Define "hard." It is an eminently achievable goal to build a business which makes $1,000 a month. That isn't a "get into the NFL then win the Superbowl" goal, that is a "get into college" goal on the relative-risk-of-total-failure continuum. The process of doing it is fairly well understood and focused application of effort towards it makes it quite likely that you will succeed.
It does require a bit of a mindset change. You have to stop thinking of yourself as a "skilled developer", for one, since development skill leads to success in software businesses like the ability to cook amazing waffles leads to successfully running a bed and breakfast.
You have to stop thinking of yourself as a "skilled developer", for one, since development skill leads to success in software businesses like the ability to cook amazing waffles leads to successfully running a bed and breakfast.
A few years ago I was part of a small company, and one day we had a meeting to discuss our future (and yes, porn was one of the things we discussed, though we ended up not pursuing it). The question we asked was, "What was the goal of the company?" If the answer was "To make money", then was writing code the proper way to do it? Each of us, being coders, had come to think so.
I sometimes think that having a skill or a passion for some hands-on activity is a detriment because it leads you think you can and should be doing that as the path to success. The whole "do what you love and the money will follow" nonsense.
OTOH, if you believe you have no tangible skill, but think you can recognize or anticipate a market, then you don't bother trying to implement the solution yourself; you go hire people. (Of course pulling that off is a skill in itself, but it's a different sort from the "make things with your hands" realm where coding lives.)
From a business point of view it may make more sense to take a high-paying but soul-sucking Rails contract job and use the money to pay other developers to implement you MVP.
since development skill leads to success in software businesses like the ability to cook amazing waffles leads to successfully running a bed and breakfast.
Applying your startup skills to projects in the adult space will certainly help you wing your way to $1000/m v easily.
Big data/machine learning of all the meta data associated on tube sites, repurposing content for tablets, recommendation engines, social layers that are delineated/firewalled from the mainstream social graph, hosting/live streaming services for adult content -- are all opportunity spaces that come to mind.
Many of these projects can be kept on "life-support" and still bring in a healthy profit if set up correctly.
Please don't down-vote because it's porn - it's a legal and legitimate space
Many of these projects can be kept on "life-support" and still bring in a healthy profit if set up correctly.
How do you know this? I'm genuinely curious; is this reasonable speculation (but still speculation) or do you have some concrete evidence of this working for people?
What I've read lately about porn sites suggests that the days of easy money are gone, modulo a few outliers.
I've been wanting to build a niche video/picture site for a while (to deal with all the CDN/scaling issues involved myself), and I've also been looking for a project I can use this Programming Collective Intelligence book on.
Adult seems to be a good next project for me. The only initial unknown I can think of would be where content would come from unless it's user-supplied. Any other links/info/thoughts?
Questions like this, "what should I build", and "which language should I use", and etc make me cringe when I read them. Asking questions is awesome, but these just don't seem to be productive. His question isn't related to building a web app at all, he just wants to know if he built that app, could it make $1k+ per month. Plus, any answer(s) given will likely just fuel his planning, and not execution.
In his defense I know lots of developers doing small webapps they intend to keep on life support and not actively work at growing in an attempt to hit their magic mark for what their monthly budget / expenses are. This may not be the attitude of the majority of HNers but lots of people would be happy with a way to make 2500$ a month for themselves... Just enough to maintain a modest quality of life in the midwest.
Both the question and the answer are all kinds of silly. You can't start a project with the end goal of making $1000 a month, or you will surely fail. Instead, you've gotta motivated to solve a problem you've identified and then you need to execute on it.
Coding isn't everything either. You may be a fine developer, but you're forgetting about design, marketing, customer support, dealing with crisis when your project does good, dealing when depression when it doesn't…
Don't make a plan to get to $1000. Rather, build something cool, and when $1000 does or does not show up at the door, be thankful and learn from the experience. And try again. Iterate.
I have an eBook for sale for $39.00 that will show you how in ten easy steps, it includes:
1) how to market yourself and use the power of social networking to do the marketing for you
2) how to unlock the power of referrals
3) how you can grow from making $1000 a month, to over $10,000 a month in three more months of work.
