
How I’m Making Five-Figures A Month Off Bootstrapped Products - bdunn
http://planscope.io/blog/how-im-making-five-figures-a-month-off-bootstrapped-products/
======
amix
Let me present another view why I dislike this kind of selling. I think this
author sells a story of how they got rich and how you also can get rich (and
how you can do this easily) It's a common scheme and I think the only people
that are getting rich by this are the people that are selling this kind of
knowledge.

The problem (at least based on my experience) is that building anything
successful takes a huge amounts of dedication and effort -- there's also a
large margin for failure. It's simply not something that's easy to reproduce
and you probably won't make five-figures a month by selling things to a
mailing list. Or create a 30x500 product and instantly be your own boss. And
sure, there are some that are going to succeed at this (and great for them!),
but presenting this like anybody will get rich by just following a scheme
rings off alarm clocks, especially when this kind of knowledge is sold at a
high cost.

~~~
righyeah
You've nailed it with your first paragraph.

That is the scheme. It's old. It still works. The web, like TV, is absolutely
perfect for this scheme. The audience that includes people who would pay for
this sort of advice is the one that watches TV at odd hours, and they are now
increasingly surfing the web.

It is the rough equivalent of the infommercial.

While it may be theoretically possible, no one is going to make five figures
per month except the person selling advice on how to make five figures per
month.

I don't know how these sellers sleep at night. Certainly they can do well. But
they are _deliberately_ preying on the weak. If that's the type of "business"
you want to run, go for it.

But it has always been pure sleaze and will continue to be so for the
forseeable future.

~~~
ahoyhere
Just one of my products, Freckle, makes $30,000 a month… more than 6x what you
claim is impossible. On, what, you say? Time tracking. A space in which we are
a tiny niche player. <http://letsfreckle.com>

But there's no point in letting facts get in the way of righteous
condemnation, is there?

~~~
bravoyankee
How long has freckle been around for? How many hundred blog posts have you
written to promote it? How many interviews have you done over the years and
plugged it? How many joint ventures and mailing lists has freckle been on?

Yeah, if I hustled like you have with freckle, I'd be making at least $30,000
a month too.

I'm just trying to insert some reality into the conversation. It's like
watching professional athletes, we never see how much of their life they
sacrificed to get to that point.

~~~
ahoyhere
I think it's pretty hilarious that you think I've hustled like crazy,
considering most months I don't spend more than 10 hours on Freckle… and
that's being generous. In addition to it no longer being my main focus (for
good or ill), I have chronic fatigue syndrome. If I work a 30-hour week,
that's extraordinarily high output for me.

How many blog posts? Easy to find. Look at the Freckle blog and how it's been
neglected for months and months until we hired somebody recently.

How many interviews? Google
<http://www.google.com/search?q=amy+hoy+freckle+interview> \--- looks like the
number is, practically a la the center of a Tootsie Pop, 4. I rarely talk
about Freckle except as a story in my podcast interviews, which happen oh,
maybe 2-3 times a year in general but never solely about Freckle.

Freckle is nearly 4 years old so, 1 podcast a year on average.

You can ask leading questions, a la Fox News, or you can use facts, which are
more persuasive. Unfortunately the facts are not on your side, so leading
questions it is, I suppose.

Interesting that you & the other newbie HN user have ways to "counter" every
argument. "Nobody could make more than $5k" "I make $30k" "Sure, it's easy to
make $30k off suckers, selling a sexy quick fix" "What proof is there that my
customers are suckers, and who thinks time tracking SaaS is sexy?" "Oh
everybody could make $30k if they worked their asses off like you have" "I
barely touch it at all" -- what will your counter be this time?

~~~
ryan_f
I am a happy customer of Freckle, love the product and what it does. But to
hear the statements of the work that is in Freckle is a little disheartening.
I have made requests in the past for updates and was happy when I was answered
back about the requests. Its been already half a year and I haven't seen my
request or really anything new come into the service. Small lesson here is
that a simple answer back made me think of progress.

Is this a big issue? No, I am not leaving Freckle - I recommend it a lot to
people. But with the little time as stated previously in development, I
shouldn't hold my breath. It's just an example of how communication can be
presented and perceived differently. I don't want to call it BS, but that is
what I think is meant in other comments here.

~~~
ky3
_But with the little time as stated previously in development, I shouldn't
hold my breath._

It sucks when the tool you rely on doesn't get as much love as it deserves.

Fwiw, Amy devotes a huge chunk of time she would otherwise spend on Freckle
and Charm to her 30x500 course that (horror of horrors!) teaches how to build
SaaS products one wee baby step at a time.

