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A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years
- real-hacker 8y agoWhy are the Amazon affiliate sites so unsuccessful? Are there too many of them? or what?
- bufferoverflow 8y agoFeels like he doesn't give the businesses enough time to gain popularity. Some of them were clearly not bad ideas, like the ad management one.
- DougN7 8y agoI was going to say the same thing. Success takes perseverence.
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoIt seems to me he is persevering, at starting new businesses.
- azhenley 8y agoThat was my first thought. But maybe he prefers the ideation phase and getting it started (I know I do). Regardless, this gives me hope because he has made money from several of them!
- santoshalper 8y agoI noticed the same thing. The one that jumped out to me was something like, sold before it launched for $10000. Why would you build something and take 10 grand instead of launching it? Desperation?
- jimnotgym 8y agoI suppose it depends how much you need 10k, and how much you believe in the business.
- k1ns 8y agoI would gladly take $10k and move on to my next project over building, marketing, sales, etc., with no promise of a return. He obviously enjoys the inception/building phase and that time he got to build and then cash out with very little investment. If I was very confident that my idea would take off, I'd reject early offers and go for it. However, for many of us, everything after the building phase is like pulling teeth. For others, its great. But I definitely relate to that decision.
- Shpigford 8y agoPart naivety on how markets/competition worked at the time and part “I have a $10k tax bill that I need to pay” (which is a whole other story in itself).
- Shpigford 8y agoCompletely agree! Me posting that spreadsheet was certainly not a recommendation for anyone to emulate me. There are definitely businesses in there that I regret moving on from too soon but you live and learn. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- mshenfield 8y agoI'm jealous that he's made so many things, surprised by the small amount of money they've been sold for, and unsure whether this is someone I should emulate or someone I should view as a cautionary tale.
- rasengan 8y ago“Working hard will not guarantee that you will be successful, but I guarantee you, that all successful people worked hard.” - Coach Kamogawa thru George Morikawa
- 3pt14159 8y agoHonestly, I'm not really sure if that's really true any more. I wasn't working hard when I bought Bitcoin at three bucks a coin. I was just intellectually curious. If anything when I was working hard was two years before that on a soon to be failed startup. We crawled the web for ads just before the ad business went hyper targeted. I made -$20k from working hard. I made a lot more from Bitcoin. I would have made way more if I'd put that $20k in Bitcoin and slacked off at some day job. I guess I don't really follow my own advice though, as I'm presently working on a Sunday morning and I've only taken like two days off this month. Edit: Writing this comment briefly made me re-consider my whole life and I've come to the conclusion that being lucky and prescient observations are more likely if you've worked hard at some point. I did do an engineering degree with some economics electives at the best school in Canada, and understanding Satoshi's paper wouldn't have been possible without this background knowledge.
- hellofunk 8y agoYou are equating money with success.
- 3pt14159 8y agoYeah. I realized that at the time I was writing it. But in software it's usually that way. Very few data points are Torvalds. Most are Gates or Zuck. After writing the above, I Googled Linus. Apparently he's worth over $100m. But you're right. Plenty of really successful poets or athletes are poor.
- sampl 8y agoThese are mostly failed consumber businesses until Baremetrics, which had $100k in recurring revenue last month. https://demo.baremetrics.com/ https://demo.baremetrics.com/
- safgasCVS 8y agoI don't understand this spray and pray approach to business - I'm not businessman so I may be talking out my ass - but I would have thought business is like a long term relationship. May as well have a spreadsheet of 50 failed marriages. If you aren't in it for the long haul what are you doing?
- hippich 8y agoWhat he called "business" others (myself included) would call "side projects" until one of such projects would evolve into "business". You have to start somewhere and try things out to find a business bringing revenue. And yes, it is "spray and pray" in essence. And I see nothing wrong with it. (probably because I tried to launch a similar number if not more of such "businesses"/projects and continue doing so)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cylinder 8y agoHe made 50 websites.
- myth_drannon 8y agoSome people see it as a lottery. But in the case you loose (99.9% of the times) at least you learned something in the process.
- 8y ago
- zerr 8y ago> Amazon affiliate sites I think this is a completely different mindset compared to engineers/"nerds", that's why most of us work for others instead of starting our own businesses.
- soniman 8y agoNot clear why he couldn't sell any of those sites.
- Shpigford 8y agoIf we’re talking about the affiliate sites, it’s because they collectively grossed a total of maybe 50 cents. Wasn’t worth the time to try to sell them.