"I never thought I could own my own business, but it is just so easy" - happy customer
$37 would be more common for that sort of book, BTW ;-) (Coincidentally just yesterday I noted there are 10x the results for "$37 ebook" than for "$39 ebook" on Google.)
I have many products that make more than $1000 a month. Tip - use the app stores to cut away the pain of having to market to users through vague means. App stores are a godsend if you are a good developer but bad marketer.
Would you care to elaborate on which app stores. I can see how people can make money developing mobile apps, but is it possible to get a decent revenue from say Chrome Webstore.
6 years into building web-apps and finally I am just now seeing a few bucks rolling in (still <$1000 month).
I wasted lots of time, primarily pursuing the wrong kinds of business models (free!!!) or putting effort into the wrong areas of a business, ultimately burning out because things weren't working.
But, even if you've picked a good product with a good market, for the un-initiated engineer there's this mysterious delta between being able to build something (anything!), and making that something successful. My recommendation (because its working for me), is to find a co-founder who is a business guy employed at a successful small software company. Painting with broad strokes here, but try to pick a sales or marketing guy over a biz dev guy, I think they are connected better with the product.
You've heard this advice before. Its true. Engineers think of the world as meritocratic. But good product != success. You need someone to help you get past this way of thinking.
Indeed. How does the poster figure Apple got their image? It was pretty bad, their image I mean, in the 90s. It surely couldn't be something crazy like they make great products :)
If it takes you one year to get that product to $1K/month, then you'll need 20 years... But you have to consider that in 20 years, some of your apps will die and also managing 20 apps and customers is a headache.
I think saying, however sarcastically, that if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it is kinda pointless. The most important step is to get started in the first place.
Even if you don't make huge amounts of money (disclaimer: that's my blog post linked at the bottom of the answer), there's a huge gulf between those that spend their days thinking about possibilities, and those that get up and start their projects. If you're in the latter group, you stand a much greater chance :)
Is it hard to write a story or make a film that people will watch? Same thing, just a bit different. "Everyone" seems to know the answer, but the truth is nobody knows. Because everyone would do it then.
What does a "recurring billing system" do? I'm new to this, but all I did for now was to store PayPal's (actually the clone that exists in my country) transactions in my database, and bump the "good_until" timestamp when a new payment is received (via POST in my case).
1. Pick a tool you can build which will make money for people.
2. Build it for people who will pay.
3. Market to them.
4. Build it.
5. Ship it.
6. Market to them. (Over and over. It's not a one-time thing.)
I've done it, and I teach other people to do it. (But the thing is - once you reach $1000, you might as well go further since the first $100 is the hardest, once you get that, you have proof and you begin to have leverage for word of mouth and client success stories and yadda yadda yadda.)
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
It does require a bit of a mindset change. You have to stop thinking of yourself as a "skilled developer", for one, since development skill leads to success in software businesses like the ability to cook amazing waffles leads to successfully running a bed and breakfast.
[+] [-] jamesbritt|15 years ago|reply
A few years ago I was part of a small company, and one day we had a meeting to discuss our future (and yes, porn was one of the things we discussed, though we ended up not pursuing it). The question we asked was, "What was the goal of the company?" If the answer was "To make money", then was writing code the proper way to do it? Each of us, being coders, had come to think so.
I sometimes think that having a skill or a passion for some hands-on activity is a detriment because it leads you think you can and should be doing that as the path to success. The whole "do what you love and the money will follow" nonsense.
OTOH, if you believe you have no tangible skill, but think you can recognize or anticipate a market, then you don't bother trying to implement the solution yourself; you go hire people. (Of course pulling that off is a skill in itself, but it's a different sort from the "make things with your hands" realm where coding lives.)
From a business point of view it may make more sense to take a high-paying but soul-sucking Rails contract job and use the money to pay other developers to implement you MVP.
(BTW, the book The E-Myth covers some of this.)
[+] [-] chopsueyar|15 years ago|reply
Well put.
