
How to Make $37,000 in a single day - bradleyjoyce
http://37signals.eventbrite.com/
======
aresant
Seeing people question the $1000 price tag made me chuckle.

Some comps - Shoemoney's elite retreat for affiliate marketers is $5k a head
for 2 days, multiple real estate seminars are $10k a day, heck even the "Rich
Dad advanced seminars will set you back $2500 a day.

The price of admission is cheap for people that go in with the right mindset
of:

A) Networking like crazy - one good connection is easily worth the price of
admission and at $1k a ticket you're going to meet some interesting people.

B) Pumping the speakers for information - the entire second half of the day is
set up for hands on consulting from these guys. Let's say you've got a GREAT
app, these guys bring really relevant experience, they're one click away from
Jeff Bezos and lots of VCs, a post on the 37 SvN blog, etc.

I have said my fair share of detracting comments about 37signals, but if I
were closer to Chicago I'd be there in a heart beat for the above reasons .

~~~
astrofinch
>A) Networking like crazy - one good connection is easily worth the price of
admission and at $1k a ticket you're going to meet some interesting people.

OK, but you could just as easily meet people at free events like
SuperHappyDevHouse. So it only makes sense to go to these $1k/ticket event to
meet people when you're already going to every free event you can find.

~~~
eru
You are right about opportunity costs. But it also makes sense to go to those
1k$ events, if they just have better contacts (e.g. by filtering out those
cheapskates).

~~~
astrofinch
You're right of course, sorry.

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marknutter
This is really 37signals cashing in on years of blogging, so saying it was
made in single day is a bit misleading.

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danilocampos
This is a business lesson.

Say what we want about 37signals, their marketing and community engagement are
truly exceptional. They've communicated their value so thoroughly that people
will drop $1,000 to spend a day with them.

Why? Trust.

Regardless of any other factor, it's easy to trust the fact that these guys
know what they're talking about. They spend every single day showing us,
through their products or their blog, or many other channels, that they do.

Rails, for example, is one of the most brilliant marketing moves in the
history of software development.

And maybe in the history of marketing.

There's no point to arguing the relative value of their training versus other
consultants. The difference between these guys and any consultants who may
offer training like this?

 _Everyone_ in your industry has heard of 37signals. No one has heard of your
guy.

Your ability to generate wealth is a function of how many people trust you can
do what you promise. My hunch is that they're under-charging. But clearly,
this is entirely in the realm of what the market will bear.

------
drats
I don't read most of the 37 signals stuff, but it feels pretty cult-like for
people to be paying $1000 for a one day "master class". I mean seriously, for
the same cash you could get _all_ of the following: a professional logo
designed for your business (~$100?), a 3 hour consultation on your pitch with
a copywriter or speech writer (~$100?), 2 hours with an accountant ($200?), 1
hour with a lawyer ($200?) and then flying out to nice weekend relaxing
listening to business podcasts and with two nice business books from Amazon on
a south American beach (insert nearby cheap holiday destination, $500?). Also,
putting your app/idea/code/whatever onto an "Ask HN" costs nothing. But if
people are paying, people are paying I suppose. Furthermore, they must be
masters of something to be getting people to pay that much and selling out the
tickets so there is obviously something to be learned from them (although
attending the event might not be required to learn it).

~~~
_pius
$1000 is cheap. If you're willing to pay a lawyer $200/hour, why would you be
reticent about paying one of the pre-eminent web product design teams half
that rate for a day of consulting?

I don't know why it is, but there seems to be a certain resistance that many
people in our field have to considering ourselves professionals, deserving of
the same rates that other professionals charge and subject to the same types
of standards that other professionals have.

If IDEO were charging $5,000 for the same thing, I don't think many
traditional product designers would complain; they'd simply wish they could
afford it or ask their companies to send them.

~~~
_delirium
In the management/money-making/etc. field, I think many people are skeptical
of the other experts as well. Sure, tons of companies will pay more than this
to send MBAs to management classes, but it's not necessarily money well spent.
This seems pretty similar to the quite standard management-guru
book->speakingtour->workshops circuit, except that in this case the management
guru is someone the HN community has heard of.

In technical areas, the courses are generally cheaper. For example, one day of
SIGGRAPH tutorials costs $375. Of course, there you really are buying a
tutorial from experts, whereas here you're probably buying networking as much
as anything.

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jasonfried
FYI, the event is not sold out yet.

Eventbrite holds a ticket for a while once someone clicks "Order Now". If they
don't complete the transaction the ticket is released back into the pool.

We had a mad rush of people click the "Order Now" button which made it look
like the event sold out, but there are plenty of tickets available.

~~~
jasonfried
A bit over half of the tickets are officially sold now.

