
Ask HN: Could a completely free web service without ads generate any revenue? - kiraken
I&#x27;m thinking of starting a web service that could offer tools for unemployed people to get jobs for free, as my own way to help the community. I was wandering if i could generate enough revenue with it to pay for the hosting, and since i hate ads and find them to be annoying i won&#x27;t be using any (either ways most people use ads block). If the answer is no i&#x27;m still going to create the project. But it would be cool if the website could at least pay for itself
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bejuizb123
I was actually wondering about something similar to this for a different
venture (say something like Uber).

What we need to have is a constant source of income (through donations or
other mechanisms). The expenditure will be of two types, Capex and Opex. Capex
costs can be covered by the donations, as for Opex, the primary issue is of
support and maintenance. For this, my thought was to use either something like
MTurk for non-tech activities and something along the lines of open source
software development for tech activities.

I think, the world may need such a kind of open model for businesses, a self-
sustaining entity.

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joeclark77
There is another side to your market -- the job board whose customers are not
the unemployed but rather the companies who want to hire them. You could
charge companies or recruitment agencies for "premium listings" while allowing
them to post basic want ads for free.

The other way to profit, I suppose, is to use the knowledge and data gained
from the app and leverage it into some kind of personal income. For example,
maybe you run an employment agency of your own, and draw on the site's
database for leads. The app continues to be free, and you are just cherry
picking the best from it.

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z1mm32m4n
It's worth noting that Duolingo is an example of a free web service without
ads that generates a profit. In their case, they've crowdsourced the process
of translating actual web pages while teaching people new languages.

Depending on the nature of your site, perhaps you could take advantage of a
similar crowdsourcing scenario?

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kiraken
crowdsourcing is only valuable for a short period of time to my understanding.
Excuse my ignorance to anything money related

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lovelearning
Not sure what type of content you have in mind, but you could insert relevant
affiliate links in the content. Just because people are unemployed does not
mean they don't buy educational books, educational courses, training books,
motivational books, tools, electronics and many other things online.

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kiraken
The website will have a bunch of tools such as a free CV creator with top tier
graphic design, a job board, even a website creator for freelancers and
such...

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davelnewton
Focus particularly on things that aren't available elsewhere.

If you spread the functionality all over the place you won't get anything
done.

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kiraken
First i'm going to start with the resume creator, already have few designs
ready and i'm gonna let the user choose the format he wishes to export the CV
in (jpg, png, pdf...) If the application was successful, i'll start adding
other tools each time. It might not be much but it's my own way of helping :)
Also i was a UI designer before i became a web developer so you could expect
the designs and quality to be top notch

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mooktakim
Depending on what you build, you could get away with using free tier on a lot
of hosting solutions, like Heroku.

In the past I've used Heroku for some charity websites, and they've been
running well for years. If you do it well (caching etc), you could handle a
lot of traffic with the free tier.

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agiledevers
We were investigating this too. We found a very interesting way by using
client resources. The JavaScript of the client making heavy operations for
other people (ie computing proof of work for bitcoins or similar).

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kowdermeister
Ask them to donate something (up to them) from their first salary if the
manage to find a job through your platform.

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mod
Their first paycheck is likely to be the most important to them, after being
unemployed.

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pestaa
Accept donations. State your costs transparently. Contact a lawyer to get the
paperwork done.

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kiraken
The tools i'm offering are directed toward those without a job i really can't
expect much and won't ask them to donate money they need for the website. I
was hoping there is a service out there somewhere that would cover the
expenses of community service directed web applications

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mooktakim
You could ask them to donate money after they find a job, as a way to keep the
service running for the next person.

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greenjellybean
This is a good idea, it can provide "proof" that your service works as well as
pay for it.

I would be more than happy to donate back if it truly helped me land a job.

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adultSwim
Get a grant

