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Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less th

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3052661 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3052661

bdunn 15y ago
Wow. AMAZING advice Jason. I took Amy Hoy's 30x500 course, which opened my eyes to how a 10% month to month growth rate can be crazy in just a few years. The chart shown in a recent post of hers is mind boggling: http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-million-dollars-later-and-30x500-redux/ http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-...
- ahoyhere 15y ago
  Thanks for the link :) That graph is nice but this is the real graph you want to see: https://img.skitch.com/20120331-ft3faju2jpqseq3ucff1fgi31h.png https://img.skitch.com/20120331-ft3faju2jpqseq3ucff1fgi31h.p... That's the "estimated" (all open trials) revenue growth for Freckle over its whole life time. Look how stagnant it was, then slow, and for how long. And compare that to now :) NB: real billing, trailing a month behind any given date, is 5-15% less than the estimate (due to trials not continuing etc).
  - monsterix 15y ago
    Uh oh! Didn't know you were here too. It's nice to see entrepreneurs like you, coming out openly with business figures. Helps newbies like me, to go on and keep focus only on the product. Unabated by tiny bubbles we see in funding side of story - aka "herd mentality".
    - ahoyhere 15y ago
      Hi. That's what I'm here for. Why "Uh oh"? I'm not the boogeyman ;)
      - monsterix 15y ago
        Hi, yep. It's just that I wasn't aware of your presence before I wrote that compliment on your work. :) Is it possible for me to connect over email with you?
  - rwillystyle 15y ago
    I hope people are skeptical of these results. I wouldn't be surprised if you made most of your money from your get rich quick program.
    - muhfuhkuh 15y ago
      I'm going to assume that it's because you're new here that you have a chip on your shoulder. Understandable. But, simply by looking at how long it took her to get to that revenue number, why would you think her program is "get rich quick"? Years is not quick, in Internet, Business, Internet Business or any other metric of time.
      - ahoyhere 15y ago
        Thanks. I'd hope if I were a liar trying to convince you to buy my "get rich quick" program, I'd make up a better lie than 3 years, haha. FTR: just under 30% of the revenue last year was from my class, but that's primarily because A) infoproducts pay bigger lump sums, faster than subscription income and B) we haven't yet publicly launched Charm (http://charmhq.com http://charmhq.com) which will drop very soon. Charm has already added ~$24k/yr to our baseline even while being invite-only. Pretty much all the revenue from my class was rolled into funding product development for our SaaSes. It's my Be Your Own Angel tactic.
    - chc 15y ago
      Amy publicly announces the prices and enrollment for each class, so you could have easily tested this hypothesis. Last year, the posted numbers would put 30x500 class revenues somewhere around $160k (give or take a few grand depending on how many used discounts) — so as Amy says, a supermajority of her income must come from other sources.
  - edwinnathaniel 15y ago
    Hi Amy, going to ask you the same questions that many have asked before: you developed products in a more or less saturated market, how do you come to the conclusion that the world needs your product? (considering that there are nice looking time-tracker and customer support out apps out there).
- monsterix 15y ago
  That story from Amy, is super awesome stuff. Not many have made it to that point - 3 years - however. On the other hand, all this discussion seems more like a silver lining towards disruption in angel investing space too. Sublime for entrepreneurs, disastrous for others may be. It's threads like these that make my day at HN :)
  - ahoyhere 15y ago
    Not many have made it to that point - 3 years - however. This is true, but there are only 2 reasons I see: 1. Choosing the utterly wrong product. Smart people like us are drawn like moths to the flame of "great ideas," rather than "things which could help people and be really profitable." Something I teach against in my class, called Idea Quicksand. My philosophy about this is explained the first 3 free samples available on http://unicornfree.com/30x500 http://unicornfree.com/30x500 2. Barring "great ideas" which aren't businesses, people give up way too soon. They have no idea that it takes so long, and they don't prepare for it, and they think they've failed when they're really just normal. Which is a huge part of the reason why I blog & show up here.
