7 ms·

Sorry, your “cool” webapp is probably not going to make money

189 points by paraschopra 16y ago

kayoone 16y ago
As a startup founder in the internet space i can relate to this very well. For a founder with a technical background like me its hard to sometimes get the thinking off of the details of implementation. I like to think and work on architecture, under-the-hood features, scalability etc, but in the end it wont matter if noone uses the product. Users dont see and dont care for any of that, they want to you improve what they deal with everyday. So you have to find a good balance between that to make your product better but still work on the overall technical structure to keep things smoothly. Also marketing probably is much more important than the quality of your code or even app.
swombat 16y ago
I would add, even better is to start with the delivery channel. If you've got ways to reach a market which spends money, you're yet another step ahead.
- paraschopra 16y ago
  Interesting. Can you elaborate what you mean by delivery channel?
  - swombat 16y ago
    Delivery channel = A way to reach the market. For example, maybe you have ideas for products in half a dozen industries, but in one of those industries you happen to have a good friend who works in it (and thus has contacts there) and know the editor of one of the industry trade magazines. Those are both delivery channels into that industry. Compared to another niche where you have no contacts, it is much better to build a startup for that niche where you have some way to reach the market. This may be already implied in your mind, but a lot of people wouldn't get it from reading your article. They'd start listing out industries and then picking one of them. I'm suggesting: list out your deliver channels first, and go from there (as a kind of step 0 in your process). For example, Stack Overflow had two excellent delivery channels to reach programmer communities around the world (Joel and Jeff's blogs). It's fair to say that those two channels "made" stack-overflow.
    - paraschopra 16y ago
      Yes, I think if you are considering multiple industries that make money you will automatically gravitate towards the most "practical" one where you have more familiarity. That said, in my opinion in any industry creating a delivery channel is not incredibly difficult but it does give you an unfair advantage while starting out.
      - swombat 16y ago
        This actually brings up a third alternative... start with the industries, as you suggest, but then, as part of your hypothesis-resolution (see http://swombat.com/2011/1/7/how-to-evaluate-and-implement-startup-ideas-using-hypothesis-driven-development http://swombat.com/2011/1/7/how-to-evaluate-and-implement-st...), try to create delivery channels into those industries that you like. Then follow the one where you best succeed into building delivery channels. Best of both worlds?
arnorhs 16y ago
I think the web app-building crowd here is divided into two groups of hackers: Those who are in it to build businesses and those who just want to create apps that people use. Everybody likes money, but there's a big group of people out there that only want people to use their apps and are not in it for the money.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- paraschopra 16y ago
  Exactly. My post is meant for people who actually want to make money. Making apps for skill enhancement, fun and enjoyment is perfectly good. But expecting to make money from such apps and calling them startups is not OK.
  - mechanical_fish 16y ago
    If only there were already a good word for a technical project that one does for fun. Maybe a four-letter word? Rhyming with "sack"? ;)
  - jpcx01 16y ago
    What do you mean it's "not OK"? Trying to building something new that people use and love is a perfectly acceptable path to building a startup. pg had a great post on this topic: http://paulgraham.com/organic.html http://paulgraham.com/organic.html So you have an approach to building products that works for you. Great. But scoffing at people who actually want to build the new amazing things that have a real impact on the world is what I call "not OK". After someone trailblazes the idea and builds something that gets traction, then we can expect legions of "you guys" who just want to monkey their idea and take a piece of the pie.
    - paraschopra 16y ago
      I think you mis-understood my point. If you are making something new that people use and love, that's a beautiful thing to do. In fact, open source movement wouldn't exist without it. However, if you want to make money by hoping your new app catches on by itself, that is not OK in my opinion.
alexro 16y ago
Yes, but ... we are on YC site and at least twice a year we hear about cool companies appearing out of the blue with crazy idea and some of them get acquired or start bringing profits. So, the 'cool' factor will continue to have its benefits and is a good method to actually get going initially.
- swombat 16y ago
  I believe DHH coined the name for those: Lottery tickets. http://www.justin.tv/hackertv/b/259414909 http://www.justin.tv/hackertv/b/259414909
