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I make $8k/year sending cheap flight alert emails
- wfb2 4y agohow is this different from the cheapest option that I can find on Google Flight?
- jelmerdeboer 4y agoIt is not, but this is easier because somebody with knowledge about airfare curates the deals for you and sends them to you inbox.
- iancmceachern 4y agoI'm curious how they generate the content, how much work is involved in getting the leads on cheap flights, is it automated? It seems like a good thing if it's mostly automated, but if it takes 35 hours a week of someone searching for deals it's not so much.
- pogansrun 4y agoIt’s about 4 hours per week of work between vetting flights, writing the flight alerts, and managing the admin
- Arainach 4y agoArticle title is inaccurate: this project gets 8K in revenue per year but has almost no profit.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago"Tech" company "business models" do not require actual profits.
- bloodyplonker22 4y agoYou have trivialized and left out the most important part of this: "If it is growing at hypergrowth pace and has a huge multi-billion dollar market."
- shapefrog 4y agoActual profits only get in the way of "Tech" company "business models"
- BonoboIO 4y agoThat sounds like an investment opportunity for SoftBank. https://www.standard.co.uk/business/softbank-record-20-billion-loss-tech-stocks-masayoshi-son-wework-uber-arm-greensill-wirecard-b999589.html https://www.standard.co.uk/business/softbank-record-20-billi...
- angryasian 4y agoTiger Global would be in a very close running for biggest losses https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonkochkodin/2022/11/08/more-losses-for-tiger-global-from-its-ftx-investment/?sh=69f8f9b63afd https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonkochkodin/2022/11/08/mor...
- shapefrog 4y ago> has almost no profit It makes too much money for either of your backers.
- version_five 4y agoMost people spend $3 per day on coffee, so why not $3 per month for the heads up on flights that are hundreds of dollars off regular fares? I dont find the comparison very compelling. If I can save more per year than I pay, it's a good deal. In that vein, I'd like to see how my travel habits could be accommodated by the info the newsletter provides. If I believe it's a fit, I'd happily pay the money.
- xyzzyz 4y agoI seriously doubt most people spend $1000/year on coffee. Many, maybe, but definitely not most.
- blairbeckwith 4y agoIf a bag of quality beans is $15 and you go through one a week, you’re most of the way there.
- Chilko 4y agoHow big is this $15 bag of coffee that you finish in a week? Here in New Zealand a standard 200g bag of beans from a good roastery is no more than $10 NZD, about $6 USD.
- ihatepython 4y agomaybe 12oz, but this is high quality, not at all like the stuff you would get in Wellington /s
- tjr225 4y agoPretty standard in the PNW: https://www.olympiacoffee.com/collections/coffee/products/morning-sun https://www.olympiacoffee.com/collections/coffee/products/mo...
- gleenn 4y agoSan Francisco and the Bay Area will also easily charge $20 for sometimes even just 12 ounces of beans. Pretty wild, but IMHO San Francisco has some of the best cafes, baristas, and actual drinks. I moved to Southern California and it's still good and they charge almost as much too but still not as good.
- bldjk99 4y agoWhy doing it only for flights departing PHL instead of generalizing the system to other airports?
- wmichelin 4y agothey're leaving room for the rest of us ;)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pogansrun 4y agoIt just takes too much time and effort to keep it up for multiple audiences. It’s not automated — it’s all about the curation. There are plenty of similar sites that cover many more airports though
- PointA2B 4y agoI'm sure it could easily be automated with Python/Django and periodic scraping tasks and then ramped up for the rest of the US.
- ethbr0 4y agoYou must work with clean data sources. :)
- alexandre_m 4y agoThis is the naive approach you would do 15+ years ago. Then things got way better with real browser engines like Webkit that could understand Javascript. That was something that I've personally hacked together as a contractor for an anti-piracy customer using Python, Webkit and Qt framework (PyQt) in around 2009. Shortly after some nice libraries in node/js came out like Phantom.js which would make this much better. If I were to do this today, I'd use Playwright.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Mandatum 4y agoscottscheapflights + hyper localized marketing
- pogansrun 4y agoYes exactly. There’s a million other ones too like dollar flight club, jacks flight club, nextvacay, mighty travels, etc. it’s not a new concept just very niched to one market
- imgabe 4y agoI'm pretty sure Scott's Cheap Flights[1] makes a good deal more. It's going to be hard to have a big enough audience if you limit yourself to only one city. [1] https://scottscheapflights.com/ https://scottscheapflights.com/
- pogansrun 4y agoYes SCF make at least $10M per year now probably. Like I mentioned below theres a ton of other ones like dollar flight club, jacks flight club, nextvacay, mighty travels, etc. It’s not a new biz model, just very niched to one market. Money from this is dwarfed by my day job income so I’d be happy with $1,000 per month
- purple_ferret 4y agoScott's Cheap Flights has basically become a lifestyle brand. Really disappointed in it (I see they don't even advertise their pricing) after they moved regular economy deals up to their 'elite' tier, which is at least hundreds of dollars IIRC. I don't want to pay for your blog spam. I guess the moral of the story is, simple email updates don't pay (enough).
- jamal-kumar 4y agoThis service was pretty sweet until around when the pandemic hit and then they stopped serving flights that didn't originate out of the USA which was really annoying. I don't know if they brought that back up yet but it was enough for me to give the service up. Is there anything comparable? You'd think that this is the kind of thing which would be insanely easy to automate.
- pogansrun 4y agoI’ve seen a few companies come and go in the last few years who tried to automate it and failed. It seems people are really paying for the sense of curation and review, since what makes something a “good deal” can’t always be measured by a computer. Or maybe people just like their flight alerts wrapped in a friendly and helpful tone, and the tech gurus who can program it aren’t adept enough at copywriting. I’m just thinking out loud. I’m curious to hear others thoughts on programmatic vs human selected
- pogansrun 4y agoNow that this hit the front page, I’ve had dozens of people who signed up asking me why they can’t find flights from San Francisco
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- augasur 4y agoYou said you spend leftover money on advertising. Could you tell us a bit more about it? What methods are you using to promote it?