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I made my side project profitable quickly with a relentless focus on costs. The only fees I have are to Apple (dev license) and Delaware (for the LLC). Any serv

by seibelj 10y ago

I made my side project profitable quickly with a relentless focus on costs. The only fees I have are to Apple (dev license) and Delaware (for the LLC). Any service I wanted, I found an open source project and figured it out. I use the free tier at red hat open shift for hosting. If you let yourself get nickel and dimed by layering on SaaS products, you won't get anywhere. Of course, I'm talking about building a profitable, low-touch side business, not a mega company.

quaffapint 10y ago
But what about marketing? I assume you built an ios app - how did you market it among the herd of other apps?
- seibelj 10y ago
  This is where business sense comes in. If you want to make money, your number one goal isn't to have fun and learn something. If you want to work on something fun, then build what you want to build but don't expect to make any money. If you want to make money, you need to build what the market needs. If your enjoyment and the market intersects, that's amazing, congratulations. However, this is unlikely. Once you accept that you are building a business, not a fun side project, you can start to think about how one lonely developer can make money. Preferably with spending as little money as possible to reduce risk. So to answer your question specifically - you target a market that people organically search for in the app store, with zero (or totally inadequate) options currently available. You will then immediately rank #1 or close to it, users will find you, and you will dominate without spending anything on marketing. How do you find a niche like this? I could keep writing, but really this needs to be in a long blog post to summarize all of the different pieces of the "successful one-man side software business" puzzle. It isn't impossible but it's much harder than you wish it would be. No one pays money for something that is easy.
  - zodiac 10y ago
    > you target a market that people organically search for in the app store, with zero (or totally inadequate) options currently available) How did you go about finding such markets?
    - seibelj 10y ago
      You want to build something that people find and continuously use. So even if you only get 5 new users a day, after a few years you have many thousands of users. What do people continuously use over years? Think tools, things that improve their productivity, things that help them. Monetization is pretty easy, as mobile ads pay well, and you can charge an SaaS subscription to remove ads, or consumables to get extra features. A free install is critical or no one will use it, charge on upsells within a free app. This is an inexact science. This is inherently a risky endeavor, with a high probability of failure. You need to be mentally prepared to fail. Good luck
- jt2190 10y ago
  I believe that these are his apps: * Lending Club Order: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lendingclub-order/id1046114132?mt=8 * Prosper Invest: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prosper-invest/id1093002241?mt=8
brianwawok 10y ago
So let's say you built app A and spent 80 extra hours hunting for free SAAS products. Similar app B saved 80 hours using more popular SAAS apps but has a SAAS bill of $100 a month. But he had a full 2 week headstart in development. You don't think app B could end up getting more money? That doesn't mean you should spend $600 hosting on Heroku. But swearing off all costs may be a bit much...
- giarc 10y ago
  80 hours hunting for a tool is excessive.
  - crazypyro 10y ago
    I believe he was implying 80 hours hunting over the entire development process, not for a single tool.
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      Exactly. 2 hours to roll your own mail server here. 3 hours to roll your own cloud logging server. It can add up fast! (And I don't think my point really changes if it is 20, 40, 80, or 160 total hours).
- seibelj 10y ago
  My interpretation of a business is a repeatable mechanism for generating profit. Starting a business takes lots of effort and time. Once you have it running, a good software side business should take very little time. You put the time in at the beginning. Once it's working, you should be able to make money without trying. By using pay-for SaaS companies, you might save time, but as a one-man developer, I'm not in a race for success. I want to build something that lasts ideally for years if not decades that sends cash directly into my bank account. If you rely on an SaaS product, you will be paying them money for decades. And if they go out of business, you need to put more effort into finding a replacement. By building everything myself, I pay nobody anything, and the only risk is that I go out of business. And if I build more side businesses, I can reuse my existing infrastructure and reduce their costs as well.
morgante 10y ago
Are you including your opportunity cost in that assessment of profitability though? That's by far the bigger expense and dominates the nominal cost of any SaaS or licenses. It's also what holds me back from developing any side projects: if it takes me 100 hours to build a project, it could take years to earn the $15k of my time I spent building it.

by seibelj 10y ago

quaffapint 10y ago

But what about marketing? I assume you built an ios app - how did you market it among the herd of other apps?

seibelj 10y ago
This is where business sense comes in. If you want to make money, your number one goal isn't to have fun and learn something. If you want to work on something fun, then build what you want to build but don't expect to make any money. If you want to make money, you need to build what the market needs. If your enjoyment and the market intersects, that's amazing, congratulations. However, this is unlikely. Once you accept that you are building a business, not a fun side project, you can start to think about how one lonely developer can make money. Preferably with spending as little money as possible to reduce risk. So to answer your question specifically - you target a market that people organically search for in the app store, with zero (or totally inadequate) options currently available. You will then immediately rank #1 or close to it, users will find you, and you will dominate without spending anything on marketing. How do you find a niche like this? I could keep writing, but really this needs to be in a long blog post to summarize all of the different pieces of the "successful one-man side software business" puzzle. It isn't impossible but it's much harder than you wish it would be. No one pays money for something that is easy.
- zodiac 10y ago
  > you target a market that people organically search for in the app store, with zero (or totally inadequate) options currently available) How did you go about finding such markets?
  - seibelj 10y ago
    You want to build something that people find and continuously use. So even if you only get 5 new users a day, after a few years you have many thousands of users. What do people continuously use over years? Think tools, things that improve their productivity, things that help them. Monetization is pretty easy, as mobile ads pay well, and you can charge an SaaS subscription to remove ads, or consumables to get extra features. A free install is critical or no one will use it, charge on upsells within a free app. This is an inexact science. This is inherently a risky endeavor, with a high probability of failure. You need to be mentally prepared to fail. Good luck
jt2190 10y ago
I believe that these are his apps: * Lending Club Order: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lendingclub-order/id1046114132?mt=8 * Prosper Invest: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prosper-invest/id1093002241?mt=8

brianwawok 10y ago

So let's say you built app A and spent 80 extra hours hunting for free SAAS products. Similar app B saved 80 hours using more popular SAAS apps but has a SAAS bill of $100 a month. But he had a full 2 week headstart in development. You don't think app B could end up getting more money? That doesn't mean you should spend $600 hosting on Heroku. But swearing off all costs may be a bit much...

giarc 10y ago
80 hours hunting for a tool is excessive.
- crazypyro 10y ago
  I believe he was implying 80 hours hunting over the entire development process, not for a single tool.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    Exactly. 2 hours to roll your own mail server here. 3 hours to roll your own cloud logging server. It can add up fast! (And I don't think my point really changes if it is 20, 40, 80, or 160 total hours).
seibelj 10y ago
My interpretation of a business is a repeatable mechanism for generating profit. Starting a business takes lots of effort and time. Once you have it running, a good software side business should take very little time. You put the time in at the beginning. Once it's working, you should be able to make money without trying. By using pay-for SaaS companies, you might save time, but as a one-man developer, I'm not in a race for success. I want to build something that lasts ideally for years if not decades that sends cash directly into my bank account. If you rely on an SaaS product, you will be paying them money for decades. And if they go out of business, you need to put more effort into finding a replacement. By building everything myself, I pay nobody anything, and the only risk is that I go out of business. And if I build more side businesses, I can reuse my existing infrastructure and reduce their costs as well.

morgante 10y ago

Are you including your opportunity cost in that assessment of profitability though? That's by far the bigger expense and dominates the nominal cost of any SaaS or licenses. It's also what holds me back from developing any side projects: if it takes me 100 hours to build a project, it could take years to earn the $15k of my time I spent building it.