

I’ve Made $216,688 From Products This Year - joshuacc
http://unicornfree.com/2010/i-made-216668-from-products/

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briandoll
This is a great transparent article on how much Amy Hoy has made through her
various products this year. I'd love to see more of these types of posts!

Amy is well regarded in the web community (notably the Rails/JavaScript/Design
communities), and she has several different types of products here
(information products, subscription services and seminars). I'd bet they each
serve as a marketing vehicle for one another, and I can only guess she'll
continue to do better and better each year.

Congrats Amy, and thanks for such an honest behind-the-scenes post!

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forgotAgain
Did I miss something or did $130,000 come from workshops rather than products?
To me workshops aren't where I want to spend my time if I'm developing
products. They are too time intensive and costly. The gross amount is nice but
I suspect the actual income is a lot less.

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ahoyhere
That income is from about 20 days total of teaching. The main course we
developed on 2009. There is some time to market and update, but you've got to
admit, that's a ludicrously good ROI.

That said, like Kyle said, and my article said, it's not where I want to be
forever. But training is still a product.

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callmeed
I disagree. _Training is a service_.

A product (as defined by me) is something you build once and sell. That could
be an ebook, an SaaS web app, or some kind of widget. It could even be access
to workshops you've recorded. But training people in person or live online is
not a product.

You might say it's simply a matter of semantics, but I think it's an important
distinction. Services don't scale like products because you are limited by the
amount of time you're available to perform said service.

Keep in mind I'm not trying to take away from your success. It's a good blog
post–I simply find the title and use of the word "product" inaccurate.

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ahoyhere
If you sell a product -- with no subscription & no support -- but customers
wont buy unless you do several in-person sales meetings, it's still a product.

I decide when and where to put on workshops. Then people pay me to show up.
It's a product.

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callmeed
To me, you just defined the distinction further. Anyone on a company's sales
staff can do an in-person sales meeting and sell a product. Want to sell more
product next month? Hire and train more sales staff.

But only Amy Hoy can teach a seminar by Amy Hoy. People are paying for your
specific knowledge/reputation. You have a fixed amount of time every month and
cannot be in two places at once.

Still don't agree. Not a product :)

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tptacek
You are stuck on the semantics of the word "by" in "Seminar by Amy Hoy". A
salesperson would _absolutely_ sell "A Magical Evening of Amy Hoy Brought To
You By One Of Our Talented Trainers". They in fact do it all the time.

Of course, Mrs. Hoy can do a lot of things to make it even easier to
disintermediate herself from the course. But she doesn't really even need to.

I really don't know much about Amy Hoy. Nice hat. But I've watched a fair bit
of training get sold (software security training is a fairly hot item, and
we've built courseware and delivered training to some pretty large companies),
and I think you're off base here.

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ck2
I look at all she's accomplished and have to admit how incredibly lazy I am.

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brianbreslin
Incredible article Amy.

And to those saying workshops aren't "products" well I'd argue they straddle
the product/service line. Since you're creating a content package and then
presenting it. Lots of the material from workshops can be re-sold or re-
presented over and over. Vs pure services which you are creating on demand
each time.

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jeffbski
Great article Amy! An inspiring and encouraging story to show people it can be
done. Hard work and persistence pays off.

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lionhearted
> Money is a tool for me — I want more money to hire people full-time, to pay
> for some boutique development work I want done, to do a few personal things
> I want to do. I want to be able to work with my dream team (and they don’t
> come cheap). That sorta thing.

Love that. More money can equal hiring more money, commissioning more art,
hiring better trainers so you can learn faster, buying better tools, funding
science and research, traveling more and easier, doing more and greater
charity, and otherwise good things. I always thought it's silly when people go
out of their way to say, "I'd never need more than $xx,xxx." Okay, you
wouldn't _need_ it, but with the least little bit of creativity, there's a lot
of good and cool things you could do with it. Money's a terrible master, but a
pretty good servant.

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aresant
More impressive than the gross number is the 4x growth in Freckle subscription
billing YTD, that is outstanding - $3k to $12k in 10 months.

Lesson learned from experience - when you've got a tiger by the tail like that
drop everything, hyper focus on marketing, experiment with paid promotion,
partnerships, affiliates, a/b testing, etc.

If you maintain your revenue growth rate for another year you can do anything
else you want, and it's a great product that's got the ability to scale.

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eof
The title is pretty misleading here, it's really "I've grossed 216,688...'

That being said, very nice.

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ahoyhere
"How much do you make?" "$90,000." "After tax and healthcare contributions?"
"Huh? No... before." "Misleading!"

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eof
I don't really think so. When you are selling products it's specifically
different than a salary.

If I sold 10k widgets for $10 a piece and said my business made a 100k last
year, ignoring rent, cost of widget and labor, that would definitely be
misleading.

Besides, there are still taxes paid on top of whatever they did bring in, so
it really doesn't fit your cute analogy. They paid free lancers, etc.

I mean I don't care, but "How much do you make" has _built into the question_
the idea that everyone who gets a salary pays taxes, etc. When you are talking
about a business 'making money' it is _built into the question_ that there are
costs associated with it.

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aaronblohowiak
net vs gross is a little ambiguous in english unless those terms are used.

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eof
yeah but it's idiosyncratic in talks about salaries (gross) and a business
making money (net)

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tocomment
If you sell products through an llc do you have to pay social security on it?

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kneath
You have to pay social security on every dime up to $120,000 you personally
make. Doesn't matter if you make it through an Sole Proprietorship, LLC,
C-Corp or S-Corp.

Although in Amy's case, she may not have to pay any living in Vienna. But I'm
sure the US Gov't get it's share.

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tocomment
That doesn't sound quite right. Dividends, capital gains, and interest are
forms of income not requiring FICA right?

It seems like FICA should only be for selling your labor.

I think the 120k figure is wrong too but I'm on an olden first gen iPhone so I
can look it up.

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mauricio
If you try to declare that all the money you pulled from your LLC was
dividends and not a salary, the IRS will bust you. Once you declare a 'fair'
amount as salary (and pay FICA), the rest you can pull without paying FICA.

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zackattack
That was very fun to read~!