Let a hundred freckles bloom.

(You'd think that she'd force her students to sign non-competes. In their own
blood. See, here's my scar!)

------
johnrob
The depressing truth about the software business is that most of the success
stories take the form "and then I started spending all my time on marketing,
and my business took off!".

I say depressing because most software developers didn't choose their
profession out of a burning desire to become a marketer.

~~~
bdunn
That's sort of like saying "the depressing truth about relationships is that
you need to go out and meet people to get involved in one."

I take a lot of pride in promoting my products. Marketing is just
storytelling, and when your story aligns with the needs of someone else, a
transaction occurs.

Honestly, if you want to just write code all day (and there's nothing wrong
with that) don't create a product - work for somebody else.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
That defeats the purpose. If I have a great idea for a product and I want to
work on it, why would I go work for somebody else instead? A much better idea
would be to join forces with a marketing guy or girl or hire one.

~~~
drusenko
Doesn't this sound oddly like the often reviled "I have a great idea, now all
I need is to hire a programmer!"

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I don't think so. If I have an idea _and_ I am able and willing to develop the
product, I have more to offer than just an idea. Product development is a job.
Having ideas isn't.

I see no reason why software developers and marketing people shouldn't start a
startup together. Both have something valuable they can contribute.

~~~
drusenko
I think you may have missed my point. It was that the "business person" is
usually seen as "just having an idea, not doing any real work" by this
community -- even though they would bring marketing, PR, product, etc skills
to the table.

And the dismissive "I'll just hire a marketer" talk sounds a lot like the
marketer saying "I'll just hire a programmer".

It seems like we're in full agreement: these two functions can and should co-
exist.

------
patio11
I had an experience very similar to Brennan's recently. Appointment Reminder,
the SaaS which I _wish_ was the center of gravity of my business at the
moment, is profitable but not profitable enough to hire the folks and buy the
things that I want to accelerate growth of it.

So I have been supporting it by consulting, but when I'm consulting I'm not
selling Appointment Reminder accounts, and consulting is _always_ more
distracting than I expect it to be. (You think I would realize this after two
years of it, but I persistently underestimate how much time it takes to e.g.
prospect for new clients, negotiate/schedule engagements, travel to them, and
deal with follow-up stuff like invoices.)

The traditional option for scaling a software business with a working product
and actual customers is to take investment, but that's another ball of wax.
There's fairly attractive options in angel investing these days, but taking
any outside money would have an outsized effect on the character of my
business at the moment, and I'm not ready to pull that trigger yet. Also, like
consulting, raising an investment round is a _very_ distracting event -- it
basically commits you to months of doing near no productive work. (And unlike
consulting, taking investment causes time debt which is _impossible_ to
discharge until you exit your business: you're now committed to keeping those
investors happy and in the loop for, well, forever in business terms.)

But, having seen a lot of smart software companies do side projects (37signals
was a big fan of it, and Amy Hoy and company have quite a bit of success) I
decided to try my hand at it once and see how it went. So I started packaging
one of my most-commonly-a-win consulting offerings as an online course, and
decided to experiment with it once. (And, like Brennan says and like everybody
in the space will tell you, I started by making an email list and sending them
lots of free stuff they enjoyed which further burnished my credibility on the
subject.)

The experiment was very successful: my customers seem to have liked what I
produced, many of them have actually used it to positive effect in their
business, and it raised a significant amount of money. (I'll probably blog in
detail about it later).

An unanticipated side effect was, because of the topic I picked for my video
course, I actually sat down and took all my own advice for a change (AR had an
email strategy which I would have never let fly at a consulting client simply
because I shipped the minimum necessary and never revisited that decision),
and that ended up working out very well.

So, basically, yes: confirmation from someone else, this does work and it is
perfectly compatible with running a software business.

~~~
danielharan
I'll say it again: I'm pretty sure several people here would finance your
transition. With standard conditions, you should be able to raise in under a
month. Think of what you could do with 100k, perhaps only diluting 5%.

~~~
KnowledgeSponge
Not sure if you saw it, but one of his concerns is the time debt that
essentially binds him to the will of his investors if he were to take their
money.

IMHO this is a very valid concern for a "lifestyle" business, if that is
indeed what he intends it to be.

~~~
danielharan
Investors with a minor stake don't get to boss you around or gobble up all
your time.

------
abootstrapper
I don't mean to pick on OP, but I'm always a little surprised at how some
authors can make money, by writing about how to make money. When in fact, the
way they made money was selling books about it, not necessarily by the advice
found in their books.

