The creator of Ruby on Rails David Hensson from 37signals about the secrets of a profitable startup

Recently, Habré has already discussed David Heinemeier Hansson ’s audio / video for startups on Stanford .

In this material, it is proposed to pay attention to his video and presentation from Startup School'08, which have not lost their relevance even now, entitled: The A secret to making money online.

So: a video with the presentation


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The video on the Omnisio service is perfectly combined with slides, with a convenient cover-flow a la Mac to navigate between them. It is quite natural that such a convenient and beautiful service was purchased by Google (as reported on the main page of Omnisio).

Content

Magic link

So, you have a great service (great application) and you want to make money (profit!). What separates one from the other? Through years of research, hundreds of interviews and persistent reflections by guys from 37 signals, it was reliably established that this “magic link” is the sale of the service to users for money (price).

$ 1 000 000, in principle, also good money

Even in comparison with $ 1 000 000 000. Especially if you compare the chances to get them.

Assuming that a million can be earned with odds of 1:10, and a billion - 1:10 000, David recommends stopping for a million at first, even though the same "mathematical expectation" of income in these two cases.

Ok, and how to make a million?

Millions are invited to make money on a subscription service based on a simple formula:

And if to be somewhat more modest and expect $ 200K per year, then it will be enough to find about 400 customers at $ 40 per month.
This is really a small market. And it allows you not to solve any truly global problems (as is the case with a large market). You just have to solve a small problem well .

Where to look for these customers?

Many are trying to solve the problems of large and well-known (from the Fortune 500 list or the Russian Expert-400 ), completely forgetting about the huge number of ordinary companies. This is in vain! It is possible and necessary to search for clients among the companies from the Fortune 5 000 000 list:

And what is the “virus” of your service?

What kind of “virus” have you come up with to promote your service?
Now forget about it!


Do you know what really has a "viral effect"? Everything is very simple - a normal attitude towards your client. For example, you order a pair of sneakers on Zappos at 10 pm. After 15 minutes, you receive a letter of thanks for your purchase and the promise of delivery tomorrow morning. And tomorrow morning you really (sic!) Get your pair of sneakers! This is really acting "viral"!

Clear where to start?

For a start, do not be afraid to not have time to start in a few months in the "magic market moment." Look at the Zappos! Did they have a “magical market moment”? No, they sell fucking shoes that have been on the market for millennia. Just sell better than others.

So start small and simple, how Basecamp started (David did it 10 hours a week ):


Just do not overdo it! It is even better if you also have a start-up side project, for which there will be a bit of time. Limited time allows you to concentrate and solve problems much more efficiently.

And finally. It will not become easier, so “relax” and have fun;)


PS Even if you know and understand everything that David says, just see how he says it. Must like it!