Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
1–10 of 63 posts
Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
#2wondering if you disclosed that you were the creator of the service when you made the growthhacks list
Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
#3Please don't continue to run this.
What you are doing is effectively recreating the VRFY command that nearly every major mail hosting service has removed for privacy and abuse reasons. You are opening yourself up to a huge liability, since spammers will quickly use stolen credit cards to crosscheck their lists against your API.
This will cause you to have processing issues from Stripe. This will cause you to have a huge backlash from hosting providers as you desperately try to make sure that your cached address is still valid. (Let's fire off 1000 calls to some random Postfix server, WCGW?) This will cause you to produce false results for domains that run catch-all addresses but don't advertise mailboxes. This will cause you to unwittingly become an effective tool in a spammer's repertoire.
Look, sticking a cache in front of the RCPT TO command is all well and good, but that functionality should be up to the owner of the mail server that you're bombarding, and not up to some third party. You are putting the onus of "hey, just contact us if you don't want us to hit your mail server" on every single mail server admin. This is not okay. SMTP servers aren't nearly as robust, and cannot handle a quickly-spiraling-out-of-control web service hitting them.
Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
#4I would be very cautious using Anymailfinder.com to generate email lists -- based on this copy on anymailfinder.com:
Anymail finder uses many approaches to find emails—it searches billions of web pages and performs direct server validation.
The original SMTP spec allows for email address validation, and there are tricks like opening an SMTP connection to a mail server and dropping it half way if the address is verified -- but these are the same "tricks" that spammers use, so many mail servers disable or report false positives. There's a reason why most lead services have a high price: they have actually verified an email address.
Next, sending cold emails to business is OK (sometimes annoying but legally ok), but the copy on makesmail.com has a broken link (1) and doesn't clearly describe how to cold email and be legally compliant. From the horses mouth: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can...
Regardless, congratulations on building up to $1,500 MRR, that is a milestone most side projects never reach!
Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
#5Please don't continue to run this. What you are doing is effectively recreating the VRFY command that nearly every major mail hosting service has removed for privacy and abuse reasons. You are opening yourself up to a huge liability, since spammers will quickly use stolen credit cards to crosscheck their lists against your API. This will cause you to have processing issues from Stripe. This will cause you to have a h…
Just echo'd this in my own comment; as mark says you will get false positives and high spam reports.
Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
#6Tried my name at my Google Apps domain... no results as it's apparently "catchall domain", but a few alternative addresses were provided, several of which I know do not exist.
Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
#7I would be very cautious using Anymailfinder.com to generate email lists -- based on this copy on anymailfinder.com: Anymail finder uses many approaches to find emails—it searches billions of web pages and performs direct server validation. The original SMTP spec allows for email address validation, and there are tricks like opening an SMTP connection to a mail server and dropping it half way if the address is verifi…
You can pretty easily find out if the server will return false positives by first testing a completely random email like 737377ndjd@domain.com . Not sure if he's doing that or not.
Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
#8I both understand the demand for this and dislike it. But, assuming ethical questions stand aside, I do have some pricing reactions:
This should be a monthly service, full stop. You mention users use it once, and then not for a while. That is the best possible scenario for a recurring revenue business. You should stop offering one-off purchases immediately if you want to see revenue grow.
I can think off the top of my head of a few 'ongoing' value adds you could do; in particular, you could remember emails you couldn't find, and if you do find them notify the user. There are probably more things you could imagine if you were closer to the business.
This would also let you charge spammers a lot, or preferably just keep them out and stay more moral by just capping the monthly requests at something reasonable for a human, not a spammer.
Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
#9Don't use this if you do business in Canada. Under CASL you could face fines of up to $10M per violation: http://www.zorbloglaw.com/2014/07/is-that-email-worth-10-mil...
Compu-Finder got a $1.1M fine: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=944159
Re: Using an API to build a $1,500/month side business in 4 months
#10I'm not sure why there is so much negativity in these comments. LeadGenius is nothing more than a well-financed spam enabler that charges more, and yet they are celebrated in the Valley and have been handed $18 million in funding. The only difference is that they aren't as up-front about how the data they sell is derived.