
We Created a Planning Diary Making $160K in 6 Months - patwalls
https://www.starterstory.com/planning-diary
======
villgax
This exactly the kind of Bot problem which another HN post was talking about,
the user patwalls recently boasted on reddit/twitter about automating reddit
submissions & gaining a boatload of views & is doing the same to HN with
clickbait metric laden titles of obscure stuff.

~~~
vasco
If it gets upped by the community (presumably because it's interesting) what
do the intentions matter?

~~~
probably_wrong
If you follow the link that amrrs published [1], the OP has a team that auto-
upvotes all of his submissions. This is explicitly against the HN guidelines.

~~~
Jetroid
My interpretation was that his team are pressing the 'submit' button, not
anything else.

~~~
minimaxir
Submitting a HN link with a URL that was posted recently will give it an
upvote.

Per the domain submission history
([https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=starterstory.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=starterstory.com)),
he does not employ this strategy for all submissions, likely only ones with
traction to obfuscate things.

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briandear
> In our first year, we didn’t want to use unnecessary plastic, so we didn’t
> bother investing in individual opp/poly bags UNTIL we learned that a few of
> our diaries arrived with water damage.

I found this line interesting — many people don’t realize that companies
themselves don’t like using unnecessary packaging — most packaging decisions
are made for very good reasons. The despised clamshell happened because of
shoplifters and on-shelf marketing tests. “Unnecessary plastic” happens
because manufacturers know about water damage. Individually wrapped parts
happen because of shipping damage or lost parts. What consumers see as
“unnecessary” comes as a result of very good reasons and likely thousands of
customer complaints when their stuff arrives damaged or with parts missing.

~~~
symmitchry
I also found it interesting, and depressing. Of course this is off topic, but
it goes without saying that plastic is convenient compared to the
alternatives. "We made $160k!" but "a few diaries" show up with water damage
and their plastic-free plan goes right out the window.

~~~
saintbelford
Hey symmitchry, I'm Tom, the Co Founder of Saint Belford.

Thanks for your comment.

Receiving a wet diary in the mail is a terrible customer experience so from a
business stand point, we want to rectify these types of issues as quickly as
possible.

Thankfully, the plastic we use is recyclable at the correct locations, and
we're educating our customers around using these options while continuing to
look for viable alternatives :)

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memset
This is super interesting! I started selling my own notebook (not a diary) for
musicians in February this year, and went through many of the same steps of
trying to find a physical print shop without knowing anything about paper. I
learned a lot!

What I haven't been able to reproduce is the rapid success! Sometimes I will
get upvotes on, say, reddit, and sell $300 worth of books in a week. For the
most part, social media influences have been a bust - promising to leave a
review in exchange for a free book, but never doing so. I haven't spent tons
of money on SEO, content, or advertising, so perhaps I should do that. Just
hard to know what the ROI would be.

After reading this post, I might look at putting more money into some of these
efforts (Instagram ads, google ads, creating content for my website for SEO
purposes). Just hard to know where to begin!

(If you are curious, the product is themusiciansnotebook.com :)

~~~
cableshaft
Your notebook looks functional and useful, but pretty simple, based on the
pictures on your website. There's nothing wrong with that (and if I composed
music, I would probably order a copy), but it doesn't necessarily attract the
eye.

You might want to consider an edition that has little things a musician might
find interesting or useful included in it. That seems to be how these planner
people attract people, is a lot of little things that people probably don't
really need but enjoy filling out anyway (the link says they compiled all
sorts of stuff into their planner, and for anecdata my fiancee is a huge
planner nut and loves checking out planners with all sorts of different
approaches to layouts and fields and organization and whatnot).

For example (and I don't recommend going this far necessarily, but it might
inspire you), a board game designer decided to design a playtesting journal
for other board game designers, and threw all sorts of little things in there,
like a built in scoreboard, a die number on the page so it could be opened to
a random page to simulate a die roll, added achievements with a sticker page,
lots of fields to remind the designer to ask certain questions at the end of
the playtest, a game contract checklist, a page with guidelines of sizes for
various components for getting the game printed by a manufacturer, etc. He did
a Kickstarter for it and raised $30k for it (not as much as the article, but
still not bad). I backed it and got a few for myself, even though I've kind of
settled on my own method for playtesting games, I'll give his a try.

Anyway, his journal serves a specific niche like yours does, so maybe
something in there will inspire you to find ways to make your notebook stand
out and attract more people to purchase it.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/828934174/fail-
faster-t...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/828934174/fail-faster-the-
playtesting-journal/description)

~~~
tobr
Sounds to me like you want it to be a different product than it is.

I would recommend memset to look at Field Notes[1] for inspiration. They do an
amazing job of turning simple ruled notebooks into something desirable.

