8 ms·

We Created a Planning Diary Making $160K in 6 Months

163 points by patwalls 7y ago

paulryanrogers 7y ago
Self care is super important. So if this really helps people then more power to them. Though I can't help shake the feeling this is a sell-shovels-to-the-miners kind of market.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jahewson 7y ago
  Most of California’s gold rush prospectors went home empty-handed. Those who sold the shovels did not.
  - duaoebg 7y ago
    Samuel Brannan, the shovel guy, died poor and in relative obscurity.
    - kirubakaran 7y ago
      Due to divorce, not unprofitable shovels.
    - gramakri 7y ago
      The wikipedia article says he was a millionaire.
    - callmeed 7y ago
      L. Strauss and W. Fargo did okay and they were in the same category.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  You just reminded me of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series from the 90s that came in the form of self help books and structured diaries. They sold tons. Not sure if the franchise is still around.
briandear 7y ago
> In our first year, we didn’t want to use unnecessary plastic, so we didn’t bother investing in individual opp/poly bags UNTIL we learned that a few of our diaries arrived with water damage. I found this line interesting — many people don’t realize that companies themselves don’t like using unnecessary packaging — most packaging decisions are made for very good reasons. The despised clamshell happened because of shoplifters and on-shelf marketing tests. “Unnecessary plastic” happens because manufacturers know about water damage. Individually wrapped parts happen because of shipping damage or lost parts. What consumers see as “unnecessary” comes as a result of very good reasons and likely thousands of customer complaints when their stuff arrives damaged or with parts missing.
- rabidrat 7y ago
  Perhaps there might be a better systemic way of avoiding e.g. water damage without resorting to single-use plastics. Maybe reusable water-proof shipping containers, or requiring postal workers to remove their tear ducts.
  - userbinator 7y ago
    A lot of packaging materials are reusable, especially something as generic as a plastic bag, cardbox, or bubble wrap; why more people don't --- even when they have to themselves ship something --- is the problem. I have a stash of such material that I've accumulated and use to ship things to others, and I give them to friends who mention/ask.
    - zaroth 7y ago
      Some of the newer envelopes are designed to be at least reused a single time, with a clean perforation to open it, and a second glue strip ready to be peeled. These are designed for shipping back returns, not really for general reuse. It would be so nice if they could take it a step further and design the envelopes for true multiple re-use. For example, the white waterproof slightly padded envelopes from Amazon tear open cleanly (most of the time) but aren't extremely reusable because you have to fold over the open end on itself to tape it shut, which looks terrible, and seems flimsy, so I don't save them that often. I think the biggest challenge is that the closer you get to full re-use, the closer you also get to making it trivial for someone to pop open the envelope, steal what's inside, and reseal it like they were never there.
bgrainger 7y ago
"Diary" in Australian English means "daily planner" or "date book" in U.S. English.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  yes, "date book" growth market
shaggyfrog 7y ago
I enjoyed reading about how they got started. I loved the fact they were supporting two mental health organizations with donations. Since friend loves this kind of diary-keeping, after I was done reading, I checked out their website with the intention to buy. Prominently on the home page is an article about using crystals for healing. Ugh. I don't know if this is intentional, but it really turns me off their brand, and I'm not interested in buying one anymore.
- userbinator 7y ago
  Unfortunately I suspect the majority of the population is far less rational than the average HN user, which is why quack health (or rather, "wellness" these days, likely because their peddlers are trying to avoid legal issues around implications of being medical) bullshit has always been a relatively profitable if not ethical industry. The sad thing is, the average visitor to the site would probably think nothing of it or even believe, whereas you and me both reacted with "Ugh."
  - rgoulter 7y ago
    Given "it's good that they're donating to mental health organisations" and "healing crystals are bullshit but profitable", it seems plausible to me that it's net-good to sell healing crystals if it leads to more money donated to mental health organisations.
    - fastbeef 7y ago
      What if it’s mental health organizations that treat mental issues with crystals?
      - rgoulter 7y ago
        Then the premise of "it's good that they donate to mental health organisations" presumably wouldn't hold. "That the website does one shady thing makes me suspect other things they're doing are shady" makes sense to me, though.
memset 7y ago
This is super interesting! I started selling my own notebook (not a diary) for musicians in February this year, and went through many of the same steps of trying to find a physical print shop without knowing anything about paper. I learned a lot! What I haven't been able to reproduce is the rapid success! Sometimes I will get upvotes on, say, reddit, and sell $300 worth of books in a week. For the most part, social media influences have been a bust - promising to leave a review in exchange for a free book, but never doing so. I haven't spent tons of money on SEO, content, or advertising, so perhaps I should do that. Just hard to know what the ROI would be. After reading this post, I might look at putting more money into some of these efforts (Instagram ads, google ads, creating content for my website for SEO purposes). Just hard to know where to begin! (If you are curious, the product is themusiciansnotebook.com :)
- cableshaft 7y ago
  Your notebook looks functional and useful, but pretty simple, based on the pictures on your website. There's nothing wrong with that (and if I composed music, I would probably order a copy), but it doesn't necessarily attract the eye. You might want to consider an edition that has little things a musician might find interesting or useful included in it. That seems to be how these planner people attract people, is a lot of little things that people probably don't really need but enjoy filling out anyway (the link says they compiled all sorts of stuff into their planner, and for anecdata my fiancee is a huge planner nut and loves checking out planners with all sorts of different approaches to layouts and fields and organization and whatnot). For example (and I don't recommend going this far necessarily, but it might inspire you), a board game designer decided to design a playtesting journal for other board game designers, and threw all sorts of little things in there, like a built in scoreboard, a die number on the page so it could be opened to a random page to simulate a die roll, added achievements with a sticker page, lots of fields to remind the designer to ask certain questions at the end of the playtest, a game contract checklist, a page with guidelines of sizes for various components for getting the game printed by a manufacturer, etc. He did a Kickstarter for it and raised $30k for it (not as much as the article, but still not bad). I backed it and got a few for myself, even though I've kind of settled on my own method for playtesting games, I'll give his a try. Anyway, his journal serves a specific niche like yours does, so maybe something in there will inspire you to find ways to make your notebook stand out and attract more people to purchase it. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/828934174/fail-faster-the-playtesting-journal/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/828934174/fail-faster-t...
villgax 7y ago
This exactly the kind of Bot problem which another HN post was talking about, the user patwalls recently boasted on reddit/twitter about automating reddit submissions & gaining a boatload of views & is doing the same to HN with clickbait metric laden titles of obscure stuff.
- abadar 7y ago
  If you remember the title of the post, do you mind sharing it?
  - villgax 7y ago
    Tweet https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1164708441216077825 https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1164708441216077825
- amrrs 7y ago
  This one ? https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1164708441216077825 https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1164708441216077825
  - varjag 7y ago
    Thanks. Enough grounds for flagging this submission.
    - mattmanser 7y ago
      Why? Looks like he runs a relevant site about startups. I don't really get the problem with him automating the submission, in fact, isn't that the hacker instinct the site is named after?
      - varjag 7y ago
        I don't appreciate the "throw until it sticks" hustle attitude. YMMV.
- 7y ago
mnky9800n 7y ago
Does anyone else feel it's disengenuous to list the revenue per month for a company less than two years old? It seems like they could saturate a market and then assume that people will keep buying new planners. But how many planners are one time purchases? I think it's presumptuous to think they could maintain the revenue stream without more data.
chrisked 7y ago
Not sure if this is deliberate, but the title misses the How at the beginning compared to the title when you click the link. Certainly it caught way more attention on my end than it should have. It has to do with the recent news and posts about We Company. I read a lot of them. Somehow my brain got conditioned to look out for We :)

