We're a bit spoiled in the software world. Startup cost is just non-existent. Most other businesses in history have at least a little bit of associated input capital. But if it's something you want anyway, it's worth a big of dough!
You should consider selling it on the Mac App Store in addition to it being open source. I think you’d be pleasantly surprised.
I think the second would be more useful and interesting. More people likely to look at it if a good discussion ensues, so you still get exposure, and useful advice from people here.
But, I didn't (and wouldn't) pay for it as a product. I did donate a coffee or two a while back, but I think in general window managers will always be a hard sell since all it takes is another bored programmer to open source a clone and you're kinda sunk. On top of that window managers have always been a free/FOSS thing, and changing that would probably require offering a feature that is so compelling people will overlook using closed source software/payware. Last, customization/scripting is a hard requirement for most window manager users, and without the source the vast majority of people will refuse to even invest the time to switch.
While I personally hate the trend, the only way to monetize would probably offer some sort of cloud based feature that requires a subscription. I think if you did it honestly, offered real value, and provided a self-hosted option for sticks in the mud (that won't give you money, but will evangelize for you if you keep things libre) you could probably carve out a decent living. Either that or offering support to enterprises who want to use your tool, but that comes with its own devils.
Anywho, just my two cents. Thanks again for all your hard work, I know it didn't pay off how you wanted financially but the tools you created have huge userbases that use your code every day hundreds of times a day. At the very least I'd hope having that on your resume has helped you find a good gig somewhere, and if not I'd suggest posting on here in a hiring thread or finding a good head hunter who can translate that experience into a well paying gig.
The other thing to think about if you make this a paid app is the price point and utility. The one thing I dislike about a lot of Mac Apps like this, which provide some simple functionality, end up discontinuing development if there isn't much revenue or if the developer gets busy. So when the OS updates or something breaks or it doesn't work with a new model/hardware changes (Ex: Touchbar), there's no support or updates. (This is something that I factor in, looking at what other things the developer has done or supported in the past, based on the price point for the app ($1 vs $10 etc)
But for people in the hobby of making small apps and tools (like myself) then making something I want, then selling it for $0.99, then having 1 million people buying it is already a lot of dough. Not to mention 1 million people worldwide is a drop in the bucket.
I think you are right that there are exceptions to the rule, but those seem to follow the rule to some degree.
https://smile.amazon.com/Two-Dollar-Bill-Pack-Bills/dp/B01N2...
[1] https://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/2currencysheetsbeptestshee...
EDIT: I'm not sure where the "printing" part of this story comes into play but it looks like his tablets do indeed have multiple bills per sheet in addition to being laminated at the top. (https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/woz-prints-and-spend-his-own...)
See here: https://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/1currencysheets.aspx
Even if they meet the required standards I thought only the government was allowed to print bills.
Does anyone have any links or references to what Woz is saying?
Of course, when you're interviewing a prankster about pranks, you've got to expect that sort of thing :)
That makes perfect sense. And of course I fell for it...
Thanks!
There aren't any near where I live, but I've seen them a lot when traveling.
I thought it was an accronym.
He got sheets of 4 perforated and then bound with a gum binding (like a pad of paper). He then whips out the book and pulls a $2 off of the perforation.
He'll carry larger sheets folded up and then cut a bill out with scissors in front of the person he is paying it to. Apparently he got the secret service called on him once.
http://archive.woz.org/letters/general/78.html
[edit]
If you want to buy uncut bills you can yourself, but there's about a 50% markup on even the largest sheets:
https://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/2currencysheetsbeptestshee...
They would buy monsterboxes of coins of various monies on credit cards and turn them back into the bank and pay the bill for perks.
They eventually changed the Merchant category codes to cash advance, and then raised the prices. :-(
Is the government allowed to make money (more than its value) by selling money?
This is useful.
I've never paid a penny extra for the rolls, and my bank does the coin-counting for free as well.
I have never in my life heard of paying extra for rolled coins. In fact, there's a whole subreddit devoted to people who buy rolls of coins and then hunt through them looking for old (silver) coins. They turn the coins back in later, at a different bank/location. This would likely not be a viable hobby if there was any upcharge.
It is meant as an introduction to other occurrences in peoples lives, where they invest something that they will lose if they abandon the activity. Being on hold is one such example, where you lose the time you've invested in being on hold, if you give up and hang up the call before it's connected. Thus you end up in a situation where you are somewhat trapped.
It'd be a poor fit for miniature train towns, the scale is too large for them. The largest is G which is 1:22.5 (approx 8 inches high) and the most popular is HO (1:87.1). HO runs on a 16.5mm track so the blocks are about as wide as a train track on their shortest dimensions.
Overall it's kind of an awkward scale for any hobby miniatures.
1:12 is a common action figure size though. Maybe it'd make interesting materials for that.
RPG miniatures are typically 1/64 (25mm) to 1/58 (28mm); these items are 1/12 scale. There are display miniatures around that scale, but they are way too big for RPG or wargame minis.
