$200k in sales from a $6k advertisement • Hacker News Board

Re: $200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

#101

Post by Nzen » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 12:12 AM UTC

mNovak wrote: post #96

If I'm reading the 'buy' page correctly, this is in fact only $10k in deposits with $190k in commitments at an unknown future time, similar to Tesla reservations. A bit different than $200k in hard sales. Actually for $10k you may as well buy your own reservations just for the marketing value of "$200k in sales"

That sounds like what the production company for the movie _Unsubscribe_ did four months ago to 'top the US box office' [0] by buying out / sponsoring all their showings and then trying to resell the tickets themselves. Because of the way the sales are reported and the limited viewership then and now, they got to claim a headline.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23571858

Re: $200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

#102

Post by jonathanzufi » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 1:41 AM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #76

jonathanzufi wrote: post #67

I enjoyed similar success with a DF sponsorship back in October 2015 (I’m guessing his audience has grown significantly since): I purchased a sponsorship my book ICONIC (shameless plug at http://www.iconicbook.com ) for $9,250. Looking back on my stats I approximately tripled that in direct sales, but I’m sure the actual return was higher as I’m certain some folks went to Amazon instead of my site where I was selling…

Good lord, he must be making a fortune off his site.

He is and it’s well deserved - he’s built an incredible following and he has earned enormous respect and trust from Apple leadership (and his Apple insiders who he taps as needed). Don’t forget he’s also one of the creators of Markdown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown)

Re: $200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

#103

Post by halter73 » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 3:27 AM UTC

treis wrote: post #92

nelsondev wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same question, why not “laser focus” your efforts on convincing one technically proficient investor with deep pockets, rather than having to convince 100s-1000s via crowd-funding? Is it that investors need to provide the roof top too, so it’s a way to reach out to property owners?

>Same question, why not “laser focus” your efforts on convincing one technically proficient investor with deep pockets, rather than having to convince 100s-1000s via crowd-funding? Traditionally the franchise model allows for small entrepreneurs to tackle local problems while benefiting from economies of scale. In this case, small entrepreneurs can tackle connecting at the neighborhood level while wifi dabba can nego…

In this "franchise" model, the franchisees are passive investors not small entrepreneurs connecting at the neighborhood level. From the article:

> Fully managed service Be an absentee landlord

...

> Senior engineers from Google, Apple and a host of other technology companies purchased the PoPs.

Re: $200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

#104

Post by RhodoYolo » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 3:49 AM UTC

wtvanhest wrote: post #85

treis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ponzi Scheme? Half joking because this looks like an interesting concept. But reading your spreadsheet you have a "minimum guarantee" of 10% annualized return. Which is not possible.

TBH, I had the same thought. Theoretically if the return was that good, they would not need to break up the capital investment and manage lots of individual relationships. They could simply raise the capital they need at a very low price and have 1 relationship which would be much more efficient. It is either a scam or an incredible investment opportunity. We will know in 3 months. If it is a scam, they will keep sel…

its a YC company.

Re: $200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

#105

Post by aparajit » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 7:02 AM UTC

This is phenomenal to see, Karam! I still fondly remember our first chat when we met outside YC after the interview; you shared a Classic Mild with me... Really happy for you and it's great to see you guys continuing to execute

Re: $200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

#106

Post by umeshgmrl » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 9:34 AM UTC

blueblisters wrote: post #80

prefontaine wrote: post #72

What's the point? I live in India and in Feb I was in Sikkim, a mountainous state near the border. I had 4G/LTE. You can get 50GB of mobile data for like 3 bucks. This problem has been solved. I worry about not having connectivity when I travel in the US/Europe. It's far less developed there.

A 4G hotspot for regular desktop work is simply unreliable due to latency and network congestion issues in major Indian metros. Also, you can do a whole lot more with 1 Gbps of bandwidth v/s 40 mbps.

I live in a remote village in India, working from home currently. I use my 4G mobile hotspot (Jio) for my work and I didn't face any issue till now. I normally attend team meetings, development and some Youtube.

On the contrary, in cities the network is less reliable with 4G as you said.

Re: $200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

#107

Post by manigandham » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 9:35 AM UTC

prefontaine wrote: post #72

What's the point? I live in India and in Feb I was in Sikkim, a mountainous state near the border. I had 4G/LTE. You can get 50GB of mobile data for like 3 bucks. This problem has been solved. I worry about not having connectivity when I travel in the US/Europe. It's far less developed there.

That's barely solving the problem. Consumers and businesses want high-speed low-latency reliable and unmetered connectivity; which is the exact opposite of mobile data plans.

Re: $200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

#108

Post by Invictus0 » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

I was interested in investing with you but seeing the founder do the introduction video in tinted sunglasses was a dealbreaker for me.

Re: $200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

#109

Post by jgimenez » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 10:24 AM UTC

justiceforsaas wrote: post #41

This is an interesting case study, but my research on acquisition channels that consistently work for founders [1] has shown that sponsoring blogs/web-based "real estate" is hit-or-miss (and doesn't work) for most founders. Here are some dev SaaS examples: 1. SnapShooter ($1k+/mo), a tool to create daily backups of DigitalOcean droplets: " I tried sponsoring blog articles with a little bit of success." [2] 2. BugFend…

Jordi, co-founder of Bugfender here. I totally agree. We tried many thing and this kind of advertisement didn't work very well for us. We tried several things in this area, with varying degrees of success.

The main differential factor here is the price of what they're selling. In this case it's a high-value, pretty unique item sold to a highly targeted audience, that 1-2 items sold already make up for the investment. Good for them!

Also beware of confirmation bias: we know this particular campaign worked and was extremely successful, but we don't know the other things this company tried and didn't work, nor if this team had experience in a very similar market that saved them some experimentation.