from Hacker News

Is it hard to build a web app that makes at least $1000 a month?

by ljdk on 5/14/11, 6:27 AM with 121 comments

• by patio11 on 5/14/11, 3:59 PM

  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.

• by dotBen on 5/14/11, 8:55 AM

  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

• by 3dFlatLander on 5/14/11, 7:52 AM

  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.

• by SeoxyS on 5/14/11, 8:35 AM

  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.

• by nicpottier on 5/14/11, 8:32 AM

  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

  </satire>

• by maxklein on 5/14/11, 9:16 AM

  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.

• by thetrumanshow on 5/14/11, 3:54 PM

  "Its hard, but not THAT hard!"

  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.

• by tjogin on 5/14/11, 9:35 AM

  I would not take business advice from anyone attributing all of Apple's success to their image and none to their products.

• by MichaelApproved on 5/14/11, 8:05 AM

  It can't be that easy otherwise everyone would build 10 or 20 of them and retire.

• by jmitcheson on 5/14/11, 8:26 AM

  Yes, yes; it's very easy! Now, just step this way and let me show you my excellent range of pick axes and mining equipment ;)

• by mootothemax on 5/14/11, 10:04 AM

  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 :)

• by SandB0x on 5/14/11, 1:36 PM

  Confirmation bias overload: this is Quora.

• by braindead_in on 5/14/11, 8:58 AM

  "The first 3 years of any startup is very hard. After 3 years you just get used to it".

• by antirez on 5/14/11, 10:19 AM

  I think it is harder to go from zero to $1000/month than from $1000/month to 100,000$/month.

  What is sad is that instead to create a spam engine, adsense powered, doing $1000/month is pretty straightforward.

• by Keyframe on 5/14/11, 9:37 AM

  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.

• by swah on 5/14/11, 11:52 AM

  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).

• by DrJ on 5/14/11, 7:01 AM

  it's so simpo' why not everyone does it?

  and I mean it in the most sarcastic way.

• by pknerd on 5/15/11, 10:19 AM

  A mobile web app mashup having a social layer+LBS on top could be quite good to earn revenue which you are looking for.

• by ahoyhere on 5/14/11, 4:22 PM

  It's not hard at all. Here's what you need to do:

  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.)

• by leon_ on 5/14/11, 8:19 AM

  the building not so. the marketing and pr needed to reach that goal on the other hand is a little more work :)

• by seanp2k on 5/14/11, 8:44 PM

  >"Is it hard to build a web app that makes at least $1000 a month?"

  Yes.

• by Vmabuza on 5/14/11, 11:04 AM

  A person asking such a question shouldnt be building stuff for profit in the first place.