4 ms·

Tell HN: Today I try to make a living from my side project

28 points by MattBearman 11y ago

I've been running BugMuncher[0] as a side project for about 4 years now. It's been going well and steadily growing, with practically no marketing effort. Today I start my mission to make BugMuncher my only source of income. I'm giving up my freelancing, and have at least 8 months of runway saved up. I'm mainly going to be focusing on marketing, so if anyone can point me to some good marketing resources to help me on my path it would be much appreciated. Wish me luck! [0] http://bugmuncher.com

thomasrossi 11y ago
Congrats! Good luck, the product is interesting indeed. I am not a marketing expert though. Maybe you can try to work a deal with some automated website builder? So they can add the bug-reporting tool to their offering, 1 deal would mean lots of users (but their websites are probably fairly simple?).
- MattBearman 11y ago
  Excellent idea! I hadn't thought of this approach, I'll definitely try to get some partnerships in this area.
quantisan 11y ago
Looks useful. Best of luck! Do you mind if I ask, why the move now?
- MattBearman 11y ago
  Thanks! I don't mind at all, it's something I've always wanted to do, but always wanted to be bootstrapped, so I've had to save up enough runway money to make a good go at it.
  - ghosh 11y ago
    good luck!!
jason_slack 11y ago
In your "See what others are saying.." section, one of the quotes is: "Horrible name for a site" When I read that I could not tell if it was a joke... I like the idea, BTW. I am going to see how it fits into my workflow.
- MattBearman 11y ago
  It's a genuine tweet I found, so decided to put it in there as a bit of a joke. Someone else once said to me they assumed the tweets were being automatically harvested and a bad one slipped in, so maybe I should take that one out?
alex_g 11y ago
looks like a great product! I think some design upgrades would really help you out though.
- MattBearman 11y ago
  Thanks, I'm currently working on some design tweaks in an effort to improve signups - currently around 2%
brickmort 11y ago
If you aren't already, I highly recommend frequenting /r/entrepreneur and /r/startups on reddit. Best of luck!!
- MattBearman 11y ago
  I am indeed following these subreddits, although I've not yet tried submitting BugMuncher. I don't spend anywhere near as much time on Reddit as I do on Hacker News, do you have any tips for submitting BugMuncher?
kohanz 11y ago
Congrats! This is a big accomplishment in and of itself. To throw in my 2 cents, without any expert knowledge or experience, I think your corporate price is too low by about an order of magnitude.
- MattBearman 11y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Do you mind elaborating? I've been thinking that maybe $199 / month would be a better price point, but with more included. What would you expect to receive at a $1000 / month price point?
  - kohanz 11y ago
    I may have exaggerated, but I feel like patio11 would recommend something similar. Perhaps you offer unlimited (instead of 5) profiles at the very high price point. This comes from the assumption that for very large enterprises, a price tag of low 5 figures per year vs. low 4 figures per year is not a difference worth thinking about. Of course, you know best what size of enterprises are using your product.
luxpir 11y ago
Inspiring. Someone actually doing it, and the way I hope to in a year or few. Keep talking it up and maybe even journal the process. I'd be keen to stay in the loop. May you have more luck than you know what to do with.
- MattBearman 11y ago
  Thanks for the kind words. I've thought about blogging my progress, but I have an irrational fear that people will be less likely try BugMuncher if they know of my mission, as they may think BugMuncher will shut down if I'm unable to earn a living from it by the time my runway runs out. Which of course isn't the case I'd just pick up some more freelance work again. Maybe I'll set up a personal blog to write about my progress.
ffumarola 11y ago
I work in marketing/advertising, feel free to ping me via email/gchat (in my profile) for some ideas.
- MattBearman 11y ago
  Thanks for the offer, I can't see any contact details in your HN profile, what's the best way to reach you? Alternatively email me info@bugmuncher.com
tixocloud 11y ago
Congratulations and good luck! Inbound.org has been a great marketing resource for me. Another source that's been useful is Andrew Warner's Mixergy podcasts. There's bits and pieces of advice on how to grow businesses that will help you. Also, I'd love to help in any way I can so feel free to drop me an email - I'm in Customer Strategy and work extensively with Marketing and Advertising. That said, I love your product's idea and it's definitely something that could be useful to us as a startup down the road. My personal opinion would be that the branding of the product could better reflect your headline "Feedback Tool with Automatic Screenshots". You'll have to think through who your target customers are and use their language.