    - dasil003 15y ago
      > Choosing the utterly wrong product. Smart people like us are drawn like moths to the flame of "great ideas," rather than "things which could help people and be really profitable." I think about this a lot. Much like a writer, developers do the best work objectively when they "write what they know". What this means in practice is that the market is flooded with products that are at the union of common developer knowledge. That is why there are so many products for consultants out there. Basecamp, Freckle and Projector are all examples of this. Obviously there's always room for a new product, especially when you have used many of these products and decided exactly why you don't like them so you can come up with a uniquely better product. But when I get outside of the tech bubble, I see that the majority of the business world has pathetic technical vision, but a lot more money. Now obviously you will never be a Facebook or a Twitter in an established market, but if you can combine some domain knowledge with cutting edge tech skills, there is a lot more low-hanging fruit than fighting over early adopters for the latest tech toy.
- rwillystyle 15y ago
  You had to take a course from another "how to get rich" type to realize the power of compounded growth?
  - drumdance 15y ago
    Where did you learn it? At your father's knee? We all have to learn from somewhere.
euroclydon 15y ago
Thanks. I agree with your post. Sales for CupcakeWrapperCreator have gone like this: March 0.02 April 38.85 May 64.75 June 76.75 July 122.60 August 99.80 September 129.75 October 109.75 November 199.60 December 119.75 January 149.70 February 249.45 March 369.25 So, for nearly a year I didn't have any motivation to do more work, but then I signed up for a free month of SEOMOZ, and just fixed the low hanging fruit from their suggestions, and traffic doubled for last Feb. So now it's a little more interesting. I can make $369 in a month with 150 uniques per day. What can I do with 300-500 uniques per day? And I think I can get there easy because just one blog comment I made is responsible for 20 uniques per day and I know I can outrank that blog page with a little work.
- edwinnathaniel 15y ago
  You sir, are a genius. I'm always surprised with these simple ideas (i.e.: Cupcake Wrapper Creator).
- muhfuhkuh 15y ago
  You think seeding some of your designs on pinterest might pique interest further? If anything, it can be a "proving grounds" for your newest wrapper designs.
  - edwinnathaniel 15y ago
    Oh oh oh, try it try it! Pin your designs! Do. It. Now. Pinterest is definitely a good place for these kind of products.
- leon_ 15y ago
  Well - you need to watch the traffic quality. The 20 uniques from some blog comment might be non converting users. You don't want just traffic - you want high quality traffic.
- follower 15y ago
  I suggest linking to http://www.makecupcakewrappers.com/ http://www.makecupcakewrappers.com/ when you mention your site--makes it easier to find. :)
alexkearns 15y ago
As encouragement to the poster, and evidence to back up what you are saying, here's the month-by-month subscription figures since launch for one of my SaaS projects: 50 155 460 510 730 1200 1225 1645 2180 2185 3085 3310 3805
whileonebegin 15y ago
Do you think recurring billing makes more sense to web apps than desktop apps? I think users are entrenched with the idea of "buying" a desktop app and "subscribing" to a web app.
- ahoyhere 15y ago
  Quite a few "desktop" apps have hybrid models - Evernote, Dropbox, CRM software, iCloud, etc, no doubt there are more which I can't think of at the moment.
- davidedicillo 15y ago
  The upcoming Adobe Creative Suite will be offered also as subscription.
patio11 15y ago
Ditto what Jason said. I was similarly a little dissapointed with the early numbers on AR before I realized that $100 in one-off sales means $100 of booked revenue for the year but $100 of subscription revenue means ~$1,000 for this year and almost as much next year, too. The graph for the first year of AR and BCC turned out to prove this out in a very dramatic fashion. Recurring revenue: the best kind of revenue. P.S. Charge more. I just got a very uneventuful email about a particular customer hitting their 30 day mark w/o canceling including my system's guesstimate of their likelihood to stay a customer and their LTV. Probabilistically counting my chickens before they hatch, they're worth like a whole month of bingo cards and we've never even exchanged an email.
- bosie 15y ago
  "particular customer hitting their 30 day mark w/o canceling including my system's guesstimate of their likelihood to stay a customer and their LTV" care to share how you calculate the likelihood, please?

