
My New $156 Startup - tacon
http://theteacherpreneur.com/2015/03/24/my-new-156-startup/
======
dikaiosune
Perhaps I'm just jaded or not "in the know," but this seems like a shallow and
short-term business model for a SaaS product.

How do you maintain the codebase? Oh, I just go grab a dev on Elance again.
What happens when they introduce bugs into the codebase? Elance! OK, cool,
that's definitely a long-term solution. Do you perform meaningful A/B testing?
Add new features? Do anything to justify the continuous cost of SaaS to the
customer?

These all seem like things that an actual team would be good at. But again,
maybe I'm just too old fashioned or jaded.

Also, from "About Us":

"Jarrod is a teacher and online entrepreneur whom has built well over 100
online products and services. He blogs regularly about his experiences
generating an income online"

How can one person who's generated over 100 products be adding any value? How
are they maintained? Are they all just one-off, throwaway pieces of software?

~~~
leereeves
> "Jarrod is a teacher and online entrepreneur _whom_ has built well over 100
> online products and services"

To the OP: something to fix

Who=He, whom=him.

~~~
japhyr
It's an interesting post, but the copy is not very well edited overall. It's
certainly part of what makes me question what happens with the quality of his
projects beyond the initial sales.

~~~
mrrobbo
Thanks for picking it up- the teacherpreneur new design went live last week.
Appreciate the help

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japhyr
What's your teaching background, by the way?

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mrrobbo
I'm a PE Teacher and have built a loyal following of teachere who get
everything I do - I love being able to bring products to life for them, and
have spent hundreds of thousands doing it. So this approach has led to me
ensuring I don't fail before I invest of bringing things to life. Once I
validate it; me and my team are 100% behind it. Thanks for picking up the
spelling errors, I truly appreciate it

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Leszek
I honestly thought this was satire until I got to the website link at the end.

From the initial "design" sketch to the use race-to-the-bottom design and
coding websites, I was sure this was a parody of startups racing to sell a
non-existent product with just vague ideas and generic logo.

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vicbrooker
The impressive part of the article is the network the author has developed
prior to beginning anything. The real startup killer in Aussie edtech is the
sales cycle and this product has ostensibly hit 10% market saturation in
Victoria (~120 schools) since launching a month ago. With a paid product.

For comparison, many edtech startups in Melbourne are offering a trial period
until the next billing cycle (July), because it's the simplest way to get
through the bureaucracy. Might not be the best approach, but it's one that
seems to be the fastest way to get users.

The real cost here isn't the $10k in dev, its however many hours/dollars were
spent getting the network together.

On a side note, having 'lorem ipsum' as both the public terms/conditions and
privacy policy is an interesting corner to cut when selling to schools,
particularly in Australia.

~~~
vicbrooker
Just picked this up, but the early adopters pay $250 for lifetime use. So it's
not necessarily $30k/yr, just $30k.

Not sure how this is a sustainable model.

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morgante
The author seems to be making the mistake of conflating accounting profit and
economic profit.

After 4 months of work, he has achieved accounting profit, but I speculate
he's pretty far from economic profit ($5,000 for 4 months is likely far less
than he'd earn as an employee). Moreover, the idea doesn't seem interesting or
large enough to actually grow into an economically profitable venture.

~~~
dikaiosune
I think that the 4 months was spent by his outsourced developer. The marketing
efforts he describes in the span between when he set them to work and when he
launched don't sound like they add up to 4 months of full time work. I imagine
he's taken the "slow-cooker" startup approach: set it and forget it.

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mrrobbo
Hi all - I appreciate your concern over my methodology. Fact remains that I
turned a $156 into a startup which has generated over 30k since launch about a
month ago - while you might not understand the niche it serves our customers
are schools for which there are no shortage of. All of the UI has been
reskinned since the fiverr mockups and if you see the finished product it
needs little resembelence. We also have two full time devs working on the
software to continue to value add to the solution.

Yes I've launched over 100 products in 4 years many of which are international
award winning - you can search Jarrod Robinson on the app stores to see that
they are NOT throwaway products and represent hundreds of thousands of
investment from me. I'm just blessed to be able to do what I love .

~~~
morgante
The $156 figure is disingenuous though. Without the $10k of development costs,
you didn't have a startup—you had an idea.

Really, it's you're $10,156 startup—still something to be proud of though. I
see many people spending way more without any signs of traction.

~~~
wodenokoto
But he collected the money to pay for dev cost from the initial 156$
investment. It's not disingenuous at all.

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swatow
To me it's strange that I see so many comments on HN about how technical skill
isn't the most important thing: business sense, life experience,
communications skills, etc. count for more.

But when someone with no technical skill creates a product by outsourcing the
technical side, suddenly the comments are all negative.

~~~
vicbrooker
My critique of the model is more that outsourcing will get expensive quickly.
The founder of this product 120+ schools to support with 30k. Many of these
schools are expecting lifetime support: they paid a one time $250 fee. It's
not clear what the legal relationship is between the service provider and the
schools either, which may be a problem.

So my critique has nothing to do with technical skill, it's more that getting
'profitable' quickly without any consideration of the potential long term debt
can be a bad business decision.

In my view, these were shaky business decisions (to outsource development,
cutting legal corners w schools, one time fees), rather than technical ones,
if that makes sense. There are times when outsourcing is the right call, in
the context of this particular business I'm not convinced.

