
Startups that are actually making money...not on advertising... - smysore
Anyone know any startups that are becomming more well-known / popular that are actually making money (how?) in this terrible economy without depending on advertising?  Thanks!
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mojombo
I'm not sure what your popularity metric is, but here at GitHub we're making
plenty of money on subscriptions for private code hosting without a single
advertisement on the site. We've also never taken any outside money. GitHub
was designed from the very first line of code to make money off of recurring
fees for premium features while bringing in traffic, goodwill, and buzz by
making everything free for open source. So far so good!

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ryanwaggoner
Someone asked a similar question awhile back:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=375417>

Some of the better comments:

Some startups and annual revenue numbers (unsourced):
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=375896>

Someone who modeled 37signals revenue:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=375771>

Nextproof and bigfolio.com <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=375575>

Hope that helps!

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jedc
I'm the guy who modeled 37signals revenue. You can download a spreadsheet with
all my calculations if you follow the link above... I would appreciate any
feedback from those who have experience in the area to improve my assumptions.

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davidw
I like patio11's thing: <http://www.bingocardcreator.com>

Well, I don't really "like" it, as I could hardly care less about bingo cards,
but it's a nice reminder that there is money even in what seems like really
weird niches.

~~~
patio11
Just released my annual report, incidentally, if you care to read it.

[http://kalzumeus.com/2008/12/21/bingo-card-creator-
year-2008...](http://kalzumeus.com/2008/12/21/bingo-card-creator-year-2008-in-
review/)

Highlights:

* $20.7k in sales from 1/1/2008 to 12/21/2008

* $10k in profit, which is about 62% YOY growth (did I hear something about a recession?)

* Works out to about $100 an hour. (It is a part-time thing at the moment.)

* Taking myself full-time in 2009, hopefully. (Got another product in the works.)

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axod
Why do you rule out depending on advertising? :/ Is income from advertising
not real money?...

FWIW Mibbit makes real money, all from advertising at the moment. Premium paid
accounts are planned, but it's a lot more work than just putting some useful
adverts up.

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sabat
It's real money but whether it's going to be stable is yet to be seen. That's
why the curiosity.

~~~
axod
Is anything stable? I haven't seen a good reason why online advertising would
be hit harder than say subscription based saas.

Fair enough to only consider one though :)

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catch23
advertising seems more stable than subscription based. At least according to
the Economist, advertising spend changes little during recessionary periods.

~~~
jamesb43
I work in advertising, and we are seeing several clients greatly reduce their
spend.

~~~
axod
What sort of advertising? I can see "brand awareness" advertising being
reduced, but why reduce any 'results based' advertising? There's not real
reason to reduce advertising that yields a positive ROI - which is easily
measurable these days usually.

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TimothyFitz
Micropayments + virtual goods & streaming music rights: <http://imvu.com>

~~~
sabat
Interesting work. Looks like your value prop vs. SL is that your world is more
straightforward and simpler (in a good way). I.e. most people going to SL
really just want to chat and goof around and don't need the complexity.

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speby
Poll Everywhere - <http://polleverywhere.com>

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thinkcomp
I'm selling software and books, both on-line and the old fashioned way.

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critke
yep - good 'ol subscriptions at <http://uploadthingy.com> \- just started 2
new thingys too....

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bisi
I think what you are doing with the Thingys is brilliant .. Keep it up !

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dshah
We've been making revenues for a while at HubSpot (<http://www.HubSpot.com>).
Business model is simple: monthly subscription for access to software that
meets a need (internet marketing).

We've never sold advertising before (though we do have decent traffic on
<http://grader.com>).

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reidman
We just sell merchandise -- t-shirts, posters, etc. We were thinking about
doing advertising stuff, but since we're a video game site, we decided to just
give our users what they wanted (swag) rather than what they go out of their
way to block (ads). It's been working exceptionally well, though that's
largely attributable to the talent of our designers.

~~~
Mistone
off the main topic but I'd love to stock some gamer hoodies on our retail
site, ping me if you'd like to partner or have any leads (hasan {at}
hoodiepeople.com)

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fallentimes
<http://ticketstumbler.com>

<http://draftmix.com>

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oneplusone
<http://www.freshbooks.com>

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Mistone
likely a bit diff from the core web app focus on HN, but we are a startup
online retail site, launched in late September, smack dab in the midst of the
big meltdown and fared pretty well in the 4th quarter. December provides a
natural lift for retail, so Jan numbers will be very interesting but overall
we did much better then projected and seem to be gaining decent traction in
our niche: www.hoodiepeople.com

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smysore
thanks - these comments help. economy is terrible (cant just say you have a
great idea and you want to postpone thinking about money) and ad based revenue
models arent really getting a lot of love these days...makes sense to look at
examples of successful startups that dont depend on ads to see what they did
right

~~~
markessien
You're buying into the hype. Think for yourself, don't listen to the news
about the 'terrible economy'. This is just a way to push the blame from
yourself to external factors.

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mattmaroon
Zynga FTW there.

~~~
fallentimes
Any idea on specific numbers?

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foodawg
Etsy <http://www.etsy.com>

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dguido
<http://theladders.com>

