Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools?

Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by ralphholzmann on Thursday December 04, 2014 @10:31AM (#8699687)

I created sendtodropbox.com (email attachments to Dropbox) as a side project about 3 years ago. After the initial prototype, two-ish rewrites, and monetizing it with a freemium model, it's now got 1100 paying subscribers and brought in $20k in revenue this year. I did the whole thing myself (aside from the website template design, which a buddy of mine helped out with). This doesn't technically fall under the "informative value" category, but going solo on a project to make it profitable is definitely possible.

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by sjs382 on Thursday December 04, 2014 @10:57AM (#8699846)

Just FYI—the name of your project goes against the Dropbox branding guidelines: https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/branding

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by ralphholzmann on Thursday December 04, 2014 @11:14AM (#8699942)

Yeah, I got a special exemption from them for the name. :)

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by drinchev on Thursday December 04, 2014 @03:32PM (#8701456)

But how? Did you talk with some of the guys behind Dropbox or what did you exactly do to be allowed to violate this rule?

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by ralphholzmann on Thursday December 04, 2014 @04:53PM (#8701909)

I wrote my app before Dropbox had published any branding guidelines for developers (3+ years ago), so I was essentially grandfathered in. Perhaps my phrasing of "special exemption" was a bit strong. I apologize for that. I dug up this email exchange: http://i.ralph.io/95cc7ww3.png

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by dpweb on Thursday December 04, 2014 @11:23PM (#8703006)

Something also not offered in the usual "just build a great product" advice, there is so much to be said for getting in on something EARLY.

Google "send to dropbox", this site is #1. Guaranteed income to some extent just because of that. People need to build a great product, but that's not enough. You have to get it in front of alot of people. Try to do this same thing today, dropbox will slap you down.

Get in early on some area with a bright future, before the crowd - AND build a great product, I would think better than just build a great product.

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by avalaunch on Thursday December 04, 2014 @08:17PM (#8702645)

You asked "will you have a problem with my name "Send to Dropbox"?" and they said yes. It does look, based on the rest of their response, that they were instead answering the unasked question "is it ok to use the name?" but their response definitely makes things more ambiguous.

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by coreymaass on Thursday December 04, 2014 @11:08AM (#8699915)

The website says it's a free service. How did you earn $20k? What do subscribers pay for?

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by ralphholzmann on Thursday December 04, 2014 @11:22AM (#8699990)

They're essentially paying for the ability to customize their email address, set up incoming whitelists/blacklists (so someone with your address can't fill up your Dropbox overnight), as well as expedited email support.

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by gabemart on Thursday December 04, 2014 @12:49PM (#8700519)

What do you charge subscribers? Is there more than one tier?

Thanks!

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by ralphholzmann on Thursday December 04, 2014 @01:55PM (#8700946)

Single tier - $3 a month or $29 a year

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by swah on Thursday December 04, 2014 @11:06AM (#8699896)

Thank you for writing this - its a perfect example and proof that ones does not need to be patio11 to succeed with simple apps! Congrats on delivering!

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by unreal37 on Thursday December 04, 2014 @01:13PM (#8700669)

What does this mean? If I recall, patio11 was making $20k/$30k per year from bingo card creator years ago. Even today, with appointment reminder, at the core he is delivering real value to real customers for which they pay him money. I don't get the sentiment you're trying to express here.

It's not like he's a Kardashian or something. He's delivering a valuable service to businesses, and they pay him in return. If you do that, you will make money too.

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by xyby on Thursday December 04, 2014 @10:43AM (#8699759)

Interesting. How do you market it?

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by ralphholzmann on Thursday December 04, 2014 @10:49AM (#8699792)

I don't. All subscribers and traffic are organic from Google searches.

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by prezjordan on Thursday December 04, 2014 @10:54AM (#8699824)

Thank you for sharing the details! Creating something like this, and possibly having it pay my rent, is something I'm hoping to build in 2015.

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Re:Ask HN: Examples of profitable little free web tools? by OhHeyItsE on Thursday December 04, 2014 @10:54AM (#8699821)

Seconded. I can't remind myself enough that there are plenty of successful SaaS apps outside of the HN/TechCrunch/Pando loop. Talk about tunnel vision...

Congrats on your success.

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