I have a few NPM packages that get millions of downloads per week. I collect about $5.50 US per month from Patreon and exactly $0 US from Github sponsors. I still consider that $5.50 a win.
I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
151–160 of 510 posts
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is news to me so I'm just saying, if you wrote about this in more detail, I'd read the shit out of it.
I think what he's generally saying: aggressively deduct expenses used to support your business. This would include rent, home office, computers, phones to conduct business, business meetings, travel, health insurance, retirement, etc. Then the member and spouse would draw low salaries putting you in low income bracket and thus low taxation. The 2017 TCJA further reduced taxation for business owners via the Qualified…
I suspect a large part of it is a SEP IRA which lets you pack away like 57k in a tax advantaged account. Business deductions are almost like icing on the cake vs that.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#153Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities. So this means that if you see a donation/sp…
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Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#154> Here’s how Sponsorware works:
> Create a cool piece of software
> Make it exclusive to people who sponsor you until you reach a certain number of sponsors
> Then open source the project to the world
This is how ICOs worked, for the teams that actually delivered anything. Without any other monetization path they resorted to taking presales of tokens shoehorned in convulated ways into products that didn't need them, but frequently involved open source code for a community. This resulted in many misaligned interests for people that eseentially were sponsors.
It's nice to see the same sentiment reflected in other parts of the tech industry in a way that more people respect and can relate to.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#155Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities. So this means that if you see a donation/sp…
How common are bootstrapped (i.e. non-wealthy, non VC-funded) entrepreneurs in Finland?
Common. It is a capitalist, moderately wealthy country.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#156Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities. So this means that if you see a donation/sp…
Can you not do a "pay what you want" product? Here is this software which is open source. You can pay me what you want to for it- here's the link. The software (Or service in your case?) is the product.
I think you’re thinking in the right direction. One could do some dual licensing, with a (slightly) different license. Eg BSD by default, and sponsors get the MIT license.
Seems like there would be a clear value exchange here.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#157Good work :). That's awesome.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've lived and worked in two of those cities (and one other almost as expensive european city) for much less than $100k/year. It's a pretty comfortable lifestyle from about $50k upwards.
Sure, if you are happy living like a student. If you want to own a place in a reasonable part of town? If you want to be able to have a child? If you don't want to have to rely on two incomes to pay the mortgage? I didn't say it wasn't possible to live on that, only that that kind of salary was table stakes in those cities i.e. it's adequate but hardly living like a king. Personally I can think of a plenty of other p…
There's a world of a difference between living like a student and owning property in a reasonable part of Dublin/London. a €45,000 salary (which is roughly $50k) is definitely a comfortable, non student lifestyle. It's not going to buy you a decent house in Dublin, but it's a comfortable lifestyle, and more than adequate.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#159I'm not sure I fully understand the sponsorware model. Hopefully someone will educate me.
If my costs for writing a piece of software are initially X, I'd hope to make at least X back before I open source it. (Ignore loss-leaders for now)
If I'm counting number of sponsors, do I calculate them as if they will stick around for a year? 100% retention seems unlikely. Do I only open source after I've had Y sponsors for Z time such that sum(Y.donations) * Z == X?
Then after I open source it I have ongoing costs. His experience seems to imply that educational content (paid) then also pays for ongoing maintenance costs. Is that correct?
What if I later decide to stop supporting a project? Is there any mechanism to stop a stream of income from a group of sponsors, or will I have to assume they will "naturally" stop sponsoring when I kill new education content and updates to the project? This seems problematic as inertia will cause some people to keep paying despite not getting further value, which will cause some of them to be angry and demand "refunds."
What if my project really takes off? What would be a possible path to scale from say 1-5 paid collaborators?
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#160Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities. So this means that if you see a donation/sp…
Can you not do a "pay what you want" product? Here is this software which is open source. You can pay me what you want to for it- here's the link. The software (Or service in your case?) is the product.
I'm not a lawyer so I don't know. I wouldn't risk it myself.
Currently our air carrier Finnair is under investigation because they offered a climate compensation payment for flights. They say the payment went towards biofuel and other compensation methods but it's being investigated if it was considered a donation.[1]
[1] https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/business/17392-finnair-discards...