28 points by MattBearman 11y ago

thomasrossi 11y ago

Congrats! Good luck, the product is interesting indeed. I am not a marketing expert though. Maybe you can try to work a deal with some automated website builder? So they can add the bug-reporting tool to their offering, 1 deal would mean lots of users (but their websites are probably fairly simple?).

MattBearman 11y ago
Excellent idea! I hadn't thought of this approach, I'll definitely try to get some partnerships in this area.

quantisan 11y ago

Looks useful. Best of luck! Do you mind if I ask, why the move now?

MattBearman 11y ago
Thanks! I don't mind at all, it's something I've always wanted to do, but always wanted to be bootstrapped, so I've had to save up enough runway money to make a good go at it.
- ghosh 11y ago
  good luck!!

jason_slack 11y ago

In your "See what others are saying.." section, one of the quotes is: "Horrible name for a site" When I read that I could not tell if it was a joke... I like the idea, BTW. I am going to see how it fits into my workflow.

MattBearman 11y ago
It's a genuine tweet I found, so decided to put it in there as a bit of a joke. Someone else once said to me they assumed the tweets were being automatically harvested and a bad one slipped in, so maybe I should take that one out?

alex_g 11y ago

looks like a great product! I think some design upgrades would really help you out though.

MattBearman 11y ago
Thanks, I'm currently working on some design tweaks in an effort to improve signups - currently around 2%

brickmort 11y ago

If you aren't already, I highly recommend frequenting /r/entrepreneur and /r/startups on reddit. Best of luck!!

MattBearman 11y ago
I am indeed following these subreddits, although I've not yet tried submitting BugMuncher. I don't spend anywhere near as much time on Reddit as I do on Hacker News, do you have any tips for submitting BugMuncher?

kohanz 11y ago

Congrats! This is a big accomplishment in and of itself. To throw in my 2 cents, without any expert knowledge or experience, I think your corporate price is too low by about an order of magnitude.

MattBearman 11y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Do you mind elaborating? I've been thinking that maybe $199 / month would be a better price point, but with more included. What would you expect to receive at a $1000 / month price point?
- kohanz 11y ago
  I may have exaggerated, but I feel like patio11 would recommend something similar. Perhaps you offer unlimited (instead of 5) profiles at the very high price point. This comes from the assumption that for very large enterprises, a price tag of low 5 figures per year vs. low 4 figures per year is not a difference worth thinking about. Of course, you know best what size of enterprises are using your product.

luxpir 11y ago

Inspiring. Someone actually doing it, and the way I hope to in a year or few. Keep talking it up and maybe even journal the process. I'd be keen to stay in the loop. May you have more luck than you know what to do with.

MattBearman 11y ago
Thanks for the kind words. I've thought about blogging my progress, but I have an irrational fear that people will be less likely try BugMuncher if they know of my mission, as they may think BugMuncher will shut down if I'm unable to earn a living from it by the time my runway runs out. Which of course isn't the case I'd just pick up some more freelance work again. Maybe I'll set up a personal blog to write about my progress.

ffumarola 11y ago

I work in marketing/advertising, feel free to ping me via email/gchat (in my profile) for some ideas.

MattBearman 11y ago
Thanks for the offer, I can't see any contact details in your HN profile, what's the best way to reach you? Alternatively email me info@bugmuncher.com

tixocloud 11y ago

Congratulations and good luck! Inbound.org has been a great marketing resource for me. Another source that's been useful is Andrew Warner's Mixergy podcasts. There's bits and pieces of advice on how to grow businesses that will help you. Also, I'd love to help in any way I can so feel free to drop me an email - I'm in Customer Strategy and work extensively with Marketing and Advertising. That said, I love your product's idea and it's definitely something that could be useful to us as a startup down the road. My personal opinion would be that the branding of the product could better reflect your headline "Feedback Tool with Automatic Screenshots". You'll have to think through who your target customers are and use their language.