I honestly think this is great. He got a website built that clearly folks need enough to pay for it, without any real risk. The wonderful thing about business is you can't argue with revenue, either you have it or you don't. If you do, no one really gets to tell you your doing it wrong (outside of security and ethical issues).
My New $156 Startup
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: My New $156 Startup
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Jarrod is a teacher and online entrepreneur whom has built well over 100 online products and services" To the OP: something to fix Who=He, whom=him.
It's an interesting post, but the copy is not very well edited overall. It's certainly part of what makes me question what happens with the quality of his projects beyond the initial sales.
Thanks for picking it up- the teacherpreneur new design went live last week. Appreciate the help
Re: My New $156 Startup
#33Hi all - I appreciate your concern over my methodology. Fact remains that I turned a $156 into a startup which has generated over 30k since launch about a month ago - while you might not understand the niche it serves our customers are schools for which there are no shortage of. All of the UI has been reskinned since the fiverr mockups and if you see the finished product it needs little resembelence. We also have two…
Congratulation with the launch and thanks for sharing the details. I think it was very impressive and show that you are very skilled at starting things.
I don't know how you manage to keep 100's of products alive at once, but as an end-consumer I would worry about the long-term viability when the owner of the product I'm investing in and planning to rely on is run by a guy who say he is more interested in starting companies than running them - which is exactly what your about-page sounds like.
nit-pick: front page of sports tracker spells built with two i's ;)
Re: My New $156 Startup
#34As someone who is currently going through setting up a company, a list of words I didn't read in that article include: incorporation, insurance, attorney, EIN. I can assure you these costs alone are well above $156. I don't know of a single state that looks kindly on un-registered businesses. I'm about to spend my Friday night (and Saturday and Sunday) doing legal research so I don't have to pay my attorney to use th…
For a one person business, you don't need any of that stuff. A sole-proprietorship is a legal business.
Re: My New $156 Startup
#35The impressive part of the article is the network the author has developed prior to beginning anything. The real startup killer in Aussie edtech is the sales cycle and this product has ostensibly hit 10% market saturation in Victoria (~120 schools) since launching a month ago. With a paid product.
For comparison, many edtech startups in Melbourne are offering a trial period until the next billing cycle (July), because it's the simplest way to get through the bureaucracy. Might not be the best approach, but it's one that seems to be the fastest way to get users.
The real cost here isn't the $10k in dev, its however many hours/dollars were spent getting the network together.
On a side note, having 'lorem ipsum' as both the public terms/conditions and privacy policy is an interesting corner to cut when selling to schools, particularly in Australia.
Re: My New $156 Startup
#36As someone who is currently going through setting up a company, a list of words I didn't read in that article include: incorporation, insurance, attorney, EIN. I can assure you these costs alone are well above $156. I don't know of a single state that looks kindly on un-registered businesses. I'm about to spend my Friday night (and Saturday and Sunday) doing legal research so I don't have to pay my attorney to use th…
You don't have to form a corporation to start a business, and you don't need an attorney, EIN or insurance. Millions of businesses operate in the US as non-incorporated entities (eg sole proprietorships or partnerships).
Many cities expect even sole proprietors to obtain business licenses from them.
Re: My New $156 Startup
#37The impressive part of the article is the network the author has developed prior to beginning anything. The real startup killer in Aussie edtech is the sales cycle and this product has ostensibly hit 10% market saturation in Victoria (~120 schools) since launching a month ago. With a paid product. For comparison, many edtech startups in Melbourne are offering a trial period until the next billing cycle (July), becaus…
Just picked this up, but the early adopters pay $250 for lifetime use. So it's not necessarily $30k/yr, just $30k.
Not sure how this is a sustainable model.
Re: My New $156 Startup
#38Your terms and conditions is still a Lorem Ipsum
Re: My New $156 Startup
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to form a corporation to start a business, and you don't need an attorney, EIN or insurance. Millions of businesses operate in the US as non-incorporated entities (eg sole proprietorships or partnerships).
Many cities expect even sole proprietors to obtain business licenses from them.
Only if you work or have property in those cities.
Re: My New $156 Startup
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
My philosophy is that any company I do side work for that hints of "adding horsepower through odesk" or similar, I fire as a client. With that philosophy, they don't value your work and need to see how things are on the other side.
You're right that 90% of the clients on oDesk are absolutely horrible, but so are most of the developers. There are some, however, who are genuinely just trying to find affordable talent in places where it's available. I know plenty of great developers in Russia and India making $40/hour as programmers for US companies.
I tried looking around on oDesk for contract work, but every time I clicked on a job and looked at the client's history they were paying less than $10 an hour on average. I couldn't find anything paying near $40 an hour.