Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you did to market it?

Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by gexcolo on Monday October 17, 2016 @02:36AM (#12723061)

I run https://box.cock.li/ , a VPS provider that caters to shitposters and people that kind of like that eerie feeling that your server could shut down at any moment.

I don't really have any idea what I'm doing, but I don't really know how to run a mail server either but I seem to be doing okay with https://cock.li/ (this is where most of my customers are from)

It's currently at about $2K total revenue, and once this transfer of IP space finishes I can properly scale to about $1.8K MRR.

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Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by anexprogrammer on Monday October 17, 2016 @05:53AM (#12723735)

I love this. You've framed it perfectly to set low expectations, with name and niche that won't expect fancy design, and "a server as bad as your email". Yet make $2k a month.

I think you know exactly what you're doing :p

Why the max of 46 btw?

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Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by ZoF on Monday October 17, 2016 @02:00PM (#12727472)

Likely 46 is due to his IPv4 pool, hence waiting for the IP space assignment before scaling up.

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Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by Solinoid on Monday October 17, 2016 @03:53AM (#12723323)

That's interesting. Given that you cater to 'shitposters' and you say yourself that you don't really know what you're doing, are you up at night wondering if you've made a novice error and a user or someone who dislikes one of your users is rooting around in your hardware up to no good? And is there any profit to be made at your current size for your revenue?

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Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by gexcolo on Monday October 17, 2016 @07:15PM (#12730693)

>are you up at night wondering if you've made a novice error and a user or someone who dislikes one of your users is rooting around in your hardware up to no good?

I dropped a database on accident yesterday because I assumed that replication was broken (it wasn't). If someone has managed to root my servers I hope they clean stuff up a bit.

>And is there any profit to be made at your current size for your revenue?

Cock.li operates not-for-profit, making it a break-even operation that operates financially separate from cockbox. Cockbox took about $2-3K of investment to get going on rented IP space, total to date I have invested about $9K on server hardware to support up to 180 "slots" (sold GB of memory aka $10MRR) and IP space to support a bit more than that (1x/24 aka 255 IPv4 addresses and a /48 IPv6). Considering ongoing expenses are hardware replacements and colocation costs, profit margins are very high.

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Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by sireat on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @09:09AM (#12733974)

I admire your courage and thick skin to offer such a service because your chances of getting a truly bad actor using your service are pretty high.

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Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by gexcolo on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @07:38PM (#12739711)

It's not my E-mail. Except for the ones that are. But most of them aren't.

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Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by ZoF on Monday October 17, 2016 @04:29AM (#12723444)

He just says he doesn't know what he's doing, he's actually quite competent.

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Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by kek918 on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @06:41AM (#12742622)

Wow what an original VPS provider. Love your Privacy policy and Terms of Service :) How on earth do you get customers?

Keep it up, good luck!

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Re:Ask HN: $1k+ side projecters, what was the best thing you... by _pmf_ on Monday October 17, 2016 @06:34AM (#12723885)

That's marvelous marketing; congratulations!

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