81–90 of 92 posts
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I used to compile a bunch of tech-product-related coupons and discount codes and tricks for saving money on buying the hot stuff of the day (RAM, DVD-ROM drives, etc) and sell that as a report on eBay.
I always wondered about those. Did they make any money?
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A handful of people from thousands who prefer to keep quiet. Plus only those who do talk about them do it to help themselves (as a marketing tool). Any time you talk about amazing sales you risk alerting your competition about your niche.
Indeed. I read all four of the blog posts. All four of them make the majority of their money from consulting or from training -- books, videos, and workshops -- rather than from products. The split ranges from around 50/50 to almost 90/10. In 2012, Patrick made 20% of his income (not revenues) from products, and 80% of his income from consulting and training, primarily client engagements. (He did not disclose revenue…
Product != Software
People buy software because they desire some intended outcome. For instance, I recently switched to Xero because emailing spreadsheets of categorizations back and forth to my accountant is messy and frustrating. And I might buy a book on bookkeeping because I suck at it. Or a course on cashflow because I never learned how to properly budget.
I think if you were to ask me, Patrick, Amy, Nathan, etc... if we see a huge difference between, say, a SaaS product we run and a workshop we teach, we wouldn't. The goal's the same: make someone better off than they were before.
It's really frustrating, but understandable on HN, to see people downplay products that aren't software. When writing Planscope, my goal was to help increase project transparency between consultants and their clients. After talking with many customres, I realized a large number of them needed help on something much more foundational to their business: how to price. So I built another product that helped people with that.
(Also, I honestly don't think that posting some — hopefully helpful — content on what I learned in trying to sell a book is going to result in "Double UR Freelancing Ratez" coming out and crushing my sales anytime soon.)
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A handful of people from thousands who prefer to keep quiet. Plus only those who do talk about them do it to help themselves (as a marketing tool). Any time you talk about amazing sales you risk alerting your competition about your niche.
Indeed. I read all four of the blog posts. All four of them make the majority of their money from consulting or from training -- books, videos, and workshops -- rather than from products. The split ranges from around 50/50 to almost 90/10. In 2012, Patrick made 20% of his income (not revenues) from products, and 80% of his income from consulting and training, primarily client engagements. (He did not disclose revenue…
Do you think that a book or a video is not a product?
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A handful of people from thousands who prefer to keep quiet. Plus only those who do talk about them do it to help themselves (as a marketing tool). Any time you talk about amazing sales you risk alerting your competition about your niche.
Indeed. I read all four of the blog posts. All four of them make the majority of their money from consulting or from training -- books, videos, and workshops -- rather than from products. The split ranges from around 50/50 to almost 90/10. In 2012, Patrick made 20% of his income (not revenues) from products, and 80% of his income from consulting and training, primarily client engagements. (He did not disclose revenue…
Brennan made $106,443 from his products, for 45% of his income. He could have dropped the consulting altogether and still would have made a nice six figure salary.
Nathan earned 76% of his income from his products.
Amy earned 100% of her income from products (as best I can tell).
Products are not the same as software. An ebook is no less a product than a paper book you buy in a store.
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As an exercise in Windows programming I made a little alarm clock program called SuperAlarm that would use Winamp to play MP3s. I put in the readme that I liked Skittles and postcards; I got a number of postcards and one day I got a 1-pound bag of Skittles from someone in Canada. I still remember how great that felt even 15+ years later. Haha, I found a screenshot of the app: http://www.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/…
Ha ha. That's awesome: a bag of Skittles from Canada! (as a Canadian, I appreciate this). Question: why did you decide not to put a price on it?
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Indeed. I read all four of the blog posts. All four of them make the majority of their money from consulting or from training -- books, videos, and workshops -- rather than from products. The split ranges from around 50/50 to almost 90/10. In 2012, Patrick made 20% of his income (not revenues) from products, and 80% of his income from consulting and training, primarily client engagements. (He did not disclose revenue…
Here's what I think is being missed in this discussion: Product != Software People buy software because they desire some intended outcome. For instance, I recently switched to Xero because emailing spreadsheets of categorizations back and forth to my accountant is messy and frustrating. And I might buy a book on bookkeeping because I suck at it. Or a course on cashflow because I never learned how to properly budget.…
As for giving non-software its due, that's a different discussion altogether. I was commenting on a post that talked about receiving $20 in the mail for shareware, on a thread that talked about the situation being tougher than in "box software's heyday."