I personally don't feel qualified to write about how to build a successful
business, because I feel my business isn't satisfactorily large or successful
enough. Though I'm pretty sure I could write about it. I guess I'm surprised
to see peers doing this as a means to become successful and raise money. It's
almost like a self fulfilling prophecy.

~~~
Evbn
Just write the book, changing the parts about losing money to making money,
and start promoting it.

~~~
abootstrapper
Don't get me wrong. My business makes decent money. At least as much as I'd
make if I had a fulltime job instead. I'm just not sure that's enough success
to qualify me as an educator and model on how to do business well. Hell, most
of it boils down to luck. Yet, lots of people in the same boat as me write
about their "success." Maybe it's lack of confidence on my part, or maybe it's
Dunning–Kruger effect.

On the other hand, there's a lot of value (to other people) of disclosing what
you've learned as a mildly successful business person. Most people like to
keep their cards close to their chest. It's nice to read exactly how your
peers are doing business.

~~~
WA
I'm in the exact same position like you. My bootstrapped company pays a bit
more than if I were employed somewhere (but with waaaay less time I need to
spend on it), but I also don't feel entitled to write a book about making
money.

It'd feel fake for me. I was also lucky with my business.

Anyways, since I've got some time now, I'll try to build another business by
following a specific process I think is right. Maybe, once I'm done with this
second business (or a 3rd) and I can claim that my process/experience helps
other people to also start their businesses, I'll write a book about it.

One more aspect: If I talk to friends (being employeed somewhere) or people
who try to get started in bootstrapping a business, I'm quite surprised that I
know much more than I used to know and that my advice might even help a bit
here and there.

------
qeorge
Brennan also just did a _really_ good podcast with Patrick (patio11) and Keith
Perhac on how freelancers should double their rates (with transcription!).
Definitely recommend it to anyone who sells services.

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/10/10/kalzumeus-
podcast-3-grow...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/10/10/kalzumeus-
podcast-3-growing-consulting-practices-with-brennan-dunn/)

------
nhangen
Brennan,

We met at LessConf, and talked quite a bit. I think you're a great guy and you
are obviously very talented and very smart.

But...I got into this business because I got tired of the get rich blogging
circle jerk I was part of in the past, and I'm very disappointed to see it
coming into the tech world too.

I don't take issue with what you are doing, but between the turn Andrew took
at Mixergy (pumping out a bunch of subpar marketing courses), the #leanstartup
hysteria, and Frank Kern's IM marketing buddies infiltrating the space, I'm
grossed out by the pitching and the polish.

Please let there be solace from this stuff somewhere...

~~~
kanamekun
I'm a Mixergy Premium member, and have actually found Andrew's courses to be
really helpful. I love the Mixergy interviews, but at the end of the day where
I've really gotten the value is the courses where the specific tactics the
interviewees have used is laid out in real detail.

I don't known Brennan at all personally, but I'm actually pretty amazed that
you equated his post to a "get rich blogging circle jerk." The point of his
post is various ways you can bootstrap revenues while you're waiting for SAAS
subscription revenues to grow. Seems like a pretty far cry from a "get rich
quick" scheme.

Just standing up for two guys that I have never spoken to, but admire for how
much they have given back to the 'net entrepreneur community.

~~~
nhangen
I didn't equate his post to that, I'm saying that that's the path we're on
with much of this.

I'd rather bootstrap revenues by iterating on my product.

------
scorpioxy
I've been thinking about trying one of the mentioned courses because I am
trying to transition from side projects just to scratch an itch to services
that people would actually use. So figured that learning from the experience
of people who've done it before (Amy, Patrick, Brennan...) would cut down on
the trial and error phase.

But how would I shake the feeling that these exist as part of the marketing
scheme that the entrepreneurs engage in. These courses are not exactly cheap,
but you know... "How do you make $10,000 selling an ebook online? Write an
ebook that promises to teach people how to make $10,000 selling an ebook
online"

~~~
bdunn
Let's look at a few examples:

* Amy Hoy's 30x500: An alternative to the "pick an idea, build, then sell" mentality. She's poured a LOT of research (trust me on this one) into her course, along with what's obviously worked well for her.

* Patrick McKenzie's latest course: A distillation of the stuff he usually advises his consulting clients to do. Read through his blog, it's knowledge he's accumulated over years of trial and error.

* My book or workshop: I've consulted for a while, and bootstrapped a fairly successful consultancy ($1mm+/year), and I also spent months reading through ridiculously boring CXO-level books on pricing tactics and strategy. I've distilled this down into something easily consumable for a freelance consultant.

