42 ms·

I'm curious about how the $15k/mo figure is computed. The story reads as though Logojoy more or less launched on Producthunt, which was 7 days ago. And all pos

I'm curious about how the $15k/mo figure is computed. The story reads as though Logojoy more or less launched on Producthunt, which was 7 days ago. And all posts on the blog are dated Nov 15th. Finally the domain itself seems to have been listed on HugeDomains as of Oct 8th [1]. Now maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the revenue figure is extrapolated from a small window which includes a wave of initial traffic from PH. I'm hoping that the revenue figure is an actual ongoing sustained amount for Dawson's sake (as it is great looking & functioning product, solves a need that I've faced, and for full disclosure I've been putting together something along these lines on the backburner for awhile), but I can't help but feel this is a bit sensationalized based on what I'm seeing here. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20161008092541/http://logojoy.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20161008092541/http://logojoy.co...

morgante 10y ago
That should have been made clearer. I totally thought he had launched a year ago. Still, it's a very impressive achievement.
brentm 10y ago
If that is accurate and the number is based on 7 days of revenue at about $500 per day average this smells a lot like growth hacking nonsense.
- johnny99 10y ago
  Nonsense on stilts. Extrapolating $3500 in your first week of media-driven traffic into a $15k/mo run rate is ridiculous. Calling it "AI-powered" is a whopper too.
  - rtpg 10y ago
    Extrapolation aside, making decisions automatically based off of incoming data points _is_ AI. If the interview is to be believed, almost anything you consider "AI-powered" is within one degree of what is happening here. At least on a conceptual level. AI doesn't need to be magic, it just needs to be making decisions :)
    - mmanfrin 10y ago
      I wholly disagree with your post. By your definition, any logic gate could be considered an 'AI'. You're stretching the term to the point that it no longer holds any meaning.
      - halomru 10y ago
        It's not just his definition. Many AI courses will teach you pathfinding algorithms as examples of AI, along with optimisation algorithms, genetic algorithms and neutral nets. There is a valuable distinction in hard AI vs soft AI (hard AI being that whole thinking, emotional maschines thing that we are not really getting closer to, and soft AI being the things that actually generate money because we know how to do them)
        RobAley 10y ago
        I think what he's doing would be more acurately described as Machine Learning, rather than AI. His algorithms are producing better logo proposals based on the data it is collecting from other users, which fits a common definition of ML [1] [1] A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and performance measure P, if its performance at tasks in T, as measured by P, improves with experience E (Tom M. Mitchell, 1997)
        halomru 10y ago
        Machine learning is a better term because it's more specific (and less controversial). But under most definitions of AI, ML is a subfield of AI, so calling it AI may be suboptimal, but not wrong. Personally I'm a fan of the AI definition "things humans can do and computers can't do yet", but I recognize that that definition isn't terribly useful.
        Beltiras 10y ago
        The distinction you are drawing is between Strong and Weak AI. Weak AI is any sort of useful application of computation. Strong AI is solving the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) problem.
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saycheese 10y ago
Feel like IndieHacker isn't requiring any proof of revenue. Does anyone know what, if any, fact checking process Indie Hackers has to verify the claims by made by a startup?
- mherrmann 10y ago
  I've had my interview on Indie Hackers [1]. There is no fact checking involved. (But to be fair, I don't think it would really be feasible.) 1: https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/terminerinnerung https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/terminerinnerung
- robotnoises 10y ago
  I enjoy reading Indie Hackers, but yes, the math on the monthly revenue is almost always fuzzy. I find it's best to just enjoy the content of the interview and ignore the "stats."
alain94040 10y ago
The article says he made $450 of sales the day it launched on Product Hunt. $450 * 31 is close to $15,000.
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- snicky 10y ago
  If he made $200 in less than a minute would you say he's making close to $9M?
exadeci 10y ago
Yeah and if you count that's about 60 clients in 7 days
Too 10y ago
He added a comment on indiehacker with the dates: Started working Sept 1st, launched beta Nov 15, PH on Nov 22.
scosman 10y ago
That initial wave got them this blog post and now #1 on HN. In 2 more days they'll be up to $30k/mo, with a 4 day doubling rate!!! In all honesty, the press -> growth -> press loop caught me up on on my first launch. When it stops, the real work starts.
- thewhitetulip 10y ago
  I don't have exp in startups, but I did experience this watching the traffic of an FOSS book I have written, when the surge started, the repo was trending on Github for two days! Now it has 1.1k stars, steadily increasing over the time. I do not count the stars as a metric of the book's quality, I value user feedback!
eevilspock 10y ago
I just flagged this post for what clearly is a very dishonest title. The title should be changed at least, and maybe the entire post taken down, for the dishonesty.
dang 10y ago
That does seem dodgy, so we took the 15k/month bit out of the title. I guess we'll leave "AI-powered" so as not to leave it completely naked. Or should it just say "Logo Creator"? I noticed that https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=indiehackers.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=indiehackers.com constantly uses this trick of revenue numbers in titles. That's annoying clickbait in an HN context, but on the other hand, we need more good stories about startups, entrepreneurs, and projects, and dodgy stories are the price one pays for good ones. So I think the answer here is continued community vigilance. Usually we'd see a point like this before 11 hours had gone by, but clearly not always, so everybody: if you notice something misleading on HN, especially if it doesn't get fixed right away, please alert us at hn@ycombinator.com. We can't read all the comments but we do read and reply to emails.
- soneca 10y ago
  When it is true, I believe the $X/month title is useful. It gives an Idea of the order of magnitude and some insight on what is achievable
- csallen 10y ago
  This was my fault. I tell companies not to submit for an interview unless they're at least a few months old, otherwise they won't have much to say. Because of that + Dawson's reported $15k/mo figure + the fact that Logojoy's story is inherently interesting, I blindly assumed the business was started earlier in the year than it was. Go figure that the interview in which this happens is also the one that gets to the top of HN for the longest time. In the future, I'll do more to verify the launch dates so I don't end up with another interview where the average revenue is such an extrapolation. As for including revenue numbers in titles, I agree it is a bit clickbaity (or at least very enticing). But at the same time the entire point of these interviews is transparency, and highlighting the revenue numbers adds crucial context. I'm happy not to include revenue numbers in titles, though, if HNers or mods don't want to see those.
  - saycheese 10y ago
    Given HN is a huge source of traffic for you, if it were me, I'd do a blog post today on it, post it to HN and try to get feedback on the topic. For example, I really like how Inc 500 applications are structured and verified [1], but others just like hearing the startup stories. By posting a single blog post and liSting it HN, feel like the feedback would provide a better source for understanding the issue. Really do enjoy Indie Hackers, thank you! [1] http://www.inc.com/inc5000apply/faqs.html http://www.inc.com/inc5000apply/faqs.html