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    I've been calling them that for years now, and I suspect others have too, so the term is hardly novel, but that's exactly what they are. Throw enough things at the wall, a few will stick.
  - metageek 16y ago
    That goes back at least ten years. In a Doonesbury strip from about 2000, when Mike's company isn't able to make payroll, he tells his daughter everybody's working for stock options now. "Do you know what stock options are?" "Sure! They're like lottery tickets, right?" "Shh!"
  - alexro 16y ago
    And just ironic that right at this moment the news about FlightCaster acquisition appear higher on the HN home page :)
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jacquesm 16y ago
This is absolutely true. The problem with a market driven approach is that it's hard to convince people to get in to 'glorified bookkeeping' or other stuff like that. Industry applications typically are not sexy but they're a fantastic way to make money because businesses don't have a problem to pay for things that will save them money, time or both. If you're in it for the money go for b2b any time over b2c, b2c is sexy, everybody will write about you if you score but the fact is you most likely won't.
- paraschopra 16y ago
  Yep, agree with your recommendation of B2B. Going B2B instantly simplifies a lot of issues that startups face because (as you say) businesses are usually inclined to pay money for services even if it is in $100-$1000/mo range. Consumers, on the other hand, will cringe at the sight of paying $5. 99 cents apps, thanks so much for setting expectations of consumers that everything on the web should be free or sub $1 range.
  - cubicle67 16y ago
    you know what 99c apps have done? They've got people paying for software. Normal people. People who have probably never paid for software in their life, save for Office (probably bundled with their PC), and a few XBox games They've got used to paying 99c for apps, then they've slowly adjusted their price expectations up to the $5-10 range for iPad apps, and the advent of the Mac Store looks like helping ease prices people are willing to pay even higher. Pixelmator has sold more than a few copies at $30. Cheap for what it is, but people are buying it. Apple have trained people to pay for software
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      As opposed to all that open source stuff for free in the repositories, yes. But paying for software is something that has meanwhile been superseded by people paying for services, and that's where the real money is in the long run. Someone paying $10 for your software is great but not as great as someone paying $4.95 monthly for the use of a service. The difference is that if you intend to hold on to your userbase on a subscription basis that fart apps are not going to cut it (pun intended), you will have to deliver value for the money your subscribers pay you. Apple has not conditioned people to pay for software any more than google has conditioned people to click on ads, both companies simply used their economies of scale to make it worthwhile to market to their particular audience, google through their adwords (not adsense!) program and apple through their app store. Just wait for the 'facebook phone' and it's associated app store, it's only a matter of time. It's not as though Steve Jobs invented 'software for sale' with the app store, software has been sold to individuals and businesses alike for decades now, the things that have changed the equation here are: - download sites for PC software - open source - massive piracy
ojbyrne 16y ago
Ideally, you want a "cool" webapp that can provide an entry into a viable market. The "cool" part gets you noticed among early adopters, who talk you up until you get noticed in the marketplace. Because there is some cost in getting into those marketplaces - you have to set up booths at trade shows, or get PR in industry specific publications. "Coolness" can reduce those expenses or help you get partnerships or funding.
Maro 16y ago
The article's market-first approach: * Find an industry (ideally, an old fashioned one) where people are making money * Find the single differentiator which will put your app apart in the already established industry (read or research what pain points are still not addressed by top 3 solutions) * Make a web app, market it, refine it based on feedback, monetize the app * Slowly incorporate all standard features expected out of a solution in that industry so you can shoot to be a market leader I think this sounds great, but the key point is "read or research what pain points are still not addressed by top 3 solutions" which I think is very hard from outside the given industry.
- paraschopra 16y ago
  Well there has got to be at least one "hard" part in making money, otherwise wouldn't everyone be doing the same? There is no easy way to make money or successful but it isn't impossible either. I will give you my example. When I was starting out with Wingify (Visual Website Optimizer), I had absolutely no idea or industry connections in online marketing industry. But I started reading blogs, used existing solutions, talked to people and then eventually figured out that sufficiently large number of people do A/B testing, pay for it and right now it is hard enough to justify a new solution that simplifies it. The idea of "Visual A/B testing" wasn't something I realized overnight. It was a result of more than a year of trying to understand pain points of a "large enough" industry. If you spend enough time researching an industry, you will eventually find some great opportunities.
