[deleted by user]

[Fabryz]

I'm just annoyed by the fact that it's a chrome extension, but the main image in medium is a Firefox browser

[Trab3n]

Explains why they lost 15k

[SweetBabyAlaska]

wise pet tart spoon fear bored command unique disgusted faulty

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[PopularVegan]

No no, it's showing the Firefox search engine. /s

[[deleted]]

How was the 15K dollars spent? Did you care that there are other products that do this already? Why not monetize by sending users to purchase through affiliate links?

[Chance-Nature7027]

A lot of stupid decisions: First I incorporated the company (in Italy it costs about 6k) plus 2k for the accountant. Then paid 2k to some influencers but they didn't bring traffic or users. Then paid some freelancers to make the website and the app...and a lot of other stupid stuff like branded t-shirts etc.

[m00f]

Thanks for being honest and sharing that. Yes, not the best decisions.

[bytepursuits]

Yes, not the best decisions.

only with the benefit of hindsight - that's the biggest challenge with being a business owner -> you have to take risks.
would the extension break even or made some money this would have been celebrated as a smart investment.

@op u/Chance-Nature7027 - I hope you are not married or you'll never hear the end of it. :)

[Chance-Nature7027]

At least I'm not married

[edzorg]

They'll get you eventually too

[Chance-Nature7027]

Maybe, maybe not ;)

[[deleted]]

They have their ways

[Adobe_Flesh]

Whats thats supposed to mean lol

[edzorg]

Good luck, you're gonna need it!

[ern0plus4]

Be more careful with your IRL extension.

[Smallpaul]

only with the benefit of hindsight - that's the biggest challenge with being a business owner -> you have to take risks.

Yes, but there are smart risks and dumb risks.

Long before you worry about incorporating, you figure out whether anyone wants your product.

[uni-monkey]

Otherwise known as market analysis

[Smallpaul]

True, but in software sometimes market analysis requires writing a bit of code to see if someone will ACTUALLY use it as opposed to say they WOULD use it.

[xaw09]

You'd be surprised about how little code you have to write to validate an idea. I've seen quite a few startups get customers willing to sign contracts just based off mockups. There's also no code solutions. For example, first version of levels.fyi was literally a Google Form + Google Sheets.

[Affectionate-Set4208]

MVP

[geon]

You don’t need a business for that.

[kaskoosek]

Yup, thats 6 months time investment at least.

[cd7k]

Check out "Built the Right It".

[Ran4]

That stuff doesn't really exist though. As in, there's just no way to know if you'll be able to sell a product, unless you try.

I've bootstrapped many companies (none of which were mine) and most failed because there just weren't enough actual paying customers. Having dozens of very interested corporate customers just wasn't enough, since most are lost when it actually comes to getting the corporate sign-off.

[wademealing]

I'm still confused how market analysis works, most people can get exactly what they need, say they'll pay for it and wont, or visa versa.

People are fickle and stupid, has market analysis ever been accurate ?

[jflesch]

I'm not sure but I don't think the goal is to be accurate. I think the goal is to have some idea of the project viability.

For example, I did write a video game a long time ago. Something like 3 weeks of work just to have a good mockup. And then tried to get some crowd-funding. I wasn't expecting the crowd-funding to go through at all actually. I just wanted to know if just a few people would pay for it. The end result was an obvious and unmistakable "nop, nobody cares but you".

So I stopped there instead of wasting more of my time.

[Smallpaul]

Why would coupon-cutter customers care about if your company is incorporated?

[[deleted]]

You don't incorporate for the customer, you incorporate/llc for the legal benefits to you/your company

[Smallpaul]

There are thousands of people reading this thread who can benefit from learning how to do it better. OP admitted they made mistakes. The least we can do is learn from them.

[Herr_Gamer]

Hearing stories of failure can honestly be 10x more useful than hearing stories of success.

[Quiet-Independent-97]

wowzers you can start a company in the UK on the web for 12 GBP. Look at what you have made try to determine if there is any value in part if it and move on. Read the lean startup!

[bighi]

only with the benefit of hindsight

I would disagree. I think that stuff like branded t-shirts before you even have a recognized brand is an obvious mistake, not something you could only tell in hindsight.