You're buying our expertise (largely the result of our trial and error and the
losses we incurred) and any ancillary research we did.

If you value your time, and think - you know, that spending $49 on a book that
in 2 hours covers strategies and tactics related to pricing freelance services
is better than the alternative - namely, cobbling all that information
together yourself - then you're a good candidate to be a customer.

~~~
scorpioxy
I'm specifically looking at getting into product development. Any suggested
reading material for me?

------
aw3c2
Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cac...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fplanscope.io%2Fblog%2Fhow-
im-making-five-figures-a-month-off-bootstrapped-products%2F)

~~~
bdunn
EDIT: Fixed itself

Taking the kid to a friends house and you all hosed the server :-) I'm on my
way back to fix. Sorry!

------
atomical
How much time do you spend on SEO for Planscope? What percentage of paid
customers sign up through organic search?

~~~
bdunn
About 25% of accounts find Planscope organically.

Honestly, I don't spend much time on SEO itself. I follow standard best
practices, write content targeted to my audience, and let the Googles figure
out the rest.

------
stevewilhelm
It's a bit misleading to say "Five-Figures A Month" when you only have one
month's of data.

Let's see that graph in a year's time.

------
ricardobeat
I don't see how riting and workshops are "bootstrapped products". They won't
be bringing nearly as much revenue in six months. A better title would be "How
I'm financing my startup by selling books/courses" but I guess that doesn't
fit the sales pitch so well.

~~~
gyardley
Are you confusing 'bootstrapped products' with some other concept like
'passive income'? Amount of revenue six months out doesn't have anything to do
with whether something's bootstrapped.

------
bdunn
As always, available to answer any questions or share any metrics.

~~~
pault
How do you market to someone that is immediately skeptical of any long form
sales letter promising five figure a month income?

~~~
bdunn
For every 1 person who fits that profile, there are 10 that don't :-)

I meticulously track the results I'm getting, and have tested a variant that
ISN'T a long form sales letter. Guess which won out?

~~~
rexreed
Just out of curiosity, and if you still have it around, I'd love to see the
non-long form letter. I wonder if it would appeal to the other demographic.

------
nathanbarry
Brennan, congratulations! It is well deserved. I've had a lot of success
selling a book, but now it is time to make the switch to recurring revenue.

~~~
bdunn
They both have their places.

You can budget against recurring revenue - it generally just takes time to
ramp up.

Infoproducts require constant tending (marketing), but when life happens and
you need some cash, you can run a sale.

Also - mailing lists glue it all together - _best decision ever._

~~~
javajosh
> Also - mailing lists glue it all together - best decision ever.

So Brennan, how did you start your mailing list, and how do you keep it
healthy and growing? For example, do you allow your subscribers to post to the
list, or is it just a newsletter?

Also, have there ever been times when you've wanted to hold back some secret
sauce and not share it because it's just too darn good?

~~~
bdunn
Nope, I like sharing (and, confession: it gets me incidental business. Win-win
all around.)

My mailing list initially came from Planscope subscribers. You'll notice I
have a "get 8 free reports" opt-in on the blog and when you sign up for a
trial. That is rehashing the BEST email reports I've ever sent using an
autoresponder. My general freelancer mailing list (non-Planscope specific) is
people who came over via Planscope or the book.

Here's an example: [http://us1.campaign-
archive2.com/?u=ac67336d11c5d745a54e0867...](http://us1.campaign-
archive2.com/?u=ac67336d11c5d745a54e08673&id=a300f186e8)

------
tuxidomasx
Selling products to people who have subscribed to an email list may be a great
way to get customers. But part of the secret sauce is getting people to be on
your list in the first place. I was hoping the article would touch on that a
bit more.

Where do you find people who are potential customers who willingly want you to
market to them? If I could master that, the sky is the limit.

------
ryanwaggoner
Awesome post. I'm a huge fan of Brennan's ebook (we're about to do a
discounted promotion of it to our 7500-developer-strong mailing list at
<http://21times.org>) and it's already paid for itself hundreds of times over
for me.

That said, the most exciting thing out of all the items he's making money from
(consulting, ebook, workshop, and planscope) is planscope, because of that
steady climb in monthly recurring revenue. Give it a couple years and that
will dwarf everything else he's doing, and give him a nice platform from which
to still bring in spikes of cash from info-products or workshops.

I'm starting to wonder if I should have ponied up the cash for Amy Hoy's
30x500 course (I believe Brennan is a graduate). Speaking of which, Amy is
another poster child for this approach of SaaS + info products.