- WilliamEdward 8y agoThere is nothing wrong with working for others if it fulfills you. I envy people who can have comfortable lives with happy families and a simple desk job that pays for what they need. Something in my brain is telling me I need more or I won't be happy, so I have many startups I'm working on and have exclusively begun working for myself. The grass is always greener on the other side, that much I can say. Enjoy your comfy engineering job and be careful what you wish for. If you are a nerd who wants to break into entrepreneurship, prepare for a lot of fun, but also prepare to do work you think is stupid or never saw yourself doing, only for it to end up as a niche product. That's fine.
- noelsusman 8y agoTo each their own, obviously, but I look at this list and it's just... depressing. He seems like the kind of person who gets a lot of fulfillment from things like this, but for me I just see a whole lot of time wasted on bullshit. That's the main reason why I work for others. You can't form a health system startup that includes dozens of hospitals and thousands of patients per day.
- zerr 8y agoYes, when I hear of those who "made it" and talk that 99% of what they are doing now are meetings, PowerPoint slides, pitching to VCs, public speaking, marketing, etc... I'm thinking - but are they happy? I can't imagine myself being happy while having to do all those things... :)
- j-f-t 8y agoThey are more akin to projects than businesses. The majority of the businesses could be categorized as small web apps and Amazon affiliates. Most appear like he didn't find a problem to solve, but tried to create a solution. There also doesn't appear to be much thought given to market size for each product.
- Shpigford 8y agoThe title of the spreadsheet is “Josh Pigford's Absurd List of Products, Apps, Websites & Businesses”...they definitely weren’t all full on “businesses” and the large majority of them were terrible ideas. I definitely don’t recommend most people go the route I did. :)
- palerm 8y agoWhich route would you recommend instead?
- Shpigford 8y agoNo clue. Everybody's route is different. This is just how I've figured things out (and I'd still say there are many things I definitely have not figured out).
- j-f-t 8y agoI should have paid better attention to the spreadsheet name :) What did you learn from this particular route?
- hartator 8y agoKudos on the transparency. Where did you find your buyers?
- hawkilt 8y agoi was about to ask that
- kertof 8y agoAccording to his Twitter replies, he found them all on Flippa.
- Shpigford 8y agoFlippa for all except TheAppleBlog.
- nodesocket 8y agoWas there a lot of legal required (paperwork and lawyers) for Tutorial Outpost for $19k?
- Shpigford 8y agoNot at all.
- austhrow743 8y agoAm I meant to be able to expand columns in this? It seems like I should be able to given that there's a lot half hidden content, yet I can't work out how to.
- bequanna 8y agoChange the url so you aren't looking at the html view: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ro4QYK1raqu3pNFMAjP9vSOft-WndIS6nn5q4JU8TPc/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ro4QYK1raqu3pNFMAjP9... Then 'File', 'Make a copy' and you can edit and resize as desired.
- austhrow743 8y agoThanks!
- Shpigford 8y agoFixed! Sorry about that.
- mxpxrocks10 8y agothanks for sharing. Cool idea. (PS we're a baremetrics customer - keep up the great work! :)
- Shpigford 8y agoThanks so much!
- WilliamEdward 8y agoOne thing that separates entrepreneurs from normal people is they aren't afraid of having stupid ideas. A good 90% of the ideas on this list, particularly the early ones, are laughable and are ideas you wouldn't catch a serious individual dead trying to come up with. Some people try from the start to be perfect and always fail because they don't understand you need dumb little ideas to be an entrepreneur.
- Shpigford 8y agoSo true! I’ll be the first to tell you the _vast_ majority of those ideas were objectively terrible but every single one of them taught me _something_.
- da02 8y agoIt's also tough to accept the fact the market will buy things that one thinks is "stupid". Back in the 80s, NBC executives hated "The A-Team" despite the immense success it had on the NBC network. They felt the show was low-brow and cartoonish, "a hamburger show on a caviar network."
- bridanp 8y agoI really enjoyed seeing the list, Josh, and I appreciate the share via Twitter and here. My guess is that there are several serial entrepreneurs on Hacker News, and like myself, definitely can identify with your efforts.
- Shpigford 8y agoThanks so much!
- andyidsinga 8y agohey - thanks for participating in the discussion here. I've got a giant list of ideas (99.9% horrible) i've kept over the years. they always seem exciting when I'm writing them down ..but a week later they seem laughable. I always find myself thinking, despite realizing the idea is horrible - that I should have created a 2 or 3 page website as a business-like pre-mvp on the concept while I was still excited about it.
