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Well, it would cost me about $200.00 a month for dedicated hosting, I've looked into VPS/Shared and even non VPS/Dedicated, but found that for the quality of se

Well, it would cost me about $200.00 a month for dedicated hosting, I've looked into VPS/Shared and even non VPS/Dedicated, but found that for the quality of service I need to provide, as well the space requirements, and memory requirements are a lot higher than a VPS would provide. On top of that, I want to do a couple advertisement campaigns on Google, as what I am providing surprisingly doesn't have a lot of adwords competitors, however the google tools show that its a highly searched service. It will require a dedicated server to start, and $30 - $100 per month advertising. Subscriptions will likely be about $14.99/month though, I have been contemplating $9.99 as its more pleasing to my eyes.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
So: your costs for the first year will be $2760-3600. That shouldn't be hard to raise. Here's what you do: put up a web site describing the product, giving a demo, etc. Make a sign-up button (with the $9.99 price), but when people click on that, give them a message that sign-ups are currently unavailable, and take their email address to notify them when they are. Now, spend a small amount (<$25) on Adwords. See how much you have to pay for the relevant keywords, and what your conversion rate is (considering clicks on the "sign up" button as a conversion.) This will allow you to verify that a) there is a market for your product, b) you're able to reach this market via Adwords, and c) your pitch is compelling enough to convert. Armed with this information, it should be easy to raise a few thousand bucks. In fact, e-mail me the results, and we can talk.
- captaincrunch 16y ago
  Send your email address to mikecurry74 at gmail dot com
ErrantX 16y ago
That amount of funding should not be hard to come by. Several people on HN, in fact, fund projects of that sort of size (< $10K). If the worst comes to the worst soft launch, blog about your needs and then see what comes :) (my gut instinct is you could probably get by on cloud hosting that is a lot cheaper - and which scales with demand - at least initially; but you know your product) The key takeaway: none of these are unsolvable problems. Startups have come to the market on shakier grounds and succeed.
petervandijck 16y ago
You may be overestimating hosting cost. Go with AWS, 75$/month dedicated server.
- trafficlight 16y ago
  Why not go for Prgmr or Linode or Slicehost? I don't know what kind of specs he needs, but my 256 meg VPS from Prgmr runs $8/month.
japherwocky 16y ago
There's a difference between what you want and what you need. Launch softly on a VPS, and hold off on the adwords for a bit. I'm very skeptical that you need a piece of hardware; VPS' can be ordered up to almost any spec, nowadays.
guiseppecalzone 16y ago
Have you looked at Rackspace.com? It costs $11 a month for a cloud linux server: http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hosting_products/servers http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hosting_products/servers Then, as your customers grow, you can crank up the specs (and cost) of your server. It also comes with root access, which is one of the main reasons people need a dedicated box.
AmberShah 16y ago
Release but spend your money only on a < $100 per month VPS and skip the adwords. The initial launch is just about evaluating your idea. If you post on HN and a few other locations where there are a lot of developers, hopefully you can get a few takers. Then once you have money coming in and your idea is validated, you can take the plunge and invest in a dedicated server and spend some money on adwords. A VPS may not support very many customers, but you can always migrate once you have a few and some money to help offset the cost. As for Adwords, that's a whole different can of worms. I've heard stories of people throwing thousands of dollars down the drain, either because their idea wasn't validated or because they their site wasn't optimized for conversions or they didn't know how to select the right keywords, etc. There are lots of ways to do free advertising and let you hone your product and marketing message BEFORE you spend a time on paid traffic. I recommend listening to the "Startups for the Rest of Us" podcast (all of the episodes).
trevelyan 16y ago
As a single developer and founder, I find this perspective difficult to wrap my mind around. You have a wife and several children and a job but can't find a few hundred dollars to launch your own business? And so you want to GIVE UP equity in something that has taken you a lot of time for next-to-nothing in funding? Slap yourself right now. Hard. Your prototype is basically done -- now you have the hard work of making it useful for other people and figuring out how to get a positive return-on-advertising. It's silly to give up any stake in your business at this point for someone willing to toss in petty cash. And it will take FAR more of your time to even try to attract the investment. And if you can't deal with this sort of small problem on your own, why should anyone trust you to give them a return on their investment anyway?

