
Ask HN: Real odds of making a living off a web app - nicholas73
My goal is to make a webapp that makes a middle class income.  It does not have to be Bay Area middle class, but say 100k a year.<p>What is the real probability this can happen?  Or is it a fool&#x27;s errand?<p>I&#x27;m from a non-software field in my 30&#x27;s, but I&#x27;m tired of grinding it out with a salary that can barely cover the expenses.  I&#x27;d like to work remotely and live somewhere more affordable.<p>I don&#x27;t expect anything to happen right away, but over the next 5 years.  Because I don&#x27;t see myself saving my way to retirement, owning a business where you control your time is the only end game I can see.<p>I like building apps and take pride in my work, so it seems like a good avenue for me.<p>Thanks.
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MattBearman
I hope it's not a fools errand, as I'm currently attempting to do just this. I
have a SaaS product that currently profits about £400/ month, and I have about
£20k saved. I'm aiming to be living from my web app in 9 months.

If you're interested I'm doing a completely transparent blog series about my
progress - [https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-
to-...](https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-to-
profitable-start-up-part-1.html) and
[https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-
to-...](https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-to-
profitable-start-up-part-2.html)

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baobaba
Hi Matt, the second link gives me a 404, but loving the honest writing in the
"I'm Scared" post.

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MattBearman
Ah balls, here's the correct link
[https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/29/from-side-project-
to-...](https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/29/from-side-project-to-
profitable-start-up-part-2.html)

~~~
swcoders
could you please tell us suspense or do we have to wait for other month? :)

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akg_67
> I'm tired of grinding it out with a salary that can barely cover the
> expenses

> owning a business where you control your time is the only end game I can
> see.

I will encourage you to read first 4-5 chapters of "The E-Myth Revisited: Why
Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It" by Michael E.
Gerber.

“The problem is that everybody who goes into business is actually three-
people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician.

And the problem is compounded by the fact that while each of these
personalities wants to be the boss, none of them wants to have a boss.

So they start a business together in order to get rid of the boss. And the
conflict begins.”

Excerpt From: Michael E. Gerber. “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small
Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It.” iBooks.

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brbsix
Great suggestion. This was one of the first books I read as I was starting a
business many years ago. It proved invaluable. For anyone not familiar with
it, a big focus of the book is about running your business like a franchise.
Don't let the word franchise put you off... The reason this is so crucial is
that like you mentioned, you don't want to create a bunch of new jobs for
yourself. Rather, you want a finely-tuned system that runs itself and frees up
your mind for the more important aspects. If you don't do that, you'll be
spinning your wheels with little stuff and won't be able to step away from it.

~~~
atmosx
Better be good! I ordered the book right away.

ty for the suggestion.

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thenomad
Do you specifically want to make a webapp, or is independence the most
important thing for you?

If the latter, I'd encourage you to look around at ALL the potential means of
making money with your skills, not just creating a webapp. That could include
consulting, infoproducts, some kind of SEO / affiliate play, training, etc.

Of all the available means of making a boss-independent living on the
Internet, webapps appear to be one of the slightly harder ones. By no means
impossible, mind - it's nothing like trying to make a living from the arts,
for example. There are plenty of people on and off HN who have done it.
However, depending on your skillset, there may be more straightforward ways.

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nicholas73
At minimum, I would like something growing in my asset column, since saving
enough to buy stocks or real estate seems unrealistic at this point[1]. So I
have to create my own assets.

If I have to be extremely active in it, like consulting or training, then I'd
just be creating another job for myself. I'd be less interested in that, as
the goal is for asset growth.

Why is making a webapp slightly harder? The technical aspect, or are
opportunities saturated, or the many hats you have to wear?

[1] I'm in the Bay Area with family. Alternatively, I can try to switch to
software engineering for better pay, which is also one of the potential
payoffs of building web apps.

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thenomad
My best guess on webapps vs, say, infoproducts is that there's more avenues
for failure in a webapp.

With an infoproduct, you've basically got:

1) Screwed up your market research, no market. 2) Screwed up your marketing,
no-one hears about you. 3) Screwed up the content, problem obvious.

With a webapp, you've got all sorts of design and usability issues. Features
are non-obvious even once you've got the core value proposition down. Viral
loop is trickier to engineer. Onboarding is a thing. And so on.

But that's just my guess.

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codegeek
Short answer: Absolutely. Why ? Because many people are already doing it
(including me).

It all comes down to the path you take to get there. The destination is
totally possible. The path will determine whether you are able to get there or
not.

Write down 5 of your best ideas on paper or wherever. Then leave it for a few
days. If you think of a new idea someday, go back to that old list and check
if that idea was already something you wrote before. Give it an extra point.
Rinse and repeat until you realize that you keep coming back to one idea more
than others. Pick that one. Of course, you could already believe strongly in
an idea and then you don't ned to do all this.

Next step is to build a prototype of this idea. If you can build a web app
yourself, then do it using the language/framework you are comfortable with. DO
NOT think about whether this is the right language/framework. IT DOES NOT
MATTER AT THIS TIME. Heck, use Wordpress to patch a bare minimum working
prototype if you really need to. But you need to get something out there.
Something that is not in your head but something concrete. It does not have to
be pretty or slick. Trust me. The other side of it is that you will NEVER
release something and that is worse than releasing garbage.

Work on getting traction on this. I don't know how to tell you every possible
way to achieve this as this is where the real challenge is.

Once you get decent enough traction, then you can choose to quit your job if
you can afford to do that. Save, save save. If you want to have another
partner/help, think about getting that person on board. Or may be you want to
remain solo. that is fine for the type of business you asked about.

Then you know what comes next ?Just fuckin quit your job!! I did that. Yes,
you can do that. There will NEVER be a right time to do it. If you are ready,
you are ready. Otherwise you are never ready. Don't think about what you will
lose by quitting your job. That is small compared to what you may be gaining.
But be ready to lose it all. Have that spirit. You will do fine.

All the best.

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nicholas73
Thanks, this is what I wanted to hear. I'm at the prototyping stage, and I was
afraid that the market is already saturated with webapps. Or worse, was never
that big a space as it would seem on HN.

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codegeek
np. Remember this. There is always someone else doing what you are doing. You
should never worry about that. Just execute the heck out of it. Yes there are
to may webapps but to be able to create 100K income is very possible.
Remember, we are not talking about a high growth startup which is a different
story.

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mswen
The secret is sales and getting those first few clients. I have built a web
application for professional and trade associations. I used to be Director of
Research at an executive community with high annual fees - so I was building
for a market that I had some direct experience in.

So far it has been much harder to get association leaders to change and try
something new. I have feedback that it is cool and a premium product relative
to what they currently do, but so far no one with money has gotten excited
enough to actually buy.

On the other hand there are certainly people who have made your vision happen.
If I had better answers I would have already solved my own sales problems.

Bringing innovation to a market is hard.

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nicholas73
I've also have a "think different" idea, so I expect the sales part to be the
challenge as well.

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helen842000
This journey is made easier by looking and speaking to customers first before
you build anything. For people that just enjoy building apps, that is really
hard to do. If you don't want to sell to people now, you won't when you have
an MVP either.

Find a group of founding customers so you are building something specific
based on their feedback. Your motivation and profitability are accelerated by
having such involved customers.

You can investigate such a large number of ideas before you have to start
building anything.

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fooshint
How much do you have in savings? 5 figures, 6 figures?