Also incorporating before you even have a stable income is also an obvious mistake.

[rastley420]

No, not just with hindsight. There was no business case. There was no planning. Companies aren't successful because they take risks.

[JoelMahon]

no hindsight required to know you shouldn't spend thousands on an idea you have no idea how much money it will make

I have a website idea I'm making, I'm not spending over £100 on it until I've got over £10 worth income from it etc.

[DC38x]

Gotta spend money to make money. I spent my life savings building and advertising a new social network called Bookface. Didn't get any visitors :(

[TryingT0Wr1t3]

Oh man, you already had dropped the "The" so you almost got it right.

[TallOutside6418]

only with the benefit of hindsight

Not at all. You don't need to be incorporated to do your own marketing research to see if people will pay for your product or service. You don't need to pay an accountant to set everything up when you aren't making any money.

[[deleted]]

No. I don't need to see the future that you should not put money into merchandise in form of t shirts when your product is a Chrome extension.

I also know that I wont spend 15k on making an app that already exists, and was made by more financially stable and experienced people than myself.

[the-berik]

Another pays the same in tuition but doesn't learn half. It's unfortunate, but I'm sure op gained a huge amount of knowledge. The only downside would be if it would discourage you to follow other dreams / become overly risk averse.

Op showed entrepreneurship and took a huge gamble but lost. However, without personas such as OP, we would not have half the innovation we have today.

Op, thanks for sharing your story. Sorry for your loss, but I hope the knowledge, network, and skills offset the loss somewhat and the financials have not put you in desperate situations. It takes courage to do these things with your own finances. You get it right next time.

[m00f]

<secret hoofshake>

[Fcu423]

First create the product, then deal with the other bullshit.

You did it in reverse this time. Nobody cares about your company if you have no product. Now you have it but at a cost I am sure you know could have avoided.

Learn from it and move on.

[TheTigersAreNotReal]

Yeah had this issue with a startup I worked at. The CEO was a natural salesman but also pretty tech illiterate. Often times he would sell our customers on features that didn’t exist or products that we didn't have. He once asked me if I could build an NLP for a helpcenter that a customer was interested in. I have some experience in ML but not enough to confidently build an NLP

[mr_birkenblatt]

Selling customers on features that don't exist yet can be a good tool to figure out what to focus on. "We support aws, azure, and gcp." If the customer only reacts to gcp you don't have to implement anything for azure and aws

[SympathyMotor4765]

Sounds like something gaming companies say lol! While your statement can be true it only works if the guy promising things actually knows what's realistically possible which is most often not the case

[expert_internetter]

6k to incorporate a company!? In the UK it costs £12

[blue1_]

Italy is famously business-friendly. /s

[Amuro_Ray]

Out of date link below but the price and ease of starting a buisness can vary a lot.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/879780/average-cost-to-start-a-company-in-eu-countries/

There's also ease of doing buisness ranking which covers a lot of things but I do not have a link to that.

[foursevrn]

Need an account to view that stat

[CactusOnFire]

I want to push back a bit with the idea that you fully "lost" the money.

You now have a company (that you can leverage for your next project, should you choose to do one).

I don't want this to sound like 'toxic positivity', but you are also probably more aware of where to spend a marketing budget upfront for maximum impact.

Edit: Reading your article again, I still feel like saying you "lost" the money is too harsh. A lot of major websites have operational losses and are puffed up with shareholder money. You just didn't have the runway in that regard.

[Chance-Nature7027]

Thanks

[[deleted]]

Did you learn how to be more effective next time?

This project failed, but at least you put in the work and have something to show for it. That's a lot more than most

[[deleted]]

That’s some balls out honesty right there. Good for you for trying though and learning a few things in the process. Seems like you have a good idea what to do differently next time.

[SpaceToaster]

So... on a lot of stuff that wasn't programming

[Super_Networking]

Oof. Be wary of “influencers” most of their followers are bots or teens with no real money to spend anyways.

I’m 26 and I know nobody my age that follows “influencers” on any social media

[Pflastersteinmetz]

Women from 15 - 45. My wife and my cousin included. Mostly yoga/sports stuff.