michael_dorfman 16y ago

So: your costs for the first year will be $2760-3600. That shouldn't be hard to raise. Here's what you do: put up a web site describing the product, giving a demo, etc. Make a sign-up button (with the $9.99 price), but when people click on that, give them a message that sign-ups are currently unavailable, and take their email address to notify them when they are. Now, spend a small amount (<$25) on Adwords. See how much you have to pay for the relevant keywords, and what your conversion rate is (considering clicks on the "sign up" button as a conversion.) This will allow you to verify that a) there is a market for your product, b) you're able to reach this market via Adwords, and c) your pitch is compelling enough to convert. Armed with this information, it should be easy to raise a few thousand bucks. In fact, e-mail me the results, and we can talk.

captaincrunch 16y ago
Send your email address to mikecurry74 at gmail dot com

ErrantX 16y ago

That amount of funding should not be hard to come by. Several people on HN, in fact, fund projects of that sort of size (< $10K). If the worst comes to the worst soft launch, blog about your needs and then see what comes :) (my gut instinct is you could probably get by on cloud hosting that is a lot cheaper - and which scales with demand - at least initially; but you know your product) The key takeaway: none of these are unsolvable problems. Startups have come to the market on shakier grounds and succeed.

petervandijck 16y ago

You may be overestimating hosting cost. Go with AWS, 75$/month dedicated server.

trafficlight 16y ago
Why not go for Prgmr or Linode or Slicehost? I don't know what kind of specs he needs, but my 256 meg VPS from Prgmr runs $8/month.

japherwocky 16y ago

There's a difference between what you want and what you need. Launch softly on a VPS, and hold off on the adwords for a bit. I'm very skeptical that you need a piece of hardware; VPS' can be ordered up to almost any spec, nowadays.

guiseppecalzone 16y ago

Have you looked at Rackspace.com? It costs $11 a month for a cloud linux server: http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hosting_products/servers http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hosting_products/servers Then, as your customers grow, you can crank up the specs (and cost) of your server. It also comes with root access, which is one of the main reasons people need a dedicated box.

AmberShah 16y ago

Release but spend your money only on a < $100 per month VPS and skip the adwords. The initial launch is just about evaluating your idea. If you post on HN and a few other locations where there are a lot of developers, hopefully you can get a few takers. Then once you have money coming in and your idea is validated, you can take the plunge and invest in a dedicated server and spend some money on adwords. A VPS may not support very many customers, but you can always migrate once you have a few and some money to help offset the cost. As for Adwords, that's a whole different can of worms. I've heard stories of people throwing thousands of dollars down the drain, either because their idea wasn't validated or because they their site wasn't optimized for conversions or they didn't know how to select the right keywords, etc. There are lots of ways to do free advertising and let you hone your product and marketing message BEFORE you spend a time on paid traffic. I recommend listening to the "Startups for the Rest of Us" podcast (all of the episodes).

trevelyan 16y ago

As a single developer and founder, I find this perspective difficult to wrap my mind around. You have a wife and several children and a job but can't find a few hundred dollars to launch your own business? And so you want to GIVE UP equity in something that has taken you a lot of time for next-to-nothing in funding? Slap yourself right now. Hard. Your prototype is basically done -- now you have the hard work of making it useful for other people and figuring out how to get a positive return-on-advertising. It's silly to give up any stake in your business at this point for someone willing to toss in petty cash. And it will take FAR more of your time to even try to attract the investment. And if you can't deal with this sort of small problem on your own, why should anyone trust you to give them a return on their investment anyway?