163 points by patwalls 7y ago

Self care is super important. So if this really helps people then more power to them. Though I can't help shake the feeling this is a sell-shovels-to-the-miners kind of market.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jahewson 7y ago
Most of California’s gold rush prospectors went home empty-handed. Those who sold the shovels did not.
- duaoebg 7y ago
  Samuel Brannan, the shovel guy, died poor and in relative obscurity.
  - kirubakaran 7y ago
    Due to divorce, not unprofitable shovels.
  - gramakri 7y ago
    The wikipedia article says he was a millionaire.
  - callmeed 7y ago
    L. Strauss and W. Fargo did okay and they were in the same category.
52-6F-62 7y ago
You just reminded me of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series from the 90s that came in the form of self help books and structured diaries. They sold tons. Not sure if the franchise is still around.

briandear 7y ago

> In our first year, we didn’t want to use unnecessary plastic, so we didn’t bother investing in individual opp/poly bags UNTIL we learned that a few of our diaries arrived with water damage. I found this line interesting — many people don’t realize that companies themselves don’t like using unnecessary packaging — most packaging decisions are made for very good reasons. The despised clamshell happened because of shoplifters and on-shelf marketing tests. “Unnecessary plastic” happens because manufacturers know about water damage. Individually wrapped parts happen because of shipping damage or lost parts. What consumers see as “unnecessary” comes as a result of very good reasons and likely thousands of customer complaints when their stuff arrives damaged or with parts missing.

rabidrat 7y ago
Perhaps there might be a better systemic way of avoiding e.g. water damage without resorting to single-use plastics. Maybe reusable water-proof shipping containers, or requiring postal workers to remove their tear ducts.
- userbinator 7y ago
  A lot of packaging materials are reusable, especially something as generic as a plastic bag, cardbox, or bubble wrap; why more people don't --- even when they have to themselves ship something --- is the problem. I have a stash of such material that I've accumulated and use to ship things to others, and I give them to friends who mention/ask.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Some of the newer envelopes are designed to be at least reused a single time, with a clean perforation to open it, and a second glue strip ready to be peeled. These are designed for shipping back returns, not really for general reuse. It would be so nice if they could take it a step further and design the envelopes for true multiple re-use. For example, the white waterproof slightly padded envelopes from Amazon tear open cleanly (most of the time) but aren't extremely reusable because you have to fold over the open end on itself to tape it shut, which looks terrible, and seems flimsy, so I don't save them that often. I think the biggest challenge is that the closer you get to full re-use, the closer you also get to making it trivial for someone to pop open the envelope, steal what's inside, and reseal it like they were never there.