  - Maro 16y ago
    How long does it take? If it takes 12 months, you can try 3-4 different app ideas in that timeframe, if you're good enough. You're comparing two different risk profiles, and I don't think one or the other is clearly better.
  - alexro 16y ago
    And since you personally advocate for that route have you achieved a financial success already (even in small)?
angdis 16y ago
The key word here is _probably_. There is room enough for both blue-sky idealists and pragmatic business grinders. We need both and both are likely to fail more often than they succeed. It might be easy to criticize somebody who follows their passion and then fails on business issues but there are many ways to measure "success" and not all of them line up with a VC's definition of "success".
revetkn 16y ago
"So, instead of an image-gallery app, why not make a survey software specifically targeted at, say, event attendees." Shameless plug: check out our startup, http://yorn.com http://yorn.com, which does exactly this.
- e-dard 16y ago
  Your site design completely rocks. It's fantastic.
MicahWedemeyer 16y ago
Beware the fatigue that sets in with these "boring" money makers. It can be very difficult to keep your motivation high when working on something like this, especially in the beginning where you're not making money and no one takes you seriously. With a funky web app, at least your friends and family might understand it and think it's cool. Doing a startup already takes a lot of motivation. It's significantly harder if you're working on something that you're not passionate about. (Note: I don't disagree at all with the author. I just want to point out that there are downsides to this approach as well.)
- jnovek 16y ago
  "With a funky web app, at least your friends and family might understand it and think it's cool." Perhaps if you're in college, or keeping up your day job. But none of my friends or family thought it was "cool" when I quit my day job after we got a little bit of traction. They thought it was something more along the lines of "completely batshit insane". As I recall, it actually made my parents cry. The point is: it's pretty hard no matter what you're working on. Everything becomes boring after a while, and outside of the valley it's hard to find a culture where people will actually support a decision to quit your day job and work on a startup.
  - revorad 16y ago
    Agreed. I look at it this way: you can afford to do something which is just a lot of fun but not making any or lots of money, as long as you are not in debt from other people. The debt can be in the form of money (borrowing from friends or family, investors) or time (ignoring friends and family).
  - revorad 16y ago
    Agreed. I look at it this way: you can afford to do something which is just a lot of fun but not making any or lots of money, as long as you are not in debt from other people. The debt can be in the form of money (borrowing from friends or family, investors) or time (ignoring friends and family).
- jdietrich 16y ago
16s 16y ago
Solid advice. Young people have to learn this the hard way. Today, it seems everyone wants to write a FaceBook type app and be hugely popular with mainstream folks (a household name). However, there are tons of devs (mostly people you seldom ever hear about and who hardly anyone knows) making a great living writing libraries, device drivers and other non-killer, yet useful software.
jonknee 16y ago
That explains what I'm working on right now to a T. It's an industry that is currently being run on fax and lots of manual data entry. A big key for us was having connections with people inside, which made it easier to learn exactly what they were looking for and then ultimately set up sales meetings.
SeanDav 16y ago
No disrespect at all to the author, but when I see advice on how to do something I always ask. "What have you done that proves that your advice works?" If this came from Paul Graham, I would probably sit up and take notice but here, meh. Still the blog is well written and the advice is worth a try if you are wired that way.
- paraschopra 16y ago
  This is not total theory. I run a startup http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com -- I can't tell you how much money it makes, but it does support a small team full time.
- wallflower 16y ago
  Reading his blog, you get a sense that he has gone back and forth on the idea of web apps as startups. Which is perfectly alright because only close-minded people never change their mind. He's the guy behind http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com
- jacquesm 16y ago