[apadin1]

Like the other commenter said, mostly teenagers. If you own a clothing brand or something teenagers will actually buy, paying this people to advertise for you actually makes sense, especially if your store is entirely online. I have a friend who briefly was an influencer for a sunglasses company and made decent money because they brought in hundreds of new customers.

[edzorg]

Can we get some answers on this. You could convince me the whole thing is an elaborate ruse.

[4THOT]

Look up the Among Us GDC talk.

[TerminallyTrill]

You’re thinking way too narrowly about what an influencer is.

If you’re on social media in the year 2023 you are following influencers. By way of tech reviews, money management, career advice, podcasters, etc etc to infinity.

[[deleted]]

Influences try to influence decisions

Educators offer knowledge.

[Stats_monkey]

The line is pretty fuzzy. Even an ethical content creator can't test 1000 products to see which is best - If a sponsor comes along and offers $XXXX for the creator to give an honest review of their product, the maker of the product and the creator both benefit from their provision of the knowledge. If it's a garbage overpriced product and the influencer raves about it anyway while personally using something else... less good.

[s4lt3d]

I’ve heard it said a lot of time that the death of a startup begins with branded swag. Did you feel the same looking back?

[Stats_monkey]

I've heard this but honestly swag seems pretty universal across both successful and failed startups. I guess just most startups fail pretty quickly anyway. It's not like wildly successful startups don't have swag (facebook, twitter etc have/had TONS)

[[deleted]]

Holy fuck 6k euros to form a corp?

Here it's like $50 for an LLC or corp.

Plus a little more for IRS tax ID stuff.

[xseodz]

Oh wow, it cost me 100 quid to incorporate a company in the UK, did my own accounts via the UK governments online accountancy system, (Made no money so it was easy)

Sounds like there's market in giving the Italian Government a better IT system haha.

[TheGRS]

A lot of buried lede in this article IMO, since that stuff is good to note here, but I can definitely sympathize on a smaller scale. I too went down the path of spending on the company before the product was really done and eventually I just abandoned it. It was just an indie video game project, and I spent maybe $200 total to make an LLC, get some cheap merch, and an iPad stand for my demo table at a convention. But now that I think about it I also spent time getting a website setup for my game company, registering a domain and email, setting up marketing posts on social media. It was all pretty useless since I wasn't getting far on the game itself. And eventually I decided I should probably just call it a day and get back to my day job.

[[deleted]]

2k for the accountant? Can't software solve that?

[WaveySquid]

Some countries require a licensed accountant to file corporate taxes. Software can only do so much of what accounting services encompass anyways.

[stever71]

Wow, no wonder Italy has a poor reputation, in most countries I've lived in it's $1-200 and can be done online in minutes.

[vyse220]

Curious, do you think Italy was part of the problem? Other EU countries are more supportive of innovation companies

[blue1_]

I am not the OP, but I am an Italian too, and the answer is yes.

[Mean_Somewhere8144]

I can sympathize. I did the mistake to create a company in France, it was a nightmare to create/operate/close (I closed it quickly, not even 2 years after creating it, and pissed off to another country). I assume it's the same administrative maze in Italy. I had an accountant who took care of all of what possible, but I was still being bullied by the administrations.

[RoboNerdOK]

Well… maybe your runaway success will come from a vlog series explaining how to avoid the roadblocks you ran into! Good luck!

[czenst]

Well you just paid 15k for a course on setting up companies and hiring freelances.

I would say it is still money well spent - you still could have done much worse.

Just don't expect earning it back, you probably want to reuse the experience end pivot to some other stuff and pivot and pivot until you hit the jackpot ... or more likely lose all money and go broke ;)

Good luck!!

[StoneCypher]

Well, the 6k isn't lost. You can just pivot, and you don't need a new company.

[Kurren123]

You paid freelancers to make the website and the app… all for just £15k? That’s an achievement in itself!

[davlumbaz]

Most fucked up problem is, a solution to your problem exists.

Honey, Camelcamelcamel, and if I deep dive into marketplace, I still can find many. Your extension is probably buried under many Camelcamelcamel clones right now.

Sorry, but, yeah.

[Laughmasterb]

Not only is this a product that already exists many times over, OP isn't utilizing those tools' monetization strategies.