[+] [-] mise|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtogo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dotBen|15 years ago|reply
Big data/machine learning of all the meta data associated on tube sites, repurposing content for tablets, recommendation engines, social layers that are delineated/firewalled from the mainstream social graph, hosting/live streaming services for adult content -- are all opportunity spaces that come to mind.
Many of these projects can be kept on "life-support" and still bring in a healthy profit if set up correctly.
Please don't down-vote because it's porn - it's a legal and legitimate space
[+] [-] jamesbritt|15 years ago|reply
How do you know this? I'm genuinely curious; is this reasonable speculation (but still speculation) or do you have some concrete evidence of this working for people?
What I've read lately about porn sites suggests that the days of easy money are gone, modulo a few outliers.
[+] [-] getsat|15 years ago|reply
Adult seems to be a good next project for me. The only initial unknown I can think of would be where content would come from unless it's user-supplied. Any other links/info/thoughts?
[+] [-] zacharyz|15 years ago|reply
He runs one of the slickest sites tube sites out there.
[+] [-] nametoremember|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] naner|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3dFlatLander|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tseabrooks|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neoveller|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SeoxyS|15 years ago|reply
Coding isn't everything either. You may be a fine developer, but you're forgetting about design, marketing, customer support, dealing with crisis when your project does good, dealing when depression when it doesn't…
Don't make a plan to get to $1000. Rather, build something cool, and when $1000 does or does not show up at the door, be thankful and learn from the experience. And try again. Iterate.
[+] [-] nicpottier|15 years ago|reply
"I never thought I could own my own business, but it is just so easy" - happy customer
</satire>
[+] [-] gersh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petercooper|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kahawe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxklein|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcdaid|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yeahsure|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thetrumanshow|15 years ago|reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY
6 years into building web-apps and finally I am just now seeing a few bucks rolling in (still <$1000 month).
I wasted lots of time, primarily pursuing the wrong kinds of business models (free!!!) or putting effort into the wrong areas of a business, ultimately burning out because things weren't working.
But, even if you've picked a good product with a good market, for the un-initiated engineer there's this mysterious delta between being able to build something (anything!), and making that something successful. My recommendation (because its working for me), is to find a co-founder who is a business guy employed at a successful small software company. Painting with broad strokes here, but try to pick a sales or marketing guy over a biz dev guy, I think they are connected better with the product.
You've heard this advice before. Its true. Engineers think of the world as meritocratic. But good product != success. You need someone to help you get past this way of thinking.
[+] [-] tjogin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thenduks|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 5teev|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelApproved|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iconfinder|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FrojoS|15 years ago|reply
And of course not everyone can retire at the same time as longs as we don't have a more advanced economy ;-)
[+] [-] jmitcheson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mootothemax|15 years ago|reply
Even if you don't make huge amounts of money (disclaimer: that's my blog post linked at the bottom of the answer), there's a huge gulf between those that spend their days thinking about possibilities, and those that get up and start their projects. If you're in the latter group, you stand a much greater chance :)
[+] [-] SandB0x|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] braindead_in|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antirez|15 years ago|reply
What is sad is that instead to create a spam engine, adsense powered, doing $1000/month is pretty straightforward.
[+] [-] VB6_Foreverr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Keyframe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riffraff|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swah|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] DrJ|15 years ago|reply
and I mean it in the most sarcastic way.
[+] [-] aristidb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pknerd|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahoyhere|15 years ago|reply
1. Pick a tool you can build which will make money for people.
2. Build it for people who will pay.
3. Market to them.
4. Build it.
5. Ship it.
6. Market to them. (Over and over. It's not a one-time thing.)
I've done it, and I teach other people to do it. (But the thing is - once you reach $1000, you might as well go further since the first $100 is the hardest, once you get that, you have proof and you begin to have leverage for word of mouth and client success stories and yadda yadda yadda.)
[+] [-] rhizome|15 years ago|reply
You should hack off 2-6 and describe step 1 in 7 steps.
[+] [-] mootothemax|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raarky|15 years ago|reply