  > If this came from Paul Graham, I would probably sit up and take notice but here, meh. Right, because all wisdom in the startup scene flows from those that have made millions during the .com boom. Really, people like Paras are running start-ups today and are making money today, not 10 years ago, and even if Paul Graham is a very smart and capable person if it came to picking someones brain about running a start-up today I'm pretty sure that there is value to be found with both parties rather than just with those that succeeded in the past. > Still the blog is well written and the advice is worth a try if you are wired that way. So, you disagree with yourself? If you're running a start-up you should take your advice where ever you find it and weigh it according to the rules of applicability to your situation, no matter what the source. You can even learn a lot from failures, no point in limiting your input to just the success stories.
robryan 16y ago
I prefer to look at it this way, I'm taking an area where I think the current solutions are lacking and creating a solution was gives value both in terms of time and money saved. Yes as a side effect I can charge decent money for a product which generates more money in savings and extra profit than it costs, but amount of money isn't the real motivation. I'd much rather work on something that fits this criteria than the so called "cool" webapps.
evolution 16y ago
"Money or the ability to make it doesn't impress anybody around here. " -- Mark Zuckerberg (the social network)
middlegeek 16y ago
Making money may not be the primary goal of these apps. I for one have been working on a few things that probably will not make me money but are great experience, are teaching me a lot and hopefully will give me a little notoriety for the day I build my first money maker.
jonknee 16y ago
Something to keep in mind in the B2B market is you can charge a lot. Do your research and find out how much time your software will save the company and price your solution closer to that than what it costs you to produce and support. You'll never get a consumer to pay $1,000/m for your web app, but if you can save a company 25 hours a month they're getting a steal.
angrycoder 16y ago
For some, building software is the answer to the question: 'How can I make money?' For others, building software is the answer to the question: 'What would I do all day if I didn't have to worry about making money?'
- jacques_chester 16y ago
  I ask both questions and get the same answer.
cabalamat 16y ago
> If making money is the objective, I suggest going with the market-first approach That's one way to do it, but not the only one. For example, it's not how Apple designs products -- their design criterion is whatever Jobs likes.
- chc 16y ago
  I think this is pretty naive. Apple's products, for the most part, are very successful. Either Steve Jobs is just extraordinarily average or they do quite a bit of market research. In fact, one of Apple's first hires was a guy who specialized in collecting data from user-testing and figuring out how to make applications better fit how they were used in the real world.
ceci 16y ago
Paraschopra has written one the secrets to building a low risk/high returns web app which re-echoed here using founding http://www.sharefile.com/blog/seeking-startup-advice-look-no-further-than-your-pizza-box/ http://www.sharefile.com/blog/seeking-startup-advice-look-no... In my opinion, those of us who want to build business shouldn't focus a high risk / high return approach of building b2c apps dependent on advertising and large user base. We can easily swing for the fences in our second satrt-up. Two examples of people that took this aaproach are Djarmesh shah of hubspot and Joel spolsky with stackexchange. These were there second start-ups after selling the 1st in the case of Dharmesh and making mony from fogcreek in the case of Joel.
slide 16y ago
Paraschopra has written one of the secrets to building a low risk/high returns web app which is re-echoed here by the founder of sharefile.com. http://www.sharefile.com/blog/seeking-startup-advice-look-no-further-than-your-pizza-box/ http://www.sharefile.com/blog/seeking-startup-advice-look-no... In my opinion, those of us who want to build a business from our startup, shouldn't focus on the high risk / high return approach of building b2c apps dependent on advertising and large user base. According to Amy Hoy, we can all easily build a 30 x 500 wep app (http://unicornfree.com/30x500/ http://unicornfree.com/30x500/). That is 500 customers paying $30 per month which gives us $15k monthly and $180,000 annually. With just 500 users and this finances in place, we can then swing for the fences in our second start-up, knowing that we don't have to eat ramen or beg anyone for funding in the beginning. This also ensures we have the power to take investments only from the right kind of investors and more importantly, it put us in a position to retain controlling shares in the new start-up. Two examples of people that took this approach are Dharmesh shah of hubspot and Joel spolsky with stackexchange. These were there second start-ups after selling the 1st in the case of Dharmesh and still making money from fogcreek in the case of Joel.
gersh 16y ago
1/10 isn't bad odds. After your fifth app, you should have pretty good odds.