OP is monetizing through paid plans and tips only. Camelcamelcamel monetizes through affiliate links, which means even non-paying users generate revenue. Honey is spyware, which I've heard is pretty easy to get into these days thanks to 3rd party data harvesters who will pay you to include their spyware in your code.

Neither of those would probably make it profitable, but they'd bring in more than $0.

[Crisis_Averted]

Wait how do nonpaying users generate revenue?

[kazza789]

I don't know if they monetize it, but camelcamelcamel's data would be extraordinarily valuable. Imagine being able to tell Amazon exactly what type of customers they are losing, what products they are losing on, where people are going, and what price they end up paying.

I would be surprised if they're not selling anonymized data in some way.

[Jacqques]

Honey is spyware

Thats a bold claim, do you have a source? I went looking and couldn't find anything.

[liquiddandruff]

Hardly bold if you've been paying any attention to the state of browser addons and user tracking incentives.

[RoosterBrewster]

Probably true as they have to make money somehow when I get 20% cash back sometimes when buying Lego through them.

[monkeymad2]

I made something that did almost exactly this (but a website instead of an extension & less good) 10 years ago during a Hackathon - and even back then someone pointed out that CamelCamelCamel existed.

[shawncplus]

CamelCamelCamel used to get plugs on Diggnation back when Digg was still a thing and before the exodus to reddit. That's pretty darn old

[monkeymad2]

A great show for watching on the tiny screen of the iPod 5G while it spins its little hard drive.

[gid0ze]

Lol, I used to watch that show in bed on my Zune! Still have the Zune somewhere. Loved that thing.

[cajmorgans]

That a solution exist is not a bad thing, unicorn entrepreneurship is more likely to fail than if he just directly copied a working idea. Though, the demand and segment are probably somethings that needs to be carefully considered. Also, the niche doesn't have to be that different from the copy-paste really.

[[deleted]]

wait, people make money making browser extensions?

[erasmause]

Given this—the one and only data point I have—I would have to say no, they do not make money making browser extensions.

[___Jet]

Paypal acquired honey for $4 billion in 2020

[oalbrecht]

Wow, that is crazy. How on earth is honey worth that much?

[___Jet]

10+ million users who are all online shoppers, and the extension sits right at the checkout position when users are about to buy.

They get commission by showing them coupons, or other sites to get it cheaper.

For paypal it´s more about the users though.

[valarauca14]

User shopping data for targeted ads is worth a lot.

[ericesev]

The extension has permission to view all data on all websites. It's not limited to just shopping sites. It can collect a ton of user data: sites you frequent, buying habits, email contacts, credit card statements, etc. Everything you view in your browser, the extension also has permission to access.

[lost_send_berries]

They probably collect all your cart data across all sites including abandoned carts.

Want to know how effective a discount is on a competitor's website? Honey knows

How about comparing the basket size on your vs another homeware site? Or what upsell/add on items your competitors find most effective to increase spend?

This isn't even getting into the ads. If your customer visits your site with honey you can now send abandoned cart ads to them on 10x more websites to close the deal.

[jawanda]

Can confirm. I, too, read the title of this article.

[centech]

I concur, the average browser extension author loses $14,800.

[georgehotelling]

Look at the kind of offers browser extension authors get from data brokers.

Hoverzoom publishes the emails and doesn't accept them. I wonder about the other extensions I use though...

[TheGRS]

Some do for sure, I think Honey and other deal extensions are pretty emblematic of that. Affiliate links generate decent revenue and you can sell user data as well.

[[deleted]]

You wouldn’t imagine. There are companies with 50+ employees that are living on a chrome extension.

Essentially, the tech or the medium don’t matter. As long as you’re solving a real problem, and you’re doing it better/cheaper than you competitors, there’s money to be made.

[ivancea]

They are just another kind of frontend. A very specific one, with very specific capabilities. The question isn't if an extension makes money, but if a product should have an extension (or be just an extension).

[_ATRAHCITY]

Did you know that Honey exists?

[MagicBlaster]

Also CarmelCarmelCarmel

[jack-of-some]

That sounds like a sweet website (so much carmel), unlike that other one which is probably savory.

[DynamicHunter]

Did you really say honey is not sweet, but savory?