------
hristov
So what you are saying is that the successful business model is shifting to
selling shovels to the poor hopeful fools coming off the boat. I do hope that
is not the case. I hope there is still gold in the mountains.

------
peterjancelis
Edit: Problem solved. Thanks Brennan!

~~~
bdunn
That's the ejunkie default, it should be fixed now - did you email me about
it? I'm more than happy to manually resend.

~~~
peterjancelis
Yeah I did email you about it earlier today as I wanted to read your book this
weekend :)

My apologies if I am being too impatient. If it's the default setting I agree
you went with it. (Amy Hoy would call this "worry about it when you are rich"
wouldn't she?)

~~~
ahoyhere
Not sure what the original problem was because the OP's been edited but
probably, that sounds like something I'd say… sorta ;) I rarely use the r-word
("rich") but there is definitely a list of problems I categorize as "Great
Problems to Have."

------
joshcrews
on getting out of consulting-- wouldn't that slowly age your relevance on
marketing products/workshops/ebooks as an expert on running a consulting
company? Why not keep some consulting business to stay 'in the game'?

~~~
bdunn
I don't think there will be any breakthroughs in managing cashflow, value
based pricing, and similar topics anytime soon.

If I were writing ebooks and workshops on something technical - like Ruby -
then yes, it would be a bad example to withdraw from Ruby.

Also, I doubt I'll ever stop consulting altogether. But my days of writing
code full time for clients is drawing to an end.

------
mandeepj
Guys, I am sorry if you think this is a bad comment but I had this question in
my mind so I thought of putting it up here.

Now most of life runs off of smart phones which basically comes off with
softwares like Appointment Reminder, time scheduling, notes etc (basically
productivity suites) so I am not sure investing in this type of software will
even let you break even. Although I see these pre-installed softwares are
missing features like synchronization across phones. We are talking about SAAS
software so I will not talk about inside office premises hosted software.

So again I am not sure how one see Appointment Reminder software business as a
profitable one.

~~~
thomaslangston
Patrick's Appointment Reminder doesn't have much in common with your smart
phone app. Patrick's app is really a robocall tied to a central calendar. Your
smartphone is just a personal calendar.

You could cobble together a solution using manually sent email to meeting
invites, but it wouldn't work for all customers as well.

------
JimWestergren
Looks very interesting, just bought your book.

------
munyukim
Quite an innovative way of making runway money

~~~
rexreed
Agreed. While there's a concern that non-product development activities are a
distraction from product development and marketing efforts, I can tell you
from experience that raising money and managing investors is a MAJOR time
drag. It can consume 3+ months of your life in doing nothing but chasing
meetings, crafting presentations, and satisfying the puzzling whims of
different investors.

Then you have to work with lawyers to draft and finalize terms. And once you
are done, you aren't done. The monthly/ quarterly investor presentation dance
and the associated mental stress is just as defocusing as putting together a
workshop or writing an eBook.

On the whole, I actually think having a complementary side-business to your
main business, especially something that has some scale to it like workshops
and/or e-books makes a LOT of sense. Especially when you combine it with the
fact that software startups nowadays require less capital than ever to start.

~~~
thomaslangston
Is there any benefit from a quarterly presentation though for organizing your
strategy? Even if I don't have investors, should I not create some similar
type of document to organize a picture of where the business is and where it
is heading?

------
sown
How does one come up with something to sell? I don't know anything about PM so
I could never write something like that.

~~~
ky3
_How does one come up with something to sell?_

That's backwards. Try: How do I come up with a community to serve?

And then you add on: How do I come up with a community that's within my
ability to serve and demonstrates willingness to exchange money for value?

And then you go study that community to see in what ways you can help.

~~~
sown
This is a good insight. Thank you.

'though I can't think of anything a community would want...

~~~
adrianhoward
Seek and ye shall find ;-)

You don't think up something the community would want. You _observe_ people
and see what they need. Find the problem first - then figure out the solution.

~~~
sown
I think the problem now is that I can't relate. I don't like restaurants,
food, social networks, music or whatever else it is people are into it seems.
I don't have any professional contacts or anything really outside of software
so I don't know what people want or need. I don't even know how to observe
people

------
kordless
I'm getting a database connection error.

------
laurentoget
cool...more get rich quick schemes!

~~~
tayl0r
HN loves get rich quick schemes!

------
brador
You don't have a business until you hire your first employee. Until then,
you're just a dude trying to make a living.

~~~
moocow01
Just wait until you have an employee... you'll realize your just a dude trying
to make 2 dude's livings.