bgrainger 7y ago

"Diary" in Australian English means "daily planner" or "date book" in U.S. English.

rolltiide 7y ago
yes, "date book" growth market

shaggyfrog 7y ago

I enjoyed reading about how they got started. I loved the fact they were supporting two mental health organizations with donations. Since friend loves this kind of diary-keeping, after I was done reading, I checked out their website with the intention to buy. Prominently on the home page is an article about using crystals for healing. Ugh. I don't know if this is intentional, but it really turns me off their brand, and I'm not interested in buying one anymore.

userbinator 7y ago
Unfortunately I suspect the majority of the population is far less rational than the average HN user, which is why quack health (or rather, "wellness" these days, likely because their peddlers are trying to avoid legal issues around implications of being medical) bullshit has always been a relatively profitable if not ethical industry. The sad thing is, the average visitor to the site would probably think nothing of it or even believe, whereas you and me both reacted with "Ugh."
- rgoulter 7y ago
  Given "it's good that they're donating to mental health organisations" and "healing crystals are bullshit but profitable", it seems plausible to me that it's net-good to sell healing crystals if it leads to more money donated to mental health organisations.
  - fastbeef 7y ago
    What if it’s mental health organizations that treat mental issues with crystals?
    - rgoulter 7y ago
      Then the premise of "it's good that they donate to mental health organisations" presumably wouldn't hold. "That the website does one shady thing makes me suspect other things they're doing are shady" makes sense to me, though.

memset 7y ago

This is super interesting! I started selling my own notebook (not a diary) for musicians in February this year, and went through many of the same steps of trying to find a physical print shop without knowing anything about paper. I learned a lot! What I haven't been able to reproduce is the rapid success! Sometimes I will get upvotes on, say, reddit, and sell $300 worth of books in a week. For the most part, social media influences have been a bust - promising to leave a review in exchange for a free book, but never doing so. I haven't spent tons of money on SEO, content, or advertising, so perhaps I should do that. Just hard to know what the ROI would be. After reading this post, I might look at putting more money into some of these efforts (Instagram ads, google ads, creating content for my website for SEO purposes). Just hard to know where to begin! (If you are curious, the product is themusiciansnotebook.com :)

cableshaft 7y ago
Your notebook looks functional and useful, but pretty simple, based on the pictures on your website. There's nothing wrong with that (and if I composed music, I would probably order a copy), but it doesn't necessarily attract the eye. You might want to consider an edition that has little things a musician might find interesting or useful included in it. That seems to be how these planner people attract people, is a lot of little things that people probably don't really need but enjoy filling out anyway (the link says they compiled all sorts of stuff into their planner, and for anecdata my fiancee is a huge planner nut and loves checking out planners with all sorts of different approaches to layouts and fields and organization and whatnot). For example (and I don't recommend going this far necessarily, but it might inspire you), a board game designer decided to design a playtesting journal for other board game designers, and threw all sorts of little things in there, like a built in scoreboard, a die number on the page so it could be opened to a random page to simulate a die roll, added achievements with a sticker page, lots of fields to remind the designer to ask certain questions at the end of the playtest, a game contract checklist, a page with guidelines of sizes for various components for getting the game printed by a manufacturer, etc. He did a Kickstarter for it and raised $30k for it (not as much as the article, but still not bad). I backed it and got a few for myself, even though I've kind of settled on my own method for playtesting games, I'll give his a try. Anyway, his journal serves a specific niche like yours does, so maybe something in there will inspire you to find ways to make your notebook stand out and attract more people to purchase it. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/828934174/fail-faster-the-playtesting-journal/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/828934174/fail-faster-t...

villgax 7y ago

This exactly the kind of Bot problem which another HN post was talking about, the user patwalls recently boasted on reddit/twitter about automating reddit submissions & gaining a boatload of views & is doing the same to HN with clickbait metric laden titles of obscure stuff.

abadar 7y ago
If you remember the title of the post, do you mind sharing it?
- villgax 7y ago
  Tweet https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1164708441216077825 https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1164708441216077825
amrrs 7y ago
This one ? https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1164708441216077825 https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1164708441216077825
- varjag 7y ago
  Thanks. Enough grounds for flagging this submission.
  - mattmanser 7y ago
    Why? Looks like he runs a relevant site about startups. I don't really get the problem with him automating the submission, in fact, isn't that the hacker instinct the site is named after?
    - varjag 7y ago
      I don't appreciate the "throw until it sticks" hustle attitude. YMMV.
7y ago

mnky9800n 7y ago

Does anyone else feel it's disengenuous to list the revenue per month for a company less than two years old? It seems like they could saturate a market and then assume that people will keep buying new planners. But how many planners are one time purchases? I think it's presumptuous to think they could maintain the revenue stream without more data.

chrisked 7y ago

Not sure if this is deliberate, but the title misses the How at the beginning compared to the title when you click the link. Certainly it caught way more attention on my end than it should have. It has to do with the recent news and posts about We Company. I read a lot of them. Somehow my brain got conditioned to look out for We :)