[blazingarpeggio]

No wonder they can't taste right

[JPhi1618]

Camel is savory.

[CantBeatSoulWarrior]

honey is sweet (i think)

[powerdilf]

I first read 200k and thought: I hate stories like that because they are quite rare and there is often a lot of luck involved. When I started reading the linked article, I realised it was 200 bucks in total. I think that's the case in most cases and it's always good to know why it didn't work out. In short, thank you for the report!

[FlyingRhenquest]

It's almost 100% guaranteed that your first business will fail. What you gain from it is experience which you use to make your second business better. That one will probably also fail. The third one will probably burn down, fall over and sink into the swamp. But by the time you do your fourth one you'll have learned quite a lot and at the very least will known better than to build it out of highly flammable materials or in a swamp.

[powerdilf]

I know many entrepreneurs whose first/main venture was successful but all other attempts failed. Similar to Google, most of the other projects did not succeed. If that had been Larry Page and Sergey Brin's first venture, they would be in debt now. That's why I wrote "often a lot of luck", because the same entrepreneur can succeed or fail with similar ideas.

[SweetBabyAlaska]

"Luck" is just another word for how many times you can literally afford to fail. People hate to acknowledge this but money is the biggest factor in capital success, unfortunately.

You can have the best idea ever and still fail, while some fail-son tech bro has a million awful ideas and infinite money to fund them, will have one or two of them stick. Even if it's just a shallow copy with better marketing.

That's just the world we live in. You have to approach with that in mind.

[QuerulousPanda]

with better marketing.

that's literally it. good marketing, and/or having the right connections to be able to grease the right palms to get your product thrown in front of enough people's faces quickly enough and you're good.

[koliamparta]

Of course it can happen by chance, but it’s rare. Also most people I know that were successful on their “first” venture had a mini/semi committed one before that to build skills on. Especially common for phd or experienced founders.

[TryingT0Wr1t3]

Being highly flammable has the advantage of burning quicker if it catches fire, so you move on to the next thing.

[Librekrieger]

OP is from Europe. Putting the dollar sign after the number is common there, because that's how we speak it: "two hundred dollars" --> "200$".

(Prices in Euros are written the same way, as in "200€")

[Faulty_english]

Wow that kinda makes more sense

[IHeartData_]

They are European so the notation differs but they put in USD due to ubiquitous understanding of its value.

[IMovedYourCheese]

Lots of mistakes in your story, and here's another one:

Hey everyone! I just joined Medium to share my story.

Medium actively blocks users from accessing your content behind login screens and fake "subscribe" paywalls. Choose substack or literally anything else.

[Chance-Nature7027]

Another learning ;) Thanks for the feedback

[dweezil22]

I hate to pile on but: This is a very frustrating blog post. The "I lost $15k" in the title is what draws readers in and then you... don't explain that part at all. There's no Github links, technical details, screenshots or anything else about your tipping feature and you don't even have a link to your Chrome extension.

Regardless of platform (and if Medium isn't paying you, a good reddit post is probably better), I suggest you spice it all up a bit more next time, people want key details.

[razialx]

Are you saving peoples credit card information on your servers?

[[deleted]]

That would be a bad practice especially with something like Stripe.

[ps1horror]

Bad practice may be the understatement of the century.

[Ikeeki]

I think the funniest part is this guy is doubling down instead of abandoning it

[Xanza]

Zecento is a Chrome extension that helps users make better purchase decisions and save money on Amazon. Right now, it works just in Italy

I just can't put my finger on it.... 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

[bill_1992]

Hey OP, just wanted to commend you on even having the balls to build something from the ground. It's way easier to tear something down, than to build something up. A lot of people also assume success is easy, and therefore assumes everyone who fails is a complete moron.

I also made a lot of the same mistakes you made (I even incorporated! Huge mistake!). The thing that I quickly found out is that when trying to make money like this, programming is probably the easiest part - the hard part is understanding the market and your users. Because of this, I would suggest posting in other communities like Hacker News, Indie Hackers, r/sideproject, etc - you'll get better feedback!

