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

#211

Post by thomaslangston » Sun, Oct 14, 2012, 6:04 PM UTC

rexreed wrote: post #22

munyukim wrote: post #3

Quite an innovative way of making runway money

Agreed. While there's a concern that non-product development activities are a distraction from product development and marketing efforts, I can tell you from experience that raising money and managing investors is a MAJOR time drag. It can consume 3+ months of your life in doing nothing but chasing meetings, crafting presentations, and satisfying the puzzling whims of different investors. Then you have to work with l…

Is there any benefit from a quarterly presentation though for organizing your strategy? Even if I don't have investors, should I not create some similar type of document to organize a picture of where the business is and where it is heading?

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

#212

Post by scoot » Sun, Oct 14, 2012, 7:10 PM UTC

reinhardt wrote: post #117

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I could have raised my rate at any time, but I didn't until I read the book. If you haven't raised your rates for seven years , I'm guessing that you've thrown away six figures of lost income. I say this based on an assumption founded on the observation that something like 98% of freelance developers are undercharging for no reason at all. I was. You are. Even just taking inflation into account, you should be char…

We are having this discussion because this particular book happened to make it to the HN front page. Everything you write would be equally valid justifications to buy every self-help or get-rich-quick book out there. In fact, that's one of the standard marketing tricks such ebooks employ: comparing the modest price of the ebook with the potential (typically best case) reward. There must be a name for this common fall…

I can't speak to the name (or even existence) of any fallacy that this describes, but pricing strategy you mentioned is known as price anchoring, where a higher number anchors the value against which the lower number is compared. Sometimes it's an explicit comparison of price, for or example where a higher price is offered, then "discounted" to a still high, but percieved bargain price; or a comparison of price to value (eg. ROI); or to an unrelated value that sets a subconscious numeric anchor for the price that follows.

This is relevant: http://danwin.com/2011/12/the-irrationality-of-price-anchori...

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

#213

Post by bravoyankee » Sun, Oct 14, 2012, 8:52 PM UTC

ahoyhere wrote: post #161

bravoyankee wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long has freckle been around for? How many hundred blog posts have you written to promote it? How many interviews have you done over the years and plugged it? How many joint ventures and mailing lists has freckle been on? Yeah, if I hustled like you have with freckle, I'd be making at least $30,000 a month too. I'm just trying to insert some reality into the conversation. It's like watching professional athletes,…

I think it's pretty hilarious that you think I've hustled like crazy, considering most months I don't spend more than 10 hours on Freckle… and that's being generous. In addition to it no longer being my main focus (for good or ill), I have chronic fatigue syndrome. If I work a 30-hour week, that's extraordinarily high output for me. How many blog posts? Easy to find. Look at the Freckle blog and how it's been neglect…

This isn't a tennis match Amy. I'm not in competition with you. My life goals are not the same as yours. I still want to make gobs of money, but I want to make it on my terms.

I'm highly creative and can't stay with old ideas for long. I want to invent and innovate constantly.

BTW, I may be new to HN but I'm not new to hustling or marketing, so I know making a consistent 30,000 smackers a month on time tracking software would probably require a lot of blood, sweat and tears. New people need to hear this because its a more complete story.

Congratulations on your success.

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

#214

Post by GFischer » Sun, Oct 14, 2012, 10:25 PM UTC

ahoyhere wrote: post #93

patio11 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is upside down when college-educated white and Asian males making $60k+ a year ($40 an hour programmers) are "the weak", isn't it? I just have to put that out there. Vis-a-vis businesses it can actually make sense, because any business which is e.g. hiring an intermediate Ruby developer for $40 an hour is exploiting him, but "Five figures a month is unachievably high! There are no reliable ways of earning t…

If you know where I can hire decent Rails developers for $100 an hour or less, please let me know! That's not the kind of rate I see. Just a couple weeks ago a talented 15-year-old in Belarus told me his rate was $100/hr. And when I said "Sorry, you don't have the experience to justify that rate for me," he told me his last client paid just a little less.

"If you know where I can hire decent Rails developers for $100 an hour or less, please let me know! That's not the kind of rate I see."

Montevideo, Uruguay. Mail me if you want - I'm not the talented Rails developer, sadly, but I know some guys that worked at Cubox (http://cuboxlabs.com/).

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

#215

Post by larrys » Sun, Oct 14, 2012, 10:56 PM UTC

ahoyhere wrote: post #179

larrys wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you think I'm running a smoke-and-mirrors shop" Where in my comment did I say you were running a smoke and mirrors shop? Show me the words that implied that in my comment? (Others have of course - I didn't say "yeah I agree" either.) I asked you a question and gave you an opportunity to detail "why your advice is so valuable" and I gave you my reasons (before asking that) why I was skeptical. "I have a ton of testim…

Arguing semantics -- e.g. "you said 'testimonial' instead of 'quote'" -- is the last refuge of scoundrels. But that's okay. Just like you with your "BS" and "taking advantage of" and off-handed tales of deceit, I mean scoundrel in a nice way.