189 points by paraschopra 16y ago

As a startup founder in the internet space i can relate to this very well. For a founder with a technical background like me its hard to sometimes get the thinking off of the details of implementation. I like to think and work on architecture, under-the-hood features, scalability etc, but in the end it wont matter if noone uses the product. Users dont see and dont care for any of that, they want to you improve what they deal with everyday. So you have to find a good balance between that to make your product better but still work on the overall technical structure to keep things smoothly. Also marketing probably is much more important than the quality of your code or even app.

swombat 16y ago

I would add, even better is to start with the delivery channel. If you've got ways to reach a market which spends money, you're yet another step ahead.

paraschopra 16y ago
Interesting. Can you elaborate what you mean by delivery channel?
- swombat 16y ago
  Delivery channel = A way to reach the market. For example, maybe you have ideas for products in half a dozen industries, but in one of those industries you happen to have a good friend who works in it (and thus has contacts there) and know the editor of one of the industry trade magazines. Those are both delivery channels into that industry. Compared to another niche where you have no contacts, it is much better to build a startup for that niche where you have some way to reach the market. This may be already implied in your mind, but a lot of people wouldn't get it from reading your article. They'd start listing out industries and then picking one of them. I'm suggesting: list out your deliver channels first, and go from there (as a kind of step 0 in your process). For example, Stack Overflow had two excellent delivery channels to reach programmer communities around the world (Joel and Jeff's blogs). It's fair to say that those two channels "made" stack-overflow.
  - paraschopra 16y ago
    Yes, I think if you are considering multiple industries that make money you will automatically gravitate towards the most "practical" one where you have more familiarity. That said, in my opinion in any industry creating a delivery channel is not incredibly difficult but it does give you an unfair advantage while starting out.
    - swombat 16y ago
      This actually brings up a third alternative... start with the industries, as you suggest, but then, as part of your hypothesis-resolution (see http://swombat.com/2011/1/7/how-to-evaluate-and-implement-startup-ideas-using-hypothesis-driven-development http://swombat.com/2011/1/7/how-to-evaluate-and-implement-st...), try to create delivery channels into those industries that you like. Then follow the one where you best succeed into building delivery channels. Best of both worlds?

arnorhs 16y ago

I think the web app-building crowd here is divided into two groups of hackers: Those who are in it to build businesses and those who just want to create apps that people use. Everybody likes money, but there's a big group of people out there that only want people to use their apps and are not in it for the money.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
paraschopra 16y ago
Exactly. My post is meant for people who actually want to make money. Making apps for skill enhancement, fun and enjoyment is perfectly good. But expecting to make money from such apps and calling them startups is not OK.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  If only there were already a good word for a technical project that one does for fun. Maybe a four-letter word? Rhyming with "sack"? ;)
- jpcx01 16y ago
  What do you mean it's "not OK"? Trying to building something new that people use and love is a perfectly acceptable path to building a startup. pg had a great post on this topic: http://paulgraham.com/organic.html http://paulgraham.com/organic.html So you have an approach to building products that works for you. Great. But scoffing at people who actually want to build the new amazing things that have a real impact on the world is what I call "not OK". After someone trailblazes the idea and builds something that gets traction, then we can expect legions of "you guys" who just want to monkey their idea and take a piece of the pie.
  - paraschopra 16y ago
    I think you mis-understood my point. If you are making something new that people use and love, that's a beautiful thing to do. In fact, open source movement wouldn't exist without it. However, if you want to make money by hoping your new app catches on by itself, that is not OK in my opinion.

alexro 16y ago

Yes, but ... we are on YC site and at least twice a year we hear about cool companies appearing out of the blue with crazy idea and some of them get acquired or start bringing profits. So, the 'cool' factor will continue to have its benefits and is a good method to actually get going initially.