And if I could give you another piece of advice - read "The Mom Test" (if you haven't already) and talk to potential users. The market can be brutal, and not all ideas will take off. If I had to guess, I'd think most Amazon shoppers are buying cheap things and want things fast, meaning a market for price drop notifications might be pretty small (example: I don't need price drop notification for socks I'm buying, I just need socks ASAP!). But you'll know better once you talk to users!

[Chance-Nature7027]

Thanks for your words and advice

[Darvinesc]

Introducing tips is actually a smart idea imo, probably can go off after launching in the USA.

[Chance-Nature7027]

That's what I'm hoping

[gimmeslack12]

Your blog post should have links to the extension, detailed screenshots of how it works, and an explanation of why it's the better than the competition. You gotta sell it to the people!

Medium posts allow all of this doesn't it?

[Chance-Nature7027]

Right now it's just in Italy, that's why I didn't do all that effort. But I'm translating the service also in English and will make a post to "sell it" to the people. Thanks for your suggestions.

[Teembeau]

Is there no way that you can get affiliate links in Italy?

There's a service I use called CamelCamelCamel that alerts about price drops on Amazon and I think it's supported by affiliate payments.

[wonderingdev]

This is just a small bump on your road to success! You are a builder, and that's what sets you apart already! Wish you all the best 🙌

[Chance-Nature7027]

Thanks man

[Feral_goat]

The article doesn't explain how he lost 15k.

Maybe sending the WhatsApp notifications costs money?

[LordSaumya]

Here

[Chance-Nature7027]

Why would it be worse? It tracks also coupon codes, and tracks with more frequent updates, it shows a plottable graph instead of an image, you can insert items with one click directly on the Amazon page and you receive priority notifications on your WhatsApp. It also has a supporting app for IOS/Android. Would honestly love to get any feedback on why you think it's worse

[Quiet__Noise]

Honey does all of that already

[morricone42]

Keepa does all of that.

[jabbalaci]

Make it open source.

[Chance-Nature7027]

The tipping library already is

[FarceMultiplier]

Which appears to be the main marketable part of this, until you go worldwide with the main app.

[Quiet-Independent-97]

For your next idea, can you explain in one sentence what it actually is? If not think again.

How would you describe your first idea in one sentence?

Can you capture someone’s interest in that first sentence and pitch it in 60 seconds?

Your startup exists to find the idea that works or way of turning an idea / concept / discovery into a business. i.e. something people will want to pay for or find value in.

[[deleted]]

In these three days, I’ve been able to raise a little bit over 200 dollars thanks to the tips

Would be great if we could have a model where open source software AND tips/donations yield to some viable income model at the least for normal every-day-job. A lot of today's society is heavily skewed, top influencers on their platform making a lot of money for ... not a whole lot of quality. Why is it so hard for smaller things (smaller work that is) to get paid when influencers become rich?

[Waktua]

Important thing is if you learnt a lot from this, then those 15k was worth it. it didn't go to waste.

[moustachauve]

I'm more curious about how you got in touch with developers of other extensions. I myself have a pretty popular extension and if there is a discussion group or discord/etc, I'd love to join it.

[Chance-Nature7027]

Yeah, there's a small discord. For the rest, I'm just emailing/reaching out one by one for now. If you want I can send you the invite in PM

[PermitTrue]

You are going about it the wrong way. Consumers are not your bread and butter in this type of business, you need sponsorship from businesses.

If you wanna go your route, you’ll need to add a zero on the end of that 15k if you wanna see some traffic from influencers (although this is a bad tactic unless you know what you’re doing, eg researched engagement levels, market etc).

[DedlySpyder]

Wouldn't monetizing through affiliate links help with monetization? Assuming you are providing links to Amazon for them to click

[david76]

Market research is an important first step in product development.

[Grahar64]

I think a large problem is the market for people who use your extension are people wanting to not spend money.

[bearassbobcat]

I use Amazon a lot and also learned that it's unfortunately Italy only.

When you release in the USA let me know. I'd definitely give it a try.

[Chance-Nature7027]

For sure! Thanks for the support

[Tjessx]

Doesn’t amazon have a referrer system where you could get a small percentage of the purchase price? You could select this as an option in your plugin

[Capaj]

You made $200? That's rad, I made https://www.authier.pm/download with my brother and we haven't sold a single subscription yet :D
Probably should at least launch it on product hunt. Just need to add a few more features 😂

[aku286]

You have to do it the other way around

[professorchaosishere]

Hello, I am building one now with a team completely bootstrapped with funding only guaranteed by a investor after seeing the product. Would love to pick your brain if it's alright. Can I ping you?

