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I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

(tjcx.me)
851 points swyx | 7 comments | 18 Jan 21 20:01 UTC | HN request time: 1.756s | source | bottom
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rel2thr ◴[18 Jan 21 21:19 UTC] No.25826756[source]▶
I like your idea, but I’m confused why you didn’t try the webmd competitor route.. 50c/user that webmd makes is pretty good really , with good SEO + content marketing you could scale to enough users to make things interesting
replies(1): >>25826955 #
1. sixQuarks ◴[18 Jan 21 21:37 UTC] No.25826955[source]▶
Exactly. This was the right path in this case. The value is for the consumer, if he could attract just 100K visitors per month, that's $500,000/year.

Not only that, he would have a highly targeted group of users that he could tailor all kinds of products and services to.

replies(1): >>25827149 #
2. ivalm ◴[18 Jan 21 21:56 UTC] No.25827149[source]▶
You need 1mil visitors for 500k.
replies(1): >>25827220 #
3. saaaaaam ◴[18 Jan 21 22:04 UTC] No.25827220[source]▶
Indeed. Which what 100k per month comes to, give or take :)
replies(1): >>25827324 #
4. yaboy ◴[18 Jan 21 22:15 UTC] No.25827324{3}[source]▶
You’re both wrong. 100k visitors per month ≠ 100k unique users per month. Very different things!
replies(2): >>25828707 #>>25837745 #
5. sixQuarks ◴[19 Jan 21 00:57 UTC] No.25828707{4}[source]▶
You're being super nit-picky. It should have been assumed 100K "visitors" meant uniques, but I knew someone like you might make this comment. 100K * 12 = 1,200,000 visitors. I added a 20% margin to account for return visitors.
replies(1): >>25829002 #
6. yaboy ◴[19 Jan 21 01:43 UTC] No.25829002{5}[source]▶
I’d like to see you tell your founder or CMO that the difference between monthly visitors and monthly unique visitors is “super nit-picky”.

The 20% margin is risible and those who live by SEO die by SEO: https://cdixon.org/2011/03/05/seo-is-no-longer-a-viable-mark...

7. saaaaaam ◴[19 Jan 21 19:33 UTC] No.25837745{4}[source]▶
Well, quite! But then I pretty much assumed it was a shorthand