morgante 10y ago

That should have been made clearer. I totally thought he had launched a year ago. Still, it's a very impressive achievement.

brentm 10y ago

If that is accurate and the number is based on 7 days of revenue at about $500 per day average this smells a lot like growth hacking nonsense.

johnny99 10y ago
Nonsense on stilts. Extrapolating $3500 in your first week of media-driven traffic into a $15k/mo run rate is ridiculous. Calling it "AI-powered" is a whopper too.
- rtpg 10y ago
  Extrapolation aside, making decisions automatically based off of incoming data points _is_ AI. If the interview is to be believed, almost anything you consider "AI-powered" is within one degree of what is happening here. At least on a conceptual level. AI doesn't need to be magic, it just needs to be making decisions :)
  - mmanfrin 10y ago
    I wholly disagree with your post. By your definition, any logic gate could be considered an 'AI'. You're stretching the term to the point that it no longer holds any meaning.
    - halomru 10y ago
      It's not just his definition. Many AI courses will teach you pathfinding algorithms as examples of AI, along with optimisation algorithms, genetic algorithms and neutral nets. There is a valuable distinction in hard AI vs soft AI (hard AI being that whole thinking, emotional maschines thing that we are not really getting closer to, and soft AI being the things that actually generate money because we know how to do them)
      - RobAley 10y ago
        I think what he's doing would be more acurately described as Machine Learning, rather than AI. His algorithms are producing better logo proposals based on the data it is collecting from other users, which fits a common definition of ML [1] [1] A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and performance measure P, if its performance at tasks in T, as measured by P, improves with experience E (Tom M. Mitchell, 1997)
        halomru 10y ago
        Machine learning is a better term because it's more specific (and less controversial). But under most definitions of AI, ML is a subfield of AI, so calling it AI may be suboptimal, but not wrong. Personally I'm a fan of the AI definition "things humans can do and computers can't do yet", but I recognize that that definition isn't terribly useful.
      - Beltiras 10y ago
        The distinction you are drawing is between Strong and Weak AI. Weak AI is any sort of useful application of computation. Strong AI is solving the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) problem.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
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saycheese 10y ago

