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$200k in sales from a $6k advertisement

wifidabba.com

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

#81

Post by arcticbull »

blueblisters wrote: post #78
arcticbull wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why the JOBS-act style crowdfunding model doesn't work, and may harm small-time investors. If your business is low-risk, you self-fund or bootstrap. If your business is high-risk but has a decent team you can just raise from a VC. It's only high-risk, low-reward ventures that can't raise from a VC that will seek funding from a boatload of zero-value-add small-time investors.

I think this probably falls into a very niche category of high-risk but "I get to brag about owning a piece of piece of broadband infrastructure 8000 kms away" assets. As it stands right now, investors are essentially purchasing novelty, not a risk-assessed financial instrument. It would be cool if they can make this into a legitimate funding model though.

IMO (and that's a big IMO), you raise from VCs not just for the working capital but also for the network and the advice. Rando JOBS act investors provide none of that, which means their money is worth a lot less. It creates a really big adverse selection risk for main street investors.

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

#82

Post by sramam »

mildlyclassic wrote: post #37
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?

Great question. There's a few reasons. First, It's taken ~20yrs, the Indian government, 15 telecom companies and more than $200B to bring ~600M out of 1B Indians 4G. Broadband deployment is more expensive and currently only 20M Indians have 10mbps or greater 'broadband' connections. Even at Wifi Dabba's dramatically lower deployment cost, the price tag to connect 500M Indians is enormous and we're not willing to wait…

> Second, The reason net neutrality, censorship and other malaise that ails the internet happens is because of the high deployment cost of broadband networks, this automatically makes ownership of these networks only accessible to nation states and mega large corps. Power becomes centralized.

But isn't the centralization happening here too? Since the investment capital has term-limited returns, eventually the equity and equipment belong to wifi-dabba.

Why should one expect a different outcome?

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

#83

Post by jldugger »

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.

Seems like about 7.5k a week in revenue, or about $400k. Not much different than a senior engineer at Google then, so I guess it depends on perspective. (his brother, formerly an apple employee, probably made more than him).

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

#84

Post by d33lio »

petercooper wrote: post #44
d33lio wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people NEED this sentiment. I kid you not, the last time I accidentally visited Product Hunt there was literally an app on the front page intended for the sole purpose of "mapping where you've cried". This type of Indie Hackers (as much as it saddens me to say) hype noise is nothing but counter-productive to "helping" side project hackers or aspiring founders.

Maybe this app currently doing very well on the iOS App Store will cheer you up? ;-) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/poop-map-pin-and-track/id13032...

:) At least this app has some utility!

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

#85

Post by wtvanhest »

treis wrote: post #68
mildlyclassic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great question. You're right, It's a commercial agreement, not equity. We think it counts as a sale, but I'm totally open to a more appropriate term.

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 selling them individually. If it is an incredible investment opportunity, they will stop selling them and be funded by someone who is reading the article today. In the US, their investment proposal likely violates the law by guaranteeing a return.

I hope its an incredible investment opportunity and I hope they deliver what they say they will.

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

#86

Post by corford »

bobbob1921 wrote: post #42

I’m not clear on the (uplink/upstream , ie internet) bandwidth costs. Who provides/pays for that monthly bill? Surely if you buy a 20 K pop that doesn’t include upstream bandwidth for life (ie for your pops customers to use). I spent about 25 minutes reading every page of the website but didn’t see this part mentioned, apologies if I in fact missed it. Thanks, interesting project!

From what I've read, the PoP franchisee revenue is based on a 70/30 split of subscriber revenue generated by that PoP (with a guaranteed minimum monthly return). The idea is the PoP will serve 1000s of monthly customers and part of Wifi Dabba's take from that income is what is paying for the upstream/backhaul.

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

#87

Post by moneywoes »

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…

Sorry, what is a DF sponsorship? What does it entail?

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

#88

Post by CodeWriter23 »

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…

There is no better bargaining chip when it comes to negotiating with investors than paying customers. I'm saying maybe this is a baby step into the continuum you describe.

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

#90

Post by galaxyLogic »

mattashii wrote: post #69
galaxyLogic wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does HN make money?

Technically, HN doesn't make money. Specifically, HN is owned and funded by YCombinator. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html , in section "What's the relationship between YC and HN?"

Good to know. So what is the reason that yCombinator maintains and curates HN? It must cost them money even if it does not make them money. So why do they do it? Is it just good publicity?

Contrast this to Reddit. It is a big company with rather similar product, which is its only product and which makes them a lot of money I believe. How can YCombinator offer a similar product for free?

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