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Indeed. I read all four of the blog posts. All four of them make the majority of their money from consulting or from training -- books, videos, and workshops -- rather than from products. The split ranges from around 50/50 to almost 90/10. In 2012, Patrick made 20% of his income (not revenues) from products, and 80% of his income from consulting and training, primarily client engagements. (He did not disclose revenue…
All four of them make the majority of their money from consulting or from training -- books, videos, and workshops -- rather than from products. Do you think that a book or a video is not a product?
But this is a different topic than the one we were discussing.
The original article was about receiving $20 in the mail for shareware, "his first product." 37signals makes most of its money from a software product -- not a training product.
The thread I'm responding to began when someone complained that you cannot charge money anymore for products and services, because so much open source software is available and services (which I take to be software-as-a-service) is free. It's not someone complaining that books or videos don't sell anymore, because so much information is online for free.
Training is a profitable niche. But we can't all make 80% of our money training each other on how to do things.
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A handful of people from thousands who prefer to keep quiet. Plus only those who do talk about them do it to help themselves (as a marketing tool). Any time you talk about amazing sales you risk alerting your competition about your niche.
Indeed. I read all four of the blog posts. All four of them make the majority of their money from consulting or from training -- books, videos, and workshops -- rather than from products. The split ranges from around 50/50 to almost 90/10. In 2012, Patrick made 20% of his income (not revenues) from products, and 80% of his income from consulting and training, primarily client engagements. (He did not disclose revenue…
Books, video courses, etc. aren't training OR consulting. You write once, and infinite people can buy them. A workshop is training but it's also a product because you only have to make it once, then you could present it yourself or easily have somebody else present your material, or turn it into a series of videos, etc., etc. Just because you are currently doing the work yourself doesn't mean that's the way it has to be.
As for your point about not "blogging about the location of their mine"…
As I have shared in many places, Freckle is grossing over $400k/yr now. Yep, a time tracking app. I "blog" (present, talk, podcast, etc) about this all the time. I give away my "secrets" (such as they are) repeatedly. I show people my revenue, and I teach about how I designed the software and how I market it. Of course the way we market it is plain to see considering the marketing is on the internet and I tweet it, link to it, talk about it, etc.
Surprise, surprise -- nobody has ever copied Freckle. Nor have any of our competitors copied even a single element of our innovative interface. Not even the really obvious stuff their customers need!
The fact is, you can tell people your "secrets" all day long and rest easy. Because the reason those people aren't rich isn't because they lack "secrets," it's because they lack discipline.
Finally, you claim that if people make money with training/workshops/videos/books, then we're just "giving presentations about gold-mining."
But 42% of our gross revenue in 2010 was from JavaScript workshops. Yep, programming workshops. About code. Amazingly, there were no pickaxes or sieves in sight.
I understand that you're angry. Whatever it was you signed up for, in the hopes of striking it rich (or at least highly comfortable), it had to do with shiny software and not boring old ebooks or video classes on how to effectively onboard new customers. What we do isn't sexy. But the fact is, unless you can help people, you're not going to be able to make sales. Help can come in any form, even as software, as long as it works for the customer. If your products (yes, products) don't help people, though, you're sunk… and sexiness won't help you.
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All four of them make the majority of their money from consulting or from training -- books, videos, and workshops -- rather than from products. Do you think that a book or a video is not a product?
Of course, anything that you buy is a product in some sense. Services are also products. The maid you hire to clean your house is also a product. Healthcare is a product. And yes, education is also a product. But this is a different topic than the one we were discussing. The original article was about receiving $20 in the mail for shareware, "his first product." 37signals makes most of its money from a software produ…
Unless you only buy books where the author comes to your house and delivers a dramatic reading…
… books are products. And so are videos.
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Here's what I think is being missed in this discussion: Product != Software People buy software because they desire some intended outcome. For instance, I recently switched to Xero because emailing spreadsheets of categorizations back and forth to my accountant is messy and frustrating. And I might buy a book on bookkeeping because I suck at it. Or a course on cashflow because I never learned how to properly budget.…
That's exactly my point. You've chosen to be in a business where blogging doesn't hurt you -- and in fact, it helps you. As for giving non-software its due, that's a different discussion altogether. I was commenting on a post that talked about receiving $20 in the mail for shareware, on a thread that talked about the situation being tougher than in "box software's heyday."
How is this different than any other business?
Sure, what Brennan blogs about attracts his customers. But it can and no doubt will attract other people like him as well. What's stopping his competitors, or potential competitors, from copying what he's doing… of using his revenue posts as proof of market?