swombat 16y ago
I believe DHH coined the name for those: Lottery tickets. http://www.justin.tv/hackertv/b/259414909 http://www.justin.tv/hackertv/b/259414909
- StavrosK 16y ago
  I've been calling them that for years now, and I suspect others have too, so the term is hardly novel, but that's exactly what they are. Throw enough things at the wall, a few will stick.
- metageek 16y ago
  That goes back at least ten years. In a Doonesbury strip from about 2000, when Mike's company isn't able to make payroll, he tells his daughter everybody's working for stock options now. "Do you know what stock options are?" "Sure! They're like lottery tickets, right?" "Shh!"
- alexro 16y ago
  And just ironic that right at this moment the news about FlightCaster acquisition appear higher on the HN home page :)

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jacquesm 16y ago

This is absolutely true. The problem with a market driven approach is that it's hard to convince people to get in to 'glorified bookkeeping' or other stuff like that. Industry applications typically are not sexy but they're a fantastic way to make money because businesses don't have a problem to pay for things that will save them money, time or both. If you're in it for the money go for b2b any time over b2c, b2c is sexy, everybody will write about you if you score but the fact is you most likely won't.

paraschopra 16y ago
Yep, agree with your recommendation of B2B. Going B2B instantly simplifies a lot of issues that startups face because (as you say) businesses are usually inclined to pay money for services even if it is in $100-$1000/mo range. Consumers, on the other hand, will cringe at the sight of paying $5. 99 cents apps, thanks so much for setting expectations of consumers that everything on the web should be free or sub $1 range.
- cubicle67 16y ago
  you know what 99c apps have done? They've got people paying for software. Normal people. People who have probably never paid for software in their life, save for Office (probably bundled with their PC), and a few XBox games They've got used to paying 99c for apps, then they've slowly adjusted their price expectations up to the $5-10 range for iPad apps, and the advent of the Mac Store looks like helping ease prices people are willing to pay even higher. Pixelmator has sold more than a few copies at $30. Cheap for what it is, but people are buying it. Apple have trained people to pay for software
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    As opposed to all that open source stuff for free in the repositories, yes. But paying for software is something that has meanwhile been superseded by people paying for services, and that's where the real money is in the long run. Someone paying $10 for your software is great but not as great as someone paying $4.95 monthly for the use of a service. The difference is that if you intend to hold on to your userbase on a subscription basis that fart apps are not going to cut it (pun intended), you will have to deliver value for the money your subscribers pay you. Apple has not conditioned people to pay for software any more than google has conditioned people to click on ads, both companies simply used their economies of scale to make it worthwhile to market to their particular audience, google through their adwords (not adsense!) program and apple through their app store. Just wait for the 'facebook phone' and it's associated app store, it's only a matter of time. It's not as though Steve Jobs invented 'software for sale' with the app store, software has been sold to individuals and businesses alike for decades now, the things that have changed the equation here are: - download sites for PC software - open source - massive piracy

ojbyrne 16y ago

Ideally, you want a "cool" webapp that can provide an entry into a viable market. The "cool" part gets you noticed among early adopters, who talk you up until you get noticed in the marketplace. Because there is some cost in getting into those marketplaces - you have to set up booths at trade shows, or get PR in industry specific publications. "Coolness" can reduce those expenses or help you get partnerships or funding.

Maro 16y ago

The article's market-first approach: * Find an industry (ideally, an old fashioned one) where people are making money * Find the single differentiator which will put your app apart in the already established industry (read or research what pain points are still not addressed by top 3 solutions) * Make a web app, market it, refine it based on feedback, monetize the app * Slowly incorporate all standard features expected out of a solution in that industry so you can shoot to be a market leader I think this sounds great, but the key point is "read or research what pain points are still not addressed by top 3 solutions" which I think is very hard from outside the given industry.

