My basic rule of thumb is that anything you have ever seen sold makes $100,000+ for someone because otherwise it couldn't justify having multiple people devoted to it. Consider bingo cards, for example: Scholastic, a Real Company (TM) which has Real Capital Expenditures (TM) and pays Real Salaries (TM) publishes on-dead-tree bingo cards through stores which habitually do 100% markups over wholesale. So for Scholastic to expend their corporate efforts to author, print, and stock that, it must sell tens of thousands of units per year.

Bingo Card Creator is strictly superior to about half of their bingo products (can't do pictures), costs less at the quantities my teachers use, and has such an astoundingly better cost structure (what, you mean I don't leak 50% of the MSRP to the retailer?) that I'm essentially guaranteed to make money on sales.

After that, it is only a matter of marketing. (He says with a twinkle in his eye.)

Incidentally, I found a niche because someone came up to me and said "Oh bugger I would pay if this problem would go away." When is the last time you talked to someone who wasn't a techy but had money and problems?

"When is the last time you talked to someone who wasn't a techy but had money and problems?"

This should be bold, highlighted and underscored - talk, talk, talk to non tech people with problems and money - problems are everywhere.

Whatever the buzz factor & whatever the love/hate relationship people have with 37S' pointed and sometimes downright obnoxious blog, it's nothing compared to Facebook or Digg, while 37s has real products that generate actual money.

They are closer to being a "no ruckus" businesses than the others.

It depends what you're after. Some people would rather a guaranteed lower income, rather than the chance of the big time. 37s have gone for the former, Digg+Facebook have gone for the latter.

Both are valid strategies, but the latter has far more potential upside (With way more risk). That's probably why it gets more press.

Who wants to read about another software company that sells products and makes a few million?

I'm not sure I buy the equivalence of no revenues = higher upside. There are plenty of companies that got big & famous by making products & selling them. These include software companies.

Sure there is something you might call a 'type' that can be built on your latter. But it's not the only type.

Digg and Facebook both have pretty good revenue. They just have stupidly high costs.

Well I suppose the goodness of the revenues needs to be weighed against the stupidity of the costs.

"ruckus" just means they make a lot of noise about themselves, via the blog, their book(s), conferences, and so on. In terms of their business, it seems to work, so one can hardly blame them for it.