5 ms·

I'd just like to point out that '$24/yr * high four-figures of paying costumers' with only one employee ensures NewsBlur will be around for a long time. :) Thi

by recuter 14y ago

I'd just like to point out that '$24/yr * high four-figures of paying costumers' with only one employee ensures NewsBlur will be around for a long time. :) This is the kind of single founder "life style" startup that VC's would paw-paw that is Doing It Right that many of us aspire to. The other ones I can think of are Pinboard and Instapaper. I'd rather go this route, personally, here's to more like these. Cheers.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago
Indeed. If one were wise, you could stalk Google/Yahoo/BigCo properties that are being neglected, launch a paid competitor and reap the reward when they shut down. Pinboard and now Newsblur.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  Quick, someone make a search engine!
  - vineet 14y ago
    See https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ :-)
- misiti3780 14y ago
  but delicious is still around, it was never shutdown, and from what i can tell, is better (from a functionality perspective) and has a bigger community than pinboard. the site design of pinboard alone turns me off to it
- boyter 14y ago
  Thats actually a really good idea. I wonder what would be next? Most of Yahoo's properties seem be be neglected at the moment, but what about Google? Google News perhaps?
  - bobdvb 14y ago
    flikr -> openphoto
  - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
    Probably Google Alerts. It's rather niche but people who use it absolutely rely on it. But the VC-funded Mention seems poised to take that one.
    - frankdenbow 14y ago
      I have been using warble.co recently, which does alerts for twitter
    - MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
      Google Alerts is a good candidate. Pardon anecdotal evidence, but the people in my circles who rely on it are executives who watch for their own names, or brand managers who watch for coverage of their company. This information is very valuable and I'm sure a good service could charge a nice premium.
      - darkspaten 14y ago
        I've received some deliverables from a marketing team which uses the following service for just such a purpose (at a nice premium) @ https://www.meltwater.com/products/meltwater-news/online-media-monitoring/ https://www.meltwater.com/products/meltwater-news/online-med...
amix 14y ago
With currently only 3400 paying users it's only 80K pr. year of revenues (and the profits are probably much lower). It's still far from a good business and this kind of money does not have any kind of guarantees.
- klox 14y ago
  3400 is only the number of new paying users in the last 24 hours. The amount of annual income from this product will now end with "million".
  - meh02 14y ago
    LOL, no. After the Reader-is-dead news cycle ends, the money will stop flowing, and the real work (supporting paying users) begins.
  - DuskStar 14y ago
    Oh, wow. I had not realized that number was the DAILY signups...
  - wilfra 14y ago
    revenue, not income - he's going to have high server costs now and if he wants to keep this scaling up, i suspect he'll need to bring on another person soon. at the very least, a customer service rep. still should easily net him a nice recurring six figure salary.
    - klox 14y ago
      Currently adding over 4k paid users per day. He reaches $1 million at just over 40k paid users. Factor in the userbase he's already been building for 4 years, the hundreds of thousands of Google Readers currently leaving, the millions that will need to find a replacement before July, and the last-minute movers on July 1st. I don't think server costs and a couple of employees will put him below a 7 figure income.
- recuter 14y ago
  > "Since the announcement, NewsBlur has welcomed 5,000 new premium subscribers and 60,000 new users (from 50,000 users originally)". That's at least $200,000/yr with high margins.
overshard 14y ago
I agree, this is a great model. To shameless plug myself I plan on doing the same with Pinry: http://getpinry.com/ http://getpinry.com/
mikeash 14y ago
It does make the truck number rather low. This is still probably less of a risk than trusting Google to keep a marginal product around (as recent events demonstrate), but there are different risks for small organizations that big ones don't share.

by recuter 14y ago

MatthewPhillips 14y ago

Indeed. If one were wise, you could stalk Google/Yahoo/BigCo properties that are being neglected, launch a paid competitor and reap the reward when they shut down. Pinboard and now Newsblur.

StavrosK 14y ago
Quick, someone make a search engine!
- vineet 14y ago
  See https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ :-)
misiti3780 14y ago
but delicious is still around, it was never shutdown, and from what i can tell, is better (from a functionality perspective) and has a bigger community than pinboard. the site design of pinboard alone turns me off to it
boyter 14y ago
Thats actually a really good idea. I wonder what would be next? Most of Yahoo's properties seem be be neglected at the moment, but what about Google? Google News perhaps?
- bobdvb 14y ago
  flikr -> openphoto
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  Probably Google Alerts. It's rather niche but people who use it absolutely rely on it. But the VC-funded Mention seems poised to take that one.
  - frankdenbow 14y ago
    I have been using warble.co recently, which does alerts for twitter
  - MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
    Google Alerts is a good candidate. Pardon anecdotal evidence, but the people in my circles who rely on it are executives who watch for their own names, or brand managers who watch for coverage of their company. This information is very valuable and I'm sure a good service could charge a nice premium.
    - darkspaten 14y ago
      I've received some deliverables from a marketing team which uses the following service for just such a purpose (at a nice premium) @ https://www.meltwater.com/products/meltwater-news/online-media-monitoring/ https://www.meltwater.com/products/meltwater-news/online-med...

amix 14y ago

With currently only 3400 paying users it's only 80K pr. year of revenues (and the profits are probably much lower). It's still far from a good business and this kind of money does not have any kind of guarantees.

klox 14y ago
3400 is only the number of new paying users in the last 24 hours. The amount of annual income from this product will now end with "million".
- meh02 14y ago
  LOL, no. After the Reader-is-dead news cycle ends, the money will stop flowing, and the real work (supporting paying users) begins.
- DuskStar 14y ago
  Oh, wow. I had not realized that number was the DAILY signups...
- wilfra 14y ago
  revenue, not income - he's going to have high server costs now and if he wants to keep this scaling up, i suspect he'll need to bring on another person soon. at the very least, a customer service rep. still should easily net him a nice recurring six figure salary.
  - klox 14y ago
    Currently adding over 4k paid users per day. He reaches $1 million at just over 40k paid users. Factor in the userbase he's already been building for 4 years, the hundreds of thousands of Google Readers currently leaving, the millions that will need to find a replacement before July, and the last-minute movers on July 1st. I don't think server costs and a couple of employees will put him below a 7 figure income.
recuter 14y ago
> "Since the announcement, NewsBlur has welcomed 5,000 new premium subscribers and 60,000 new users (from 50,000 users originally)". That's at least $200,000/yr with high margins.

overshard 14y ago

I agree, this is a great model. To shameless plug myself I plan on doing the same with Pinry: http://getpinry.com/ http://getpinry.com/

mikeash 14y ago

It does make the truck number rather low. This is still probably less of a risk than trusting Google to keep a marginal product around (as recent events demonstrate), but there are different risks for small organizations that big ones don't share.