paraschopra 16y ago
Well there has got to be at least one "hard" part in making money, otherwise wouldn't everyone be doing the same? There is no easy way to make money or successful but it isn't impossible either. I will give you my example. When I was starting out with Wingify (Visual Website Optimizer), I had absolutely no idea or industry connections in online marketing industry. But I started reading blogs, used existing solutions, talked to people and then eventually figured out that sufficiently large number of people do A/B testing, pay for it and right now it is hard enough to justify a new solution that simplifies it. The idea of "Visual A/B testing" wasn't something I realized overnight. It was a result of more than a year of trying to understand pain points of a "large enough" industry. If you spend enough time researching an industry, you will eventually find some great opportunities.
- Maro 16y ago
  How long does it take? If it takes 12 months, you can try 3-4 different app ideas in that timeframe, if you're good enough. You're comparing two different risk profiles, and I don't think one or the other is clearly better.
- alexro 16y ago
  And since you personally advocate for that route have you achieved a financial success already (even in small)?

angdis 16y ago

The key word here is _probably_. There is room enough for both blue-sky idealists and pragmatic business grinders. We need both and both are likely to fail more often than they succeed. It might be easy to criticize somebody who follows their passion and then fails on business issues but there are many ways to measure "success" and not all of them line up with a VC's definition of "success".

revetkn 16y ago

"So, instead of an image-gallery app, why not make a survey software specifically targeted at, say, event attendees." Shameless plug: check out our startup, http://yorn.com http://yorn.com, which does exactly this.

e-dard 16y ago
Your site design completely rocks. It's fantastic.

MicahWedemeyer 16y ago

Beware the fatigue that sets in with these "boring" money makers. It can be very difficult to keep your motivation high when working on something like this, especially in the beginning where you're not making money and no one takes you seriously. With a funky web app, at least your friends and family might understand it and think it's cool. Doing a startup already takes a lot of motivation. It's significantly harder if you're working on something that you're not passionate about. (Note: I don't disagree at all with the author. I just want to point out that there are downsides to this approach as well.)

jnovek 16y ago
"With a funky web app, at least your friends and family might understand it and think it's cool." Perhaps if you're in college, or keeping up your day job. But none of my friends or family thought it was "cool" when I quit my day job after we got a little bit of traction. They thought it was something more along the lines of "completely batshit insane". As I recall, it actually made my parents cry. The point is: it's pretty hard no matter what you're working on. Everything becomes boring after a while, and outside of the valley it's hard to find a culture where people will actually support a decision to quit your day job and work on a startup.
- revorad 16y ago
  Agreed. I look at it this way: you can afford to do something which is just a lot of fun but not making any or lots of money, as long as you are not in debt from other people. The debt can be in the form of money (borrowing from friends or family, investors) or time (ignoring friends and family).
- revorad 16y ago
  Agreed. I look at it this way: you can afford to do something which is just a lot of fun but not making any or lots of money, as long as you are not in debt from other people. The debt can be in the form of money (borrowing from friends or family, investors) or time (ignoring friends and family).
jdietrich 16y ago

16s 16y ago

Solid advice. Young people have to learn this the hard way. Today, it seems everyone wants to write a FaceBook type app and be hugely popular with mainstream folks (a household name). However, there are tons of devs (mostly people you seldom ever hear about and who hardly anyone knows) making a great living writing libraries, device drivers and other non-killer, yet useful software.

jonknee 16y ago

That explains what I'm working on right now to a T. It's an industry that is currently being run on fax and lots of manual data entry. A big key for us was having connections with people inside, which made it easier to learn exactly what they were looking for and then ultimately set up sales meetings.

SeanDav 16y ago

No disrespect at all to the author, but when I see advice on how to do something I always ask. "What have you done that proves that your advice works?" If this came from Paul Graham, I would probably sit up and take notice but here, meh. Still the blog is well written and the advice is worth a try if you are wired that way.

paraschopra 16y ago
This is not total theory. I run a startup http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com -- I can't tell you how much money it makes, but it does support a small team full time.
wallflower 16y ago
Reading his blog, you get a sense that he has gone back and forth on the idea of web apps as startups. Which is perfectly alright because only close-minded people never change their mind. He's the guy behind http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com
jacquesm 16y ago
> If this came from Paul Graham, I would probably sit up and take notice but here, meh. Right, because all wisdom in the startup scene flows from those that have made millions during the .com boom. Really, people like Paras are running start-ups today and are making money today, not 10 years ago, and even if Paul Graham is a very smart and capable person if it came to picking someones brain about running a start-up today I'm pretty sure that there is value to be found with both parties rather than just with those that succeeded in the past. > Still the blog is well written and the advice is worth a try if you are wired that way. So, you disagree with yourself? If you're running a start-up you should take your advice where ever you find it and weigh it according to the rules of applicability to your situation, no matter what the source. You can even learn a lot from failures, no point in limiting your input to just the success stories.