Some suggestions:

\- Make the cover look nicer and more inspiring (like Field Notes), not just
plain white paper.

\- Find someone who is good at drawing sheet music by hand, to show some
really beautiful examples of the product in use for your shop. Again,
inspiration.

\- The site says you “pored over every detail”. I think you can tell that
story better (again, think Field Notes).

1: [https://fieldnotesbrand.com/](https://fieldnotesbrand.com/)

~~~
cableshaft
That's a good idea too. Field Notes do attract the eye.

No, I don't mean that they should change the product necessarily. I think
there's value in what they currently have, and said that if I composed music
myself, I would probably buy a couple.

But there's nothing wrong with seeing what other people have done and being
inspired by them. I am constantly taking in ideas from all over and pairing
them against all of my different game designs and story ideas and wondering if
those ideas could be used in some way. Maybe seeing that link sparked a "Oh,
maybe I could put in a... whatever... scale reference, or common key
signatures list, or a box for a version number of the song, or whatever" and
adds one extra page to the journal, and advertises it, and sees a 10% increase
in sales or something.

I don't really have any desires one way or another in what the product should
be. I'm just aware of that other journal, and thought maybe they might find it
interesting, and probably aren't aware of it since it's for a different niche
field.

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shaggyfrog
I enjoyed reading about how they got started. I loved the fact they were
supporting two mental health organizations with donations. Since friend loves
this kind of diary-keeping, after I was done reading, I checked out their
website with the intention to buy.

Prominently on the home page is an article about using crystals for healing.
Ugh.

I don't know if this is intentional, but it really turns me off their brand,
and I'm not interested in buying one anymore.

~~~
userbinator
Unfortunately I suspect the majority of the population is far less rational
than the average HN user, which is why quack health (or rather, "wellness"
these days, likely because their peddlers are trying to avoid legal issues
around implications of being medical) bullshit has always been a relatively
profitable if not ethical industry. The sad thing is, the average visitor to
the site would probably think nothing of it or even believe, whereas you and
me both reacted with "Ugh."

~~~
rgoulter
Given "it's good that they're donating to mental health organisations" and
"healing crystals are bullshit but profitable", it seems plausible to me that
it's net-good to sell healing crystals if it leads to more money donated to
mental health organisations.

~~~
raquo
So you take into account the positive effects of mental health donations but
not the negative effects of the promotion of healing crystals. No shit you'll
come out ahead.

Promoting bullshit has real costs associated with it. Those bullshit crystals
cost people money and don't do anything. People get dumber being convinced to
buy them, and will use that dumbness in other parts of life. Promoting a
market for delusion and false hope is the last thing anyone needs.

It might be hard to put a precise dollar value on second order effects like
these, let alone on things like moral integrity, but that doesn't mean this
value isn't there.

There is no shortage of people who will do whatever bullshitting it takes to
earn more money, and that's not something to be celebrated regardless of
whether it comes with mental health donations or another trendy atonement
mechanism.

~~~
rgoulter
"So you take into account the positive effects of mental health donations but
not the negative effects of the promotion of healing crystals. No shit you'll
come out ahead."

Ah, I see how my comment can be read like that.

I don't mean to say "only consider the positives of one and not the negatives
of the other". And "the existence of negatives means the thing is negative"
would also be a bad way of thinking about it.

The approach ought to be "The benefits should be weighed against the costs".

~~~
raquo
Yes well everyone has a different idea of what to include in the costs, that's
all fluffy and can be twisted to suit whatever result one wants.

Which is why some people choose moral principles that are more rigid. And well
scamming people into buying useless rocks is on the wrong side of mine, no
matter what moral kickback it's artificially bundled with.

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bgrainger
"Diary" in Australian English means "daily planner" or "date book" in U.S.
English.

~~~
rolltiide
yes, "date book" growth market

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paulryanrogers
Self care is super important. So if this really helps people then more power
to them. Though I can't help shake the feeling this is a sell-shovels-to-the-
miners kind of market.

~~~
jahewson
Most of California’s gold rush prospectors went home empty-handed. Those who
sold the shovels did not.

~~~
duaoebg
Samuel Brannan, the shovel guy, died poor and in relative obscurity.

~~~
kirubakaran
Due to divorce, not unprofitable shovels.

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chrisked
Not sure if this is deliberate, but the title misses the _How_ at the
beginning compared to the title when you click the link.

Certainly it caught way more attention on my end than it should have. It has
to do with the recent news and posts about We Company. I read a lot of them.
Somehow my brain got conditioned to look out for _We_ :)

------
mnky9800n
Does anyone else feel it's disengenuous to list the revenue per month for a
company less than two years old? It seems like they could saturate a market
and then assume that people will keep buying new planners. But how many
planners are one time purchases? I think it's presumptuous to think they could
maintain the revenue stream without more data.