Ps. The adequate technical skill to execute is kinda assumed if you're
founding a tech startup. If it's just building a product without the
expectation of scaling it you can _maybe_ get with outsourcing. This might be
why there's more of a discussion on HN about the business side - this is the
area that most of the audience here need to develop.

I remember reading that YC was founded in the first place with a hypothesis
that teaching tech founders the nontech skills (eg. business/communication
skills) is far, far more effective than vice versa. Seems it was right.

~~~
mrrobbo
Hi - you've assumed this is not being done by s full legal entity that my
company is - the software also has a global base with customers all over the
planet - 120 schools is really not the case. You've also assumed I don't have
full time staff now to manage the project

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sauronlord
I sense jealousy in some of the other comments here.

Jarrod is smart in building assets and fueling his ADHD at the same time.

He's not a slave to anything or anyone and he didn't buy/build himself a job,
but REAL assets that puts money in his pocket each week.

~~~
dikaiosune
Building a SaaS isn't building an asset. It's building a _service_. Key
difference. One appreciates, the other requires continuous attention. Services
which don't get attention after they make their first bit of money are a
detriment to the overall market. As far as I can tell, that's exactly what's
going to happen when all of the actual implementation work is outsourced.

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zackbloom
I honestly think this is great. He got a website built that clearly folks need
enough to pay for, without any real risk. The wonderful thing about business
is you can't argue with revenue, either you have it or you don't. If you do,
no one really gets to tell you your doing it wrong (outside of security and
ethical issues).

~~~
mrrobbo
Thanks for the support - I ove that people find my product useful and that I
get emails daily about how helpful it's been to them - I wouldn't have it any
other way

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chrsstrm
As someone who is currently going through setting up a company, a list of
words I didn't read in that article include: incorporation, insurance,
attorney, EIN.

I can assure you these costs alone are well above $156. I don't know of a
single state that looks kindly on un-registered businesses. I'm about to spend
my Friday night (and Saturday and Sunday) doing legal research so I don't have
to pay my attorney to use the Googles.

At some point anything beyond an idea will need to be backed by a legal
entity, and that process is no joke.

~~~
adventured
You don't have to form a corporation to start a business, and you don't need
an attorney, EIN or insurance.

Millions of businesses operate in the US as non-incorporated entities (eg sole
proprietorships or partnerships).

~~~
hrehhf
In addition, an LLC is incredibly easy with regard to paperwork and effort
compared to a corporation, and gives the owner(s) limited liability as well as
tax advantages (vs sole proprietorships or partnerships).

~~~
zrail
My LLC was one sheet of paper and $100 to the state, plus $25/year renewal.
Some states charge considerably more (CA, for example) but I think most states
are similarly easy.

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jtf2
Congrats on the successful launch.

As a developer, my initial gut reaction is "damn biz guys devaluing what I
do".

But creating a product or business requires far more than simply having
technical skills (or essentially none in your case, as all the technical
components were outsourced) and proving a market exists and figuring out how
to satisfy that market are an incredibly important part of building something
that is more than just a bit of tech.

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elmin
Please consider making your blog and landing pages static sites. They'll
handle load like this much better (the site is currently 500ing), and will be
cheaper to operate as well. I did a little write up here, but you can also
just google "build static website": [https://eager.io/blog/build-static-
websites](https://eager.io/blog/build-static-websites)

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joss82
This is awesome!

If there is no con anywhere, everyone is happy:

\- The customer

\- The outsourced developer

\- And, of course, the website promoter, AKA Jarod

Thank you for this project, it's very inspiring for anyone waiting with an
idea to actually make it come true.

~~~
mrrobbo
thanks for the positive comment - we certainly have happy customers and that
is the thing I live for more than the money

------
orik
I don't know how I feel about this race to the bottom that is design work
through sites like fiverr.

I can only hope oDesk and the like don't ever replace the need for a full time
programmer or I'll be out of a job.

~~~
300bps
My philosophy is that any company I do side work for that hints of "adding
horsepower through odesk" or similar, I fire as a client. With that
philosophy, they don't value your work and need to see how things are on the
other side.

~~~
morgante
You're right that 90% of the clients on oDesk are absolutely horrible, but so
are most of the developers.

There are some, however, who are genuinely just trying to find affordable
talent in places where it's available. I know plenty of great developers in
Russia and India making $40/hour as programmers for US companies.

~~~
learc83
I tried looking around on oDesk for contract work, but every time I clicked on
a job and looked at the client's history they were paying less than $10 an
hour on average. I couldn't find anything paying near $40 an hour.

~~~
morgante
Are you still looking for contract work? If so, email morgante@cafe.com.

~~~
learc83
Yes I am. Just sent you an email. The email address is learc83@gmail.

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avinassh
One of 'What our clients are saying' has lorem ipsum :/

[http://theteacherpreneur.com/mentoring/](http://theteacherpreneur.com/mentoring/)
(scroll to down)

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davewasthere
Your terms and conditions is still a Lorem Ipsum

~~~
tim333
Yeah is's quite funny really.

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mromanuk
What a coincide, a guy that _knows how to_ make money online, teaching how to
make money online (for money).

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shahocean
There is a type on the website : buiilt

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axaxs
Couldn't read the article, but based on the hostgator 500 page, I'm going to
guess you're doing it wrong.

~~~
mrrobbo
What a joke of a response