bdunn 15y ago

Wow. AMAZING advice Jason. I took Amy Hoy's 30x500 course, which opened my eyes to how a 10% month to month growth rate can be crazy in just a few years. The chart shown in a recent post of hers is mind boggling: http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-million-dollars-later-and-30x500-redux/ http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-...

ahoyhere 15y ago
Thanks for the link :) That graph is nice but this is the real graph you want to see: https://img.skitch.com/20120331-ft3faju2jpqseq3ucff1fgi31h.png https://img.skitch.com/20120331-ft3faju2jpqseq3ucff1fgi31h.p... That's the "estimated" (all open trials) revenue growth for Freckle over its whole life time. Look how stagnant it was, then slow, and for how long. And compare that to now :) NB: real billing, trailing a month behind any given date, is 5-15% less than the estimate (due to trials not continuing etc).
- monsterix 15y ago
  Uh oh! Didn't know you were here too. It's nice to see entrepreneurs like you, coming out openly with business figures. Helps newbies like me, to go on and keep focus only on the product. Unabated by tiny bubbles we see in funding side of story - aka "herd mentality".
  - ahoyhere 15y ago
    Hi. That's what I'm here for. Why "Uh oh"? I'm not the boogeyman ;)
    - monsterix 15y ago
      Hi, yep. It's just that I wasn't aware of your presence before I wrote that compliment on your work. :) Is it possible for me to connect over email with you?
- rwillystyle 15y ago
  I hope people are skeptical of these results. I wouldn't be surprised if you made most of your money from your get rich quick program.
  - muhfuhkuh 15y ago
    I'm going to assume that it's because you're new here that you have a chip on your shoulder. Understandable. But, simply by looking at how long it took her to get to that revenue number, why would you think her program is "get rich quick"? Years is not quick, in Internet, Business, Internet Business or any other metric of time.
    - ahoyhere 15y ago
      Thanks. I'd hope if I were a liar trying to convince you to buy my "get rich quick" program, I'd make up a better lie than 3 years, haha. FTR: just under 30% of the revenue last year was from my class, but that's primarily because A) infoproducts pay bigger lump sums, faster than subscription income and B) we haven't yet publicly launched Charm (http://charmhq.com http://charmhq.com) which will drop very soon. Charm has already added ~$24k/yr to our baseline even while being invite-only. Pretty much all the revenue from my class was rolled into funding product development for our SaaSes. It's my Be Your Own Angel tactic.
  - chc 15y ago
    Amy publicly announces the prices and enrollment for each class, so you could have easily tested this hypothesis. Last year, the posted numbers would put 30x500 class revenues somewhere around $160k (give or take a few grand depending on how many used discounts) — so as Amy says, a supermajority of her income must come from other sources.
- edwinnathaniel 15y ago
  Hi Amy, going to ask you the same questions that many have asked before: you developed products in a more or less saturated market, how do you come to the conclusion that the world needs your product? (considering that there are nice looking time-tracker and customer support out apps out there).
monsterix 15y ago
That story from Amy, is super awesome stuff. Not many have made it to that point - 3 years - however. On the other hand, all this discussion seems more like a silver lining towards disruption in angel investing space too. Sublime for entrepreneurs, disastrous for others may be. It's threads like these that make my day at HN :)
- ahoyhere 15y ago
  Not many have made it to that point - 3 years - however. This is true, but there are only 2 reasons I see: 1. Choosing the utterly wrong product. Smart people like us are drawn like moths to the flame of "great ideas," rather than "things which could help people and be really profitable." Something I teach against in my class, called Idea Quicksand. My philosophy about this is explained the first 3 free samples available on http://unicornfree.com/30x500 http://unicornfree.com/30x500 2. Barring "great ideas" which aren't businesses, people give up way too soon. They have no idea that it takes so long, and they don't prepare for it, and they think they've failed when they're really just normal. Which is a huge part of the reason why I blog & show up here.
  - dasil003 15y ago
    > Choosing the utterly wrong product. Smart people like us are drawn like moths to the flame of "great ideas," rather than "things which could help people and be really profitable." I think about this a lot. Much like a writer, developers do the best work objectively when they "write what they know". What this means in practice is that the market is flooded with products that are at the union of common developer knowledge. That is why there are so many products for consultants out there. Basecamp, Freckle and Projector are all examples of this. Obviously there's always room for a new product, especially when you have used many of these products and decided exactly why you don't like them so you can come up with a uniquely better product. But when I get outside of the tech bubble, I see that the majority of the business world has pathetic technical vision, but a lot more money. Now obviously you will never be a Facebook or a Twitter in an established market, but if you can combine some domain knowledge with cutting edge tech skills, there is a lot more low-hanging fruit than fighting over early adopters for the latest tech toy.
rwillystyle 15y ago
You had to take a course from another "how to get rich" type to realize the power of compounded growth?
- drumdance 15y ago
  Where did you learn it? At your father's knee? We all have to learn from somewhere.