robryan 16y ago

I prefer to look at it this way, I'm taking an area where I think the current solutions are lacking and creating a solution was gives value both in terms of time and money saved. Yes as a side effect I can charge decent money for a product which generates more money in savings and extra profit than it costs, but amount of money isn't the real motivation. I'd much rather work on something that fits this criteria than the so called "cool" webapps.

evolution 16y ago

"Money or the ability to make it doesn't impress anybody around here. " -- Mark Zuckerberg (the social network)

middlegeek 16y ago

Making money may not be the primary goal of these apps. I for one have been working on a few things that probably will not make me money but are great experience, are teaching me a lot and hopefully will give me a little notoriety for the day I build my first money maker.

jonknee 16y ago

Something to keep in mind in the B2B market is you can charge a lot. Do your research and find out how much time your software will save the company and price your solution closer to that than what it costs you to produce and support. You'll never get a consumer to pay $1,000/m for your web app, but if you can save a company 25 hours a month they're getting a steal.

angrycoder 16y ago

For some, building software is the answer to the question: 'How can I make money?' For others, building software is the answer to the question: 'What would I do all day if I didn't have to worry about making money?'

jacques_chester 16y ago
I ask both questions and get the same answer.

cabalamat 16y ago

> If making money is the objective, I suggest going with the market-first approach That's one way to do it, but not the only one. For example, it's not how Apple designs products -- their design criterion is whatever Jobs likes.

chc 16y ago
I think this is pretty naive. Apple's products, for the most part, are very successful. Either Steve Jobs is just extraordinarily average or they do quite a bit of market research. In fact, one of Apple's first hires was a guy who specialized in collecting data from user-testing and figuring out how to make applications better fit how they were used in the real world.

ceci 16y ago

Paraschopra has written one the secrets to building a low risk/high returns web app which re-echoed here using founding http://www.sharefile.com/blog/seeking-startup-advice-look-no-further-than-your-pizza-box/ http://www.sharefile.com/blog/seeking-startup-advice-look-no... In my opinion, those of us who want to build business shouldn't focus a high risk / high return approach of building b2c apps dependent on advertising and large user base. We can easily swing for the fences in our second satrt-up. Two examples of people that took this aaproach are Djarmesh shah of hubspot and Joel spolsky with stackexchange. These were there second start-ups after selling the 1st in the case of Dharmesh and making mony from fogcreek in the case of Joel.

slide 16y ago

Paraschopra has written one of the secrets to building a low risk/high returns web app which is re-echoed here by the founder of sharefile.com. http://www.sharefile.com/blog/seeking-startup-advice-look-no-further-than-your-pizza-box/ http://www.sharefile.com/blog/seeking-startup-advice-look-no... In my opinion, those of us who want to build a business from our startup, shouldn't focus on the high risk / high return approach of building b2c apps dependent on advertising and large user base. According to Amy Hoy, we can all easily build a 30 x 500 wep app (http://unicornfree.com/30x500/ http://unicornfree.com/30x500/). That is 500 customers paying $30 per month which gives us $15k monthly and $180,000 annually. With just 500 users and this finances in place, we can then swing for the fences in our second start-up, knowing that we don't have to eat ramen or beg anyone for funding in the beginning. This also ensures we have the power to take investments only from the right kind of investors and more importantly, it put us in a position to retain controlling shares in the new start-up. Two examples of people that took this approach are Dharmesh shah of hubspot and Joel spolsky with stackexchange. These were there second start-ups after selling the 1st in the case of Dharmesh and still making money from fogcreek in the case of Joel.

gersh 16y ago

1/10 isn't bad odds. After your fifth app, you should have pretty good odds.