- nedwin 8y agoHey shpigford - curious how you made a living during this time? Was it via these apps/projects/businesses? Freelancing? Day job? And kudos again. Great list.
- Shpigford 8y agoFrom 2003-2013 I split my time with consulting. Did ~300 client projects over that time period.
- rbucks 8y agoI interviewed Josh for my book, The Parallel Entreprener (on Kindle etc), and can attest that he’s done all this experimentation for the love of the game. For some of us the glory is not in the exit but rather in the building.
- daveguy 8y agoHey shpigford, I am curious about this terrible CPA that led to a $10k IRS bill. If you had to look for a new CPA can you tell me what you would look for and what would be warning signs? Also, great list! Did some of those affiliate sites make money even though you eventually shut them down and didn't sell them?
- Shpigford 8y agoMain thing is finding a CPA who has some experience with the type of business you're running. Freelancer, Corporation, etc...find a CPA who can speak the language. It's less an issue now, but 10+ years ago, there were a lot of CPAs who didn't have much/any experience with internet-based businesses and so they weren't familiar with some of the additional bits to take in to account. As for affiliate sites...I probably made a grand total of 50 cents from them...total. :P
- ccostes 8y agoReally interesting, thanks for sharing this. Why is it called Cedar & Sail when (as far as I can tell) it has nothing to do with either of those things? :p In any case, congrats on hitting it big with Baremetrics!
- andyidsinga 8y agoI was wondering the same thing
- Shpigford 8y agoI need to come up with an elaborate story on the name...alas I just picked two words that I thought sounded interesting together and BOOM, done. :P
- gumby 8y agoThis is inspiring: the dominant culture today is "oh yeah, it's going great". One quote that has stuck in my mind is from Chuck Jones, quoting his own prof at RISD: "You have 10,000 bad paintings in you. The sooner you get them out the sooner you'll get to the good ones." I eventually learned to just let that dumb idea (weld, program, drawing) get out. Some good ideas fail, and most bad ideas fail, but sometimes you can only tell which it was (good or bad) after the fact.
- lylecubed 8y agoAnd some bad ideas succeed. Flappy Bird and ship your enemies glitter come to mind.
- darienbc 8y agoCan you share more info about how you sold some these businesses?
- Shpigford 8y agoListed them on Flippa! The end. :)
- dedupely 8y agoHaha, I love this list. I wish I remembered all the stuff I did. In the early days (2003) I was doing flash games on newgrounds. Later turned to a hockey card store. Then I tried a million-dollar-pixel ads clone (made nothing, big surprise). I also wasted too much time on stupid shit I never even launched. Like 1yr on a flash game of my dog (never launched). Another year on a site for musicians that never had a name or domain. A year on a bike rental directory. Another on a CMS for mobile sites (yeah m.domain sites, my timing sucked). A year or more on a trello-like project management app that sucked but launched with 100 beta users. I also did 10-20 launch pages for testing marketable ideas. Most didnt work, and a few that did I didnt want to do (stuff like automated browser testing). All that before hitting a product I've spent the last 4 years taking to six figures. So yeah, results vary. But I love this list. Brings back my good memories of wondering when I'd make more then 5 bucks on something that wasn't freelancing.
- dedupely 8y agoOh I forgot. My "big break" product was actually from a mentor who needed the prduct. Had nothing to do with me hunting it down. Kind of funny actually. I can't really tell you what the secret to any success it accept seems that the more you work in the direction you want to go the closer you get. But some of it is just luck. Don't have any strong opinions for you.
- adventured 8y ago> I can't really tell you what the secret to any success You just did ;) Right here: > My "big break" product was actually from a mentor who needed the prduct. Had nothing to do with me hunting it down. That's one of the great secrets to success right there, build something that you already know someone needs. Considerably reduces the role of the luck factor and guess-work.
- dedupely 8y agoTrue, you hit the nail on the head. All the new businesses I start (nowadays) comes down to: do we already have customers? Is there a real (proven) demand for this? Bottom line, can we prove that this won't be a waste of time? This is why I don't open the text editor and start new stuff that I come up with now days. I'm too traumatized from all the lessons I've learned to do that. Getting above water is the biggest hurtle. After that you realize that you don't need to touch anything that risks going nowhere.