Feel like IndieHacker isn't requiring any proof of revenue. Does anyone know what, if any, fact checking process Indie Hackers has to verify the claims by made by a startup?

mherrmann 10y ago
I've had my interview on Indie Hackers [1]. There is no fact checking involved. (But to be fair, I don't think it would really be feasible.) 1: https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/terminerinnerung https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/terminerinnerung
robotnoises 10y ago
I enjoy reading Indie Hackers, but yes, the math on the monthly revenue is almost always fuzzy. I find it's best to just enjoy the content of the interview and ignore the "stats."

alain94040 10y ago

The article says he made $450 of sales the day it launched on Product Hunt. $450 * 31 is close to $15,000.

deleted 10y ago
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snicky 10y ago
If he made $200 in less than a minute would you say he's making close to $9M?

exadeci 10y ago

Yeah and if you count that's about 60 clients in 7 days

Too 10y ago

He added a comment on indiehacker with the dates: Started working Sept 1st, launched beta Nov 15, PH on Nov 22.

scosman 10y ago

That initial wave got them this blog post and now #1 on HN. In 2 more days they'll be up to $30k/mo, with a 4 day doubling rate!!! In all honesty, the press -> growth -> press loop caught me up on on my first launch. When it stops, the real work starts.

thewhitetulip 10y ago
I don't have exp in startups, but I did experience this watching the traffic of an FOSS book I have written, when the surge started, the repo was trending on Github for two days! Now it has 1.1k stars, steadily increasing over the time. I do not count the stars as a metric of the book's quality, I value user feedback!

eevilspock 10y ago

I just flagged this post for what clearly is a very dishonest title. The title should be changed at least, and maybe the entire post taken down, for the dishonesty.

dang 10y ago

That does seem dodgy, so we took the 15k/month bit out of the title. I guess we'll leave "AI-powered" so as not to leave it completely naked. Or should it just say "Logo Creator"? I noticed that https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=indiehackers.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=indiehackers.com constantly uses this trick of revenue numbers in titles. That's annoying clickbait in an HN context, but on the other hand, we need more good stories about startups, entrepreneurs, and projects, and dodgy stories are the price one pays for good ones. So I think the answer here is continued community vigilance. Usually we'd see a point like this before 11 hours had gone by, but clearly not always, so everybody: if you notice something misleading on HN, especially if it doesn't get fixed right away, please alert us at hn@ycombinator.com. We can't read all the comments but we do read and reply to emails.

soneca 10y ago
When it is true, I believe the $X/month title is useful. It gives an Idea of the order of magnitude and some insight on what is achievable
csallen 10y ago
This was my fault. I tell companies not to submit for an interview unless they're at least a few months old, otherwise they won't have much to say. Because of that + Dawson's reported $15k/mo figure + the fact that Logojoy's story is inherently interesting, I blindly assumed the business was started earlier in the year than it was. Go figure that the interview in which this happens is also the one that gets to the top of HN for the longest time. In the future, I'll do more to verify the launch dates so I don't end up with another interview where the average revenue is such an extrapolation. As for including revenue numbers in titles, I agree it is a bit clickbaity (or at least very enticing). But at the same time the entire point of these interviews is transparency, and highlighting the revenue numbers adds crucial context. I'm happy not to include revenue numbers in titles, though, if HNers or mods don't want to see those.
- saycheese 10y ago
  Given HN is a huge source of traffic for you, if it were me, I'd do a blog post today on it, post it to HN and try to get feedback on the topic. For example, I really like how Inc 500 applications are structured and verified [1], but others just like hearing the startup stories. By posting a single blog post and liSting it HN, feel like the feedback would provide a better source for understanding the issue. Really do enjoy Indie Hackers, thank you! [1] http://www.inc.com/inc5000apply/faqs.html http://www.inc.com/inc5000apply/faqs.html