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A comment on Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?.

Re:Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before i... by patio11 on Monday March 07, 2011 @10:15AM (#2297341)
BCC was profitable within about a month of conception and has been since then.

AR will, knock on wood, probably hit cash-flow positive in May (about six months after launch) and pay back development costs in a month or two after that. I was originally targeting 12 months for surpassing BCC & consulting but, knock on wood, I have since learned something about my market which may make that pessimistic.

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Re:Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before i... by rudiger on Monday March 07, 2011 @10:50AM (#2297451)
Care to elaborate on what you've learned about Appointment Reminder's market that would make you pessimistic about it?
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Re:Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before i... by patio11 on Monday March 07, 2011 @10:53AM (#2297466)
My apologies, I think that phrasing was difficult to parse: the 12 month estimate was excessively pessimistic (i.e. it probably won't take that long, because the market is better than I expected it to be).

I had been basing my projections off of running a medium-volume low-touch business with average yearly account values in the $500 range. It turns out there is an addressable market for which average yearly account values are in the five figure range. More detail on that in a blog post Friday-ish.

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Re:Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before i... by graceyang on Monday March 07, 2011 @11:18AM (#2297563)
Would love to hear more about your experience in this industry and where you think you fit with the bigger players out there (televox, smilereminder etc.)
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Re:Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before i... by patio11 on Monday March 07, 2011 @11:33AM (#2297620)
The short version is that, if everything goes according to plan, they are Big Consultingware Project Management and I am Basecamp. (Or, to put it another way, I'm not competing with them, I'm competing with non-consumption of services.)
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