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Thanks, this is really useful information. I'm also curious about your $2000 budget. It seems like a lot of money to me. What are you spending it on? Have you

by J-dawg 11y ago

Thanks, this is really useful information. I'm also curious about your $2000 budget. It seems like a lot of money to me. What are you spending it on? Have you often spent up to $2000 on a project that ends up going nowhere? Presumably your successful projects are paying for your failed ones. What's your expected ratio of hits to misses? Finally if you'd be happy to share any of your projects here that would be really interesting.

MalcolmDiggs 11y ago
Oh, the 2k was just an arbitrary number for illustrative purposes. I try to tailor the budget to each project's needs. It could be 50 dollars, it could be 5,000. It really depends on the projects. The same with the time commitment. But to answer your question, for each project I usually spend: * a few bucks on a domain name (plus extra for private registration) * 5 bucks per month for a Google "email and apps" mailbox * $200 - $400 for hosting (spread out over a few months) * $50 - $100 for stock image licensing (via fotolia.com) * > $100 on adsense campaigns * > $100 on facebook ad campaigns * About a hundred bucks for music royalties (if I have an explainer video with background music). I usually license music through tunefruit.com * 50 - 100 bucks for font licensing if needed (rarely needed) * 50 - 100 bucks to buy a bootstrap theme that I like (sometimes needed) * If it's a company in a degenerate/high-risk space (porn, gambling, etc), I'll also spend a few hundred bucks to wrap it up as an LLC unto itself. I don't use a service for that, I just walk into the Secretary of State's office and file the form myself, and usually pay extra for expedited processing. The ratio of hits-to-misses is like 1 to 10 or worse. Most projects die halfway through the build-cycle because I realize they're unviable and kill them before I spend any more money. But of the ones that make it launch, only about 10% ever make any money. But yeah, the wins more than cover the costs of the losses. I don't like to list the projects I'm currently involved with, sorry. But here's a few examples of some failed ones from awhile back (they've all been disabled, you can't actually use them anymore...they're just live as part of my portfolio now) * itchwork.com * fonetree.com * vareay.com * streamlet.com Hope that helps.
- J-dawg 11y ago
  Thank you sincerely for sharing, this is really great information.

by J-dawg 11y ago

MalcolmDiggs 11y ago

Oh, the 2k was just an arbitrary number for illustrative purposes. I try to tailor the budget to each project's needs. It could be 50 dollars, it could be 5,000. It really depends on the projects. The same with the time commitment. But to answer your question, for each project I usually spend: * a few bucks on a domain name (plus extra for private registration) * 5 bucks per month for a Google "email and apps" mailbox * $200 - $400 for hosting (spread out over a few months) * $50 - $100 for stock image licensing (via fotolia.com) * > $100 on adsense campaigns * > $100 on facebook ad campaigns * About a hundred bucks for music royalties (if I have an explainer video with background music). I usually license music through tunefruit.com * 50 - 100 bucks for font licensing if needed (rarely needed) * 50 - 100 bucks to buy a bootstrap theme that I like (sometimes needed) * If it's a company in a degenerate/high-risk space (porn, gambling, etc), I'll also spend a few hundred bucks to wrap it up as an LLC unto itself. I don't use a service for that, I just walk into the Secretary of State's office and file the form myself, and usually pay extra for expedited processing. The ratio of hits-to-misses is like 1 to 10 or worse. Most projects die halfway through the build-cycle because I realize they're unviable and kill them before I spend any more money. But of the ones that make it launch, only about 10% ever make any money. But yeah, the wins more than cover the costs of the losses. I don't like to list the projects I'm currently involved with, sorry. But here's a few examples of some failed ones from awhile back (they've all been disabled, you can't actually use them anymore...they're just live as part of my portfolio now) * itchwork.com * fonetree.com * vareay.com * streamlet.com Hope that helps.

J-dawg 11y ago
Thank you sincerely for sharing, this is really great information.