learning from the experience of people who've done it before (Amy, Patrick, Brennan...) would cut down on the trial and error phase.

But how would I shake the feeling that these exist as part of the marketing scheme that the entrepreneurs engage in. These courses are not exactly cheap, but you know... "How do you make $10,000 selling an ebook online? Write an ebook that promises to teach people how to make $10,000 selling an ebook online"

Re: How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products

#60

Post by gyardley » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:52 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #58

I don't see how riting and workshops are "bootstrapped products". They won't be bringing nearly as much revenue in six months. A better title would be "How I'm financing my startup by selling books/courses" but I guess that doesn't fit the sales pitch so well.

Are you confusing 'bootstrapped products' with some other concept like 'passive income'? Amount of revenue six months out doesn't have anything to do with whether something's bootstrapped.