A testimonial is quite different than a quote. You wouldn't call a positive comment made on HN about linode for example a testimonial. You would reference it in a way that indicated that it was a quote form a source. A testimonial is much more than that.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/testimonial

We are not talking about semantics here.

Lastly, what's with the scoundrel reference. A bit harsh.

Sorry you don't like my "off-handed tales of deceit".

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

#216

Post by nasmorn » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 6:43 AM UTC

ahoyhere wrote: post #93

patio11 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is upside down when college-educated white and Asian males making $60k+ a year ($40 an hour programmers) are "the weak", isn't it? I just have to put that out there. Vis-a-vis businesses it can actually make sense, because any business which is e.g. hiring an intermediate Ruby developer for $40 an hour is exploiting him, but "Five figures a month is unachievably high! There are no reliable ways of earning t…

If you know where I can hire decent Rails developers for $100 an hour or less, please let me know! That's not the kind of rate I see. Just a couple weeks ago a talented 15-year-old in Belarus told me his rate was $100/hr. And when I said "Sorry, you don't have the experience to justify that rate for me," he told me his last client paid just a little less.

I am a reasonabl competent rails developer (doing it for more than five years, actually shipping products) working out of Vienna. Apart from a largish startup gig I also consult/freelance parttime. If you are interested we can have coffee(if you are still based in vienna else skype/email) and talk about your project needs and schedules.

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

#217

Post by ahoyhere » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 2:58 PM UTC

ryan_f wrote: post #181

ahoyhere wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's pretty hilarious that you think I've hustled like crazy, considering most months I don't spend more than 10 hours on Freckle… and that's being generous. In addition to it no longer being my main focus (for good or ill), I have chronic fatigue syndrome. If I work a 30-hour week, that's extraordinarily high output for me. How many blog posts? Easy to find. Look at the Freckle blog and how it's been neglect…

I am a happy customer of Freckle, love the product and what it does. But to hear the statements of the work that is in Freckle is a little disheartening. I have made requests in the past for updates and was happy when I was answered back about the requests. Its been already half a year and I haven't seen my request or really anything new come into the service. Small lesson here is that a simple answer back made me th…

ryan_f, I agree, it's disheartening… and not by design. We've been trying to hire somebody to develop new features for Freckle for some time; we must have gone through 5 freelancers who became flaky or committed broken work. (Note: I don't do ANY development on Freckle any more.) But, if you're still a customer, you'll probably have received some newsletters lately full of improvements & new goodies. My husband/partner Thomas has been working on it.

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

#218

Post by ahoyhere » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 3:01 PM UTC

adrianhoward wrote: post #197

ahoyhere wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed. :) The arguments among the "green" accounts all have a similar incoherency. Looks like astroturfing to me. But I still can't bear to let them stand because if you aren't privy to underhanded "argument" techniques, they sound mildly persuasive. I'm not arguing trying to convince the "greens," but rather the silent majority reading. I don't say anybody ought to buy my products or Brennan's, but the unfounded…

I don't say anybody ought to buy my products or Brennan's, but the unfounded accusations flying around are hilarious They're not amusing - because the silent majority might take them seriously. And I already have enough problems with developers and founders thinking that they just need to build it and people will come ;-)

I agree with you about the silent majority - that's the only reason I bother to show up here and argue. To represent. I surely don't believe I'll actually convince one of the aggressors that they're wrong. Ha!

It's still kind of funny, though, to watch them twist and pivot their arguments, moving the goalposts and on moving sands, in order to prove that they are more "rational" than we are, we evil people who sell things.

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

#219

Post by ahoyhere » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 3:03 PM UTC

danielharan wrote: post #192

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'll say it again: I'm pretty sure several people here would finance your transition. With standard conditions, you should be able to raise in under a month. Think of what you could do with 100k, perhaps only diluting 5%.

patio11 could make $100k appear -- without strings -- by waving his Magic Product Wand, and producing 10x-20x value for his customers (at least!!), to boot.

Why, then, do you think he should take investment?

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

#220

Post by ahoyhere » Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 3:05 PM UTC

porker wrote: post #191

ahoyhere wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why go to a therapist, when you can talk to yourself? Why call a plumber when you can buy a wrench on Amazon? Why go to a doctor when you can look up symptoms on Medscape? Why pay for a gym membership, when you can do P90x at home… hell, why buy P90x tapes, you know what you ought to be doing, everybody knows that all you have to do is burn more calories than you eat, and you can use some heavy books or angry cats yo…

Is there a reason your writing comes across as agressive Amy? There's some jerks in other threads, but you're not being attacked and if you're secure in your success... then great! As you're successful is there any gain by not being gracious?

I don't think it was aggressive, but if you did, I apologize.

Some beliefs are so wrong that they need to be put down -- not violently, but with a wave of proof so it's clear that they are false.

The belief, for example, that people don't need or want help implementing is one of those. It's just so wrong, it can't possibly be allowed to live.