Planscope, run by Brennan Dunn, publishes posts on freelancing, consulting, recurring revenue and building a SaaS product.
HN mostly mentions Planscope as a subscription product example and for its Bootstrap-based design; Dunn's post on quitting your job is recommended.
Then why doesn't everyone do it?
Why does Patrick reveal all of his financials, except for his second product? (Which, by the way, I think is a smart thing to do.)
Web 2.0 software-as-a-service is not helped too much by blog posts about how much money you're making. The site itself serves as promotion. A free trial is a much better way to promote your product than just a blog post. (Of course, you should do both.)
A training business is inherently more amenable to blogging as a form of promotion, vs., say, Google Adwords. Selling training requires that people trust what you have to say. The fact that you're making money convinces people that you are deserving of trust. Blogging is like a free trial -- it gives your customers a sample of what you can look forward to when they buy.
In Brennan's own words (speaking of his free newsletter):
http://planscope.io/blog/giving-up-a-million-dollar-consultancy/
"I’m cultivating an audience who trusts my opinion and has received a lot of value from me in the past. This makes, oh, selling a $1,199 workshop exponentially easier than if I were to run a paid AdWords campaign for the same workshop, which I daresay would be a fool’s error."
SEEKING WORK - Remote, Boston
I'm a product-focused front-end developer with some available time as a consultant for new interesting projects. I say I'm product-focused because I care deeply about UI/UX, and although I'm not a designer, I obviously know my way around Photoshop. I have a keen product sense, strong opinions on how interfaces should be built, eye for element weights on a site, and I care deeply that the projects I work on meet their product goals, not just that I code what I promised to code.
Looking to contribute to a meaningful product!
The technologies I've spent the most time with are HTML/Sass/CSS/jQuery/JS/PHP/WP.. and recently spent a little time in Rails, CoffeeScript, and Backbone environments.
Personal site (work in progress): http://galenvinter.com/
Consultant/dev work at Planscope: https://planscope.io/
Creator/curator Front-end Dev Weekly: http://frontenddevweekly.com/
Some front-end work completed at Placester:
http://realestate.sfgate.com/
http://fremont.placester.net/
http://plymouth.placester.net/
galen.vinter@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/gvinter
http://linkedin.com/in/galenvinter
> Recently I encountered a new service called Cushion […] They are pushing a 14-day trial, but halfway through the signup process, they ask for credit card details. This is a show-stopper for me, and I’m willing to bet that their drop-off rate here is huge. They are throwing money away.
Well, that's an opinion... maybe they’re actually converting x2 times more...
http://planscope.io/blog/why-im-going-back-to-capturing-credit-cards-upfront/
I guess until you A/B test it you never know! Requiring credit card upfront is not a "Dark Pattern", it's a business decision, and a very effective measure for abuse prevention (among many other things).
Maybe it doesn't work for all the businesses, but for others (like Amazon with its Free Tier or the above example) it looks like works wonders!
Some additional ideas:
* Call up past employers, explain what you're doing, and if they need any help (especially with systems you are familiar with).
* Call up anyone you know and ask if they need help. Network!
* Attend software/business conferences. Talk to people. Don't pitch yourself, but get a feel for what they do, where the pain points might be. Then ask about software to solve problems.
* Read this great series of blog posts: http://planscope.io/blog/how-to-build-relationships-when-networking/
* Surf craigslist for projects, make a mockup or proof of concept for promising projects, and send it off. (This may be scraping the bottom of the barrel, but you can do it immediately)
Another thought. Two really:
- Lead us into more about the why before showing the price. Really tell the story of the pain that so many of us can identify with.
- Use a standard three teir pricing box style, with the values of each above the price. Something like: https://planscope.io/pricing/
Hmmm. Only an "idiot" would talk about sales?
Patio11 - http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/12/29/bingo-card-creator-and-other-stuff-year-in-review-2012/
Nathan Barry - http://nathanbarry.com/2012-year-quitting-job/
Brennan Dunn - http://planscope.io/blog/giving-up-a-million-dollar-consultancy/