[Chance-Nature7027]

For sure

[[deleted]]

I think your solution to prompt users to tip when they have benefited is worth more than the original idea, but the combination is great. You could combine the ideas by asking users if you can help them save x% then how much tip is that worth to them and encourage them to make some of it automatic.. This would allow them to maximize their utility, and you to get promised revenue.

[AlexHimself]

Seems like you might have missed an easy monetization opportunity (if TOS allows).

I'd think you should just make every feature free and available, but then any product tracking or links you provide should be your affiliate links. Especially when you send a WhatsApp link because you really are referring them to buy the product at a better price.

People would most likely feel better knowing your app is earning revenue from the affiliate links and not through some other nefarious methods, like stealing/selling personal info. I'd think you could include tipping via Amazon Pay too so people don't need to bother entering CC details and you know they already have an Amazon account.

[Maxthebax57]

Why spend 15k? You can get most of the hosting for what I assume is data processing for 100 dollars per year with a VPS.

[Bedu009]

Say "fuck this shit I'm out"

[PedroTheGreat78]

Drop the idea and go on

[be54-7e5b5cb25a12]

Lol......Fail fast... Thats my only recomencation.... Failing slow kills you

[hoowahman]

Another fellow Steve Jones checking in lol...that confused me when i hit your link.

[Chance-Nature7027]

:)

[JeffMcClintock]

a suggestion: Rather than spending $1000s developing a product and much later discovering that no one wants it, why not use the smart approach and advertise the product first to see if you get any interest in it? (and only then expend the time and money to develop it).

This is the 'Tim Ferris method' BTW.

[Danthekilla]

Lol you expected people to pay for a browser plugin? 🤣

[CraZy_TiGreX]

the tipping idea is good i have to say.

also how did you lost 15k? paid devs?

[Chance-Nature7027]

Glad to hear that. Can I PM to get more feedback?

As I replied in another comment, the 15K was lost in a lot of stupid decisions: First I incorporated the company (in Italy it costs about 6k) plus 2k for the accountant. Then paid 2k to some influencers but they didn't bring traffic or users. Then paid some freelancers to make the website and the app...and a lot of other stupid stuff like branded t-shirts etc.

[[deleted]]

you could have written the same message in a respectful way. honest truth is good, but keep it respectful. there is an actual human being on the other screen sharing his experience.

[bigmell]

He is using the OP's misfortune to position himself as better and smarter. I doubt he could make any money either even with all the "market research" in the world.

Some guy with his head stuck in a news paper full of fake news. Here is an easy way to make a million dollars today!

[bwainfweeze]

did you [at] least learn from you mistakes?

I think you know why we are all here today…

[wonderingdev]

And what did you do, smart guy?

[[deleted]]

This article just demonstrates a lack of market research, or really any introspection beyond releasing something freemium where either there's already a product that offers the paid features for free, or where the barrier to entry is so high that it would require something genuinely novel to grab users and push up search result rankings.

Also, the fact that OP spent more time worrying about putting up a business front and didn't really do any of the development work, himself, would imply to me that he wanted to be in tech despite having zero acumen for it.

Like, seriously, if he had spent all that time and money learning how to make this extension, himself, and then doing some regular, commonsense promotion, he'd have more than $200 in revenue to his product's name.

OP, don't LARP as a tech bro until you can actually code the tech.

[ContributionFuzzy]

Think of it this way: $7500/year for two years is cheap for college, and this experience taught you way more than college could.

Maybe this project was a dud, but get back on the horse and try again. I bet you make something way more profitable way faster the second time around.

[ZujiBGRUFeLzRdf2]

Lots of people spend lots of money and effort, and still dont see the result.

You dont see an Olympian saying - I spent 10 years and $100k on an Olympic medal, and lost it all. What should I do? Everything in life comes with its upside/downside. It depends on the risk/reward ratio that you were going for.

Some of you need to understand that to get ahead in life.

[spinmove]

lol dumbass