------
revorad
A: Work hard for 10 years building great stuff that people buy.

~~~
wccrawford
Or for a year and build something people really like. (See: Minecraft)

~~~
pmjordan
Except the guy previously built a bunch of other games over the years, which
didn't have anywhere near that success.

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joedev68
"in a single day"? You're not serious are you? Jason and the team have been
working to build their expertise and reputation for YEARS and YEARS (and
YEARS) to get to this point. Far from getting $37k for a "single day",
attendees are paying for the insight that comes from YEARS of 37signals' work.
No one gets $37k for one day of work. They might have an additional $37k in
their pockets in one day, but they EARNED it over years and years.

~~~
Psyonic
Bill Gates actually made/makes 2 million a day, and he's not alone. But I get
your point.

54,000,000,000 / (55 * 365) = 2,689,912.83

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petercooper
It looks like Amy Hoy (HN: ahoyhere) is probably going to net $50k today (or
at least pretty darn quick) with [http://unicornfree.com/2010/the-
deal-30x500-launch-class-spl...](http://unicornfree.com/2010/the-
deal-30x500-launch-class-splained/) too :-)

~~~
antidaily
Awesome. But her class lasts 4 months.

~~~
ahoyhere
But you bet the second I can make that money on a single day, I will do so. :)

The course is prepared material plus some personal guidance from me. It's not
4 months of live or even semi-live teaching. It's written and recorded
content, followed up with live nudging/feedback.

Tix to my husband's & my live JavaScript training classes are about $400-500
each, though, but we keep them small because debugging people's code is rough
over 25 people. The business education stuff scales so much better.

------
mloc
Here is the problem I see with this: $1000 is a price a big company would
easily pay for its employees, as a benefit, to go attend a class on something.
I think though that the content of this class would be more valuable to people
who are trying to build / bootstrap new companies. But for the latter the
opportunity cost is too high.

Maybe 37signals could do something online and charge less per person?

------
annon
How do you know they're charging too much? If they don't sell tickets.
However, I imagine they're going to easily sell every ticket. Supply and
demand. They're running a business, not a charity.

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jonpaul
You know what would be funny? If they sold 37 seats at $1000 and then when you
get there they told you that's what they did.

All kidding aside, if I had the money, I would be interested in this. It is a
bit steep, but I admire these guys and their business philosophy.

~~~
Psyonic
It is funny, but its also internet business 101. Many of the "gurus" in the
field never made a dime til they lied about making big money selling their
program, when really that was their first time making big money. Also, see
Rich Dad Poor Dad.

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warpwoof
Given their success and popularity, that seems like a fair price.

How much do you think Steve Jobs could make in a day running a class like
this?

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dataminer
This might be slightly off topic, but I see Ryan's name in the announcement,
he did a very interesting talk about "Designing with Forces: How to Apply
Christopher Alexander in Everyday Work" <http://vimeo.com/10875362>

------
sahillavingia
Actually, they've only sold 7 out of the 37 spots at time of writing (see:
<http://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/27258896050>).

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Timothee
They sold out in 15 minutes, so the price must be right.

Actually, considering it sold out so fast, they should most probably double
the price.

If they were doing that full-time, that would put the activity in the
$8-10M/year range. I imagine significantly under their annual revenues with
apps. Not only would they make less money, they wouldn't learn anything new to
talk about. So at $1,000, they're doing you a favor. :)

edit: looks like they didn't sell out in 15 minutes. I guess doubling might be
too much then, but the rest still stands.

~~~
antidaily
The second part of the day could either be great or completely throwaway. If
you get some good ideas out of it that help your startup, it's well worth the
price or more. But what if you're not really working on a startup?

~~~
jasonlotito
Then you probably aren't the type of person that will get much benefit out of
it and shouldn't go.

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danman01
I'm somewhat new here, and expected some kind of story about how someone made
this money at eventbrite. Instead it is an ad for a masterclass, targeted
towards the readers of this site. Very sneaky. Also I would recommend the
story links open in a new tab. Feel free to tell me if this comment is
appropriate or not.

~~~
eru
Welcome to HN! Your comment is appropriate.

I agree with bl4k that the current behaviour of opening in the same page is
right, and have to add, that this is off-topic.

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joystickers
Thanks for this post. I just bought my ticket. I've seen other classes go for
a lot more that offered a lot less.

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bryanjohnson
Good for them. They've worked very hard and been extremely thoughtful about
how they've built their business.

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donohoe
The tragedy of it all is that Eventbrite won't let you order more than 3
tickets in one go...

~~~
jasonfried
We put that limit in place. Eventbrite lets you set any limit you'd like.

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robinduckett
A: Sell seats to your pointless masterclass for $1000 a pop.