He did the same thing. Found a niche industry which needed this service and he was doing well all by himself with nearly zero overhead.
It really made me start looking at very small niches for opportunities since there's already a ton of people trying to disrupt large entrenched technologies.
At one point in that era, I ranked top two in Australia for "make money" with one page about AdSense on an otherwise unrelated site. I had another site that took half a day to build, and involved no upkeep, making similar money to Patrick's BCC. I stupidly let it (and other sites) languish and it was slowly overtaken by competitors and SEO changes.
I always thought the people who use "lifestyle business" as a pejorative were missing out.
Source?
Here's a drop that is currently at 88k revenue for massdrop: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-redsuns-gmk-red-samu...
638 purchases @ 139.99/set
Somebody has dropped 1k on a single custom made key on the secondary market. https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/keyboard_t...
The gaming market has produced all sorts of hobbyist businesses, and that's a market actually big enough to see a few potentially billion dollar businesses. I'm not entirely sure whether something like DXRacer[0] would fall into line of a hobbyist/enthusiast business but it feels like it should to me (and I'm mentioning it because it feels like a larger sort of hobbyist business). It's definitely in that realm in terms of having a pretty specific target market and a relatively higher price point.
There are also people in the DIY mechanical keyboard market selling circuit boards, plates, cases, etc... Again, it's a really niche market, but people are willing to spend a lot more money at a hobbyist/enthusiast level.
I now have a button that can launch a terminal window, a button that launches HN, one that does a git pull on all my current projects, etc...
Like you said, it's a niche market, but it's one where most people are happy to pay the higher prices for something more tailored to their needs, and it's a rare "physical" area where a guy in his garage can compete with big companies.
I just recently got a new 3d printer, and I think after I get it more tuned I will be able to print fairly good quality keycaps. If they are good enough, I might try selling custom made-to-order keycaps if there is any interest.
You can go to [0] to get just text on a keycap with a fairly easy web-ui to describe the text, position, and size you want it.
Or you can take it entirely into your own hands and go to [1] to give them a vector file that they will custom print on to the keys.
They also offer that service in a "full keyboard set" option [2], so you don't need to do a ton of keys individually if you want to do the whole keyboard (although the full sets most likely won't fit your profile, but they do fit a good number of more standard keyboard layouts)
Again, they aren't the best quality, but they do a good job, and they take care of their customers. Plus the amount of customization you can do is pretty fucking insane. [3] is always my go-to example for just how customizable they are. Not only full color printing, but also individual key plastic color selection.
[0] http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/printed-keyc...
[1] http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/printed-keyc...
[2] http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/keycap-set/1...
[3] https://www.flickr.com/photos/wasdkeyboards/28965975050/
That or just dump the ergodox when you realize that it's just a pale sad imitation of a kinesis advantage.
The one you mentioned doesn’t even look pretty. ErgoDox EZ Shine is wonderful both in use and in how it looks!
Artisanal. Artesian means related to a special type of water wells :-)
The firmware was basically usb-hid to behave like either joystick or keyboard. It also had some fancy de-bouncing code for the buttons.
But I, too, am very curious to hear the answer.
Several other members of the mechanical keyboard community (especially in the artisan keycap subsection of the community) have managed to turn their keyboard hobby into a full-time job and make a pretty decent living out of it.
The companies that make keycaps have molds for the profiles they make. GMK has the original Cherry molds (medium height caps with cylindrical indentions, Signature Plastics has a few profiles including Retro looking SA (Tall caps with spherical indentations, each row a different sculpt that gives it a gentle dish when looked at from the side), DSA (flat profile, each row the same with a spherical indentation), DSS (A medium profile generally dished with spherical indentation, DCS (a medium profile with cylindrical indentation), and G20 (a flat profile with no indentation).
So generally when you put together a custom keycap set, you pick a profile, if you want double shot legends there might be some extra molds to make, but those are pretty pricy (I think I heard about 6k a pop). If you go with dyesub you have a lot of legend freedom, but you are limited to dark legends on lighter caps.
Yes. HP calculators had that.
There's another way for small volume. Laser engrave the legend with a CNC laser cutter. Then brush on laser marking powder, which is very similar to printer toner. Rerun the engraving pass at very low power, hitting the same spots just engraved. Power has to be low, just enough to melt and seal the toner, not vaporize it. Then brush off any remaining powder. This is good for cover plates with legends, signs, and such. The letters are slightly below surface level, so they tend not to wear off too fast.
In contrast, the group buys in the enthusiast community are works of love, with multiple rounds of checks and adjustments to get it right. Sometimes facilitators like Massdrop force projects out the door because of cost even though the creator of the design wants to do more rounds of tweaking are necessary, and it shows. (Example: the recent /dev/tty keycap set.)
Seems to be quality issues with every XDA run so far though. Keyboard fanatics drop a good amount of money on these sets so quality is extremely important in such a small and passionate market.
There's endless potential for lifestyle businesses in the hobby world. There are people out there doing 6 figures selling artisanal mechanical keyboard keycaps.