euroclydon 15y ago

Thanks. I agree with your post. Sales for CupcakeWrapperCreator have gone like this: March 0.02 April 38.85 May 64.75 June 76.75 July 122.60 August 99.80 September 129.75 October 109.75 November 199.60 December 119.75 January 149.70 February 249.45 March 369.25 So, for nearly a year I didn't have any motivation to do more work, but then I signed up for a free month of SEOMOZ, and just fixed the low hanging fruit from their suggestions, and traffic doubled for last Feb. So now it's a little more interesting. I can make $369 in a month with 150 uniques per day. What can I do with 300-500 uniques per day? And I think I can get there easy because just one blog comment I made is responsible for 20 uniques per day and I know I can outrank that blog page with a little work.

edwinnathaniel 15y ago
You sir, are a genius. I'm always surprised with these simple ideas (i.e.: Cupcake Wrapper Creator).
muhfuhkuh 15y ago
You think seeding some of your designs on pinterest might pique interest further? If anything, it can be a "proving grounds" for your newest wrapper designs.
- edwinnathaniel 15y ago
  Oh oh oh, try it try it! Pin your designs! Do. It. Now. Pinterest is definitely a good place for these kind of products.
leon_ 15y ago
Well - you need to watch the traffic quality. The 20 uniques from some blog comment might be non converting users. You don't want just traffic - you want high quality traffic.
follower 15y ago
I suggest linking to http://www.makecupcakewrappers.com/ http://www.makecupcakewrappers.com/ when you mention your site--makes it easier to find. :)

alexkearns 15y ago

As encouragement to the poster, and evidence to back up what you are saying, here's the month-by-month subscription figures since launch for one of my SaaS projects: 50 155 460 510 730 1200 1225 1645 2180 2185 3085 3310 3805

whileonebegin 15y ago

Do you think recurring billing makes more sense to web apps than desktop apps? I think users are entrenched with the idea of "buying" a desktop app and "subscribing" to a web app.

ahoyhere 15y ago
Quite a few "desktop" apps have hybrid models - Evernote, Dropbox, CRM software, iCloud, etc, no doubt there are more which I can't think of at the moment.
davidedicillo 15y ago
The upcoming Adobe Creative Suite will be offered also as subscription.

patio11 15y ago

Ditto what Jason said. I was similarly a little dissapointed with the early numbers on AR before I realized that $100 in one-off sales means $100 of booked revenue for the year but $100 of subscription revenue means ~$1,000 for this year and almost as much next year, too. The graph for the first year of AR and BCC turned out to prove this out in a very dramatic fashion. Recurring revenue: the best kind of revenue. P.S. Charge more. I just got a very uneventuful email about a particular customer hitting their 30 day mark w/o canceling including my system's guesstimate of their likelihood to stay a customer and their LTV. Probabilistically counting my chickens before they hatch, they're worth like a whole month of bingo cards and we've never even exchanged an email.

bosie 15y ago
"particular customer hitting their 30 day mark w/o canceling including my system's guesstimate of their likelihood to stay a customer and their LTV" care to share how you calculate the likelihood, please?