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I created one of these. My company used to actively develop for a particular market. Today we no longer develop for this market, but it's a big market and the

I created one of these. My company used to actively develop for a particular market. Today we no longer develop for this market, but it's a big market and the large players have affiliate programs. We utilize these affiliate programs--they provide XML feeds and the like, and our site's backend combines them together and figures out the overlap--to run our own site in the space. The market players are quite competitive, and feud over exclusive product distribution, so ironically I think we actually have the largest inventory of any single non-affiliate site. It took about two months of my time to do the original website, much of it spent on SEO optimization and traffic generation strategies. Today we earn ~$8k/month on the site with an upkeep of ~30 minutes/week. This worked primarily because of deep knowledge of the market (from back when we were developing this kind of software). I don't think an outsider would have been able to predict hit products far enough out to lay the proper groundwork for SEO/etc. When I was actively creating the site site you could search for "Product X" on launch day and we'd be #1 or #2. Note: I also launched the site on our company's domain name, taking advantage of our existing inbound links. SEO from scratch will take a year or more to really see predictable traffic levels. So, yeah, it's definitely possible to create a cash flow muse; I think I could build another one today in around the same amount of time. It would be hard to do from a totally cold start, though; I'm not sure you could say "you know what, I'm going to make money by creating a local real estate website", or whatever random topic, and actually make it happen. But if you had friends/family in the real estate business, or somehow had accrued expert knowledge in the area, you'd be off to a strong start. If you're smart about the area you pursue you should be alright...

mlapeter 17y ago
Funny you mention local real estate websites, that's actually been something I've been thinking of. I'm a real estate broker learning to program, and my "muse" hopeful is http://mysinglepropertywebsites.com/ http://mysinglepropertywebsites.com/, which is targeted towards real estate agents. Average age of agents is 54, and they have a lot of pain points. I'm still pretty weak on programming but deep on real estate industry knowledge, if you (or anyone else) is actually interested in that area email me: mlapeter at gmail.
- Shooter 17y ago
  I'm also a real estate broker. And a programmer. And a few other things ;-) We looked at this exact market a bit. In the course of doing our research, we found a company with a similar (but better...or at least more functional) offering than the one you cite. And all of the sites are completely FREE for real estate agents. It's difficult to compete with a company that has a nice, easy-to-use system that is FREE. And they're just starting to market nationally. We eventually just started using them instead of developing our own...and we're a company with 50+ full-time developers on staff. I'd genuinely be interested in your ideas if you have a way to compete with free...
  - superchink 17y ago
    Are you talking about Postlets? I'm actually just getting involved in a property (leasing) related business and it's going to be a great stopgap for us while I build the real site
    - Shooter 17y ago
      Not Postlets. The site I'm talking about used to charge $10 per listing directly to agents, but they now have a bulk listing package which is completely underwritten for active real estate agents by third parties, including lenders. It complies with all RESPA rules. I bought one of the bulk listing packages to offer to agents. (I also own a mortgage bank and a few brokerage offices.) Where are you located?
      - superchink 17y ago
        We're in Los Angeles. Getting started by filling vacancies in a few key markets in the general LA area. Website is still under development; I still have a day-job, So we're using Postlets right now.
bkovitz 17y ago
Thanks. You addressed something I was specifically wondering about: whether these opportunities tend to be in b2b markets that most people don't know much about. I suspect that these relatively esoteric markets do indeed tend to be the best, because the customers are easier to target and it's worth it for them to pay high-enough prices that you don't need to make too many sales. I once talked with a woman in a Palo Alto coffeehouse who was running her one-person business right there (she was there just about every day). She sold a tiny program she had written that did something involving physical chemistry. I think she only had one or two customers that she licensed it to, but that was all she needed.
- matthew-wegner 17y ago
  Our site is a consumer entertainment site at the $10-20 price point. However, I would consider our particular market to be relatively unknown, especially in the larger world of internet affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing in general is probably a good approach if you have deep knowledge of some area and an idea of how to generate traffic. SEO can be quite difficult, but if you know enough about your topic--let's say you're a multi-day hiker and you're running a blog with product reviews--you should be able to generate enough actual, usable content to get some revenue flowing.

mlapeter 17y ago

Funny you mention local real estate websites, that's actually been something I've been thinking of. I'm a real estate broker learning to program, and my "muse" hopeful is http://mysinglepropertywebsites.com/ http://mysinglepropertywebsites.com/, which is targeted towards real estate agents. Average age of agents is 54, and they have a lot of pain points. I'm still pretty weak on programming but deep on real estate industry knowledge, if you (or anyone else) is actually interested in that area email me: mlapeter at gmail.

Shooter 17y ago
I'm also a real estate broker. And a programmer. And a few other things ;-) We looked at this exact market a bit. In the course of doing our research, we found a company with a similar (but better...or at least more functional) offering than the one you cite. And all of the sites are completely FREE for real estate agents. It's difficult to compete with a company that has a nice, easy-to-use system that is FREE. And they're just starting to market nationally. We eventually just started using them instead of developing our own...and we're a company with 50+ full-time developers on staff. I'd genuinely be interested in your ideas if you have a way to compete with free...
- superchink 17y ago
  Are you talking about Postlets? I'm actually just getting involved in a property (leasing) related business and it's going to be a great stopgap for us while I build the real site
  - Shooter 17y ago
    Not Postlets. The site I'm talking about used to charge $10 per listing directly to agents, but they now have a bulk listing package which is completely underwritten for active real estate agents by third parties, including lenders. It complies with all RESPA rules. I bought one of the bulk listing packages to offer to agents. (I also own a mortgage bank and a few brokerage offices.) Where are you located?
    - superchink 17y ago
      We're in Los Angeles. Getting started by filling vacancies in a few key markets in the general LA area. Website is still under development; I still have a day-job, So we're using Postlets right now.

bkovitz 17y ago

Thanks. You addressed something I was specifically wondering about: whether these opportunities tend to be in b2b markets that most people don't know much about. I suspect that these relatively esoteric markets do indeed tend to be the best, because the customers are easier to target and it's worth it for them to pay high-enough prices that you don't need to make too many sales. I once talked with a woman in a Palo Alto coffeehouse who was running her one-person business right there (she was there just about every day). She sold a tiny program she had written that did something involving physical chemistry. I think she only had one or two customers that she licensed it to, but that was all she needed.

matthew-wegner 17y ago
Our site is a consumer entertainment site at the $10-20 price point. However, I would consider our particular market to be relatively unknown, especially in the larger world of internet affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing in general is probably a good approach if you have deep knowledge of some area and an idea of how to generate traffic. SEO can be quite difficult, but if you know enough about your topic--let's say you're a multi-day hiker and you're running a blog with product reviews--you should be able to generate enough actual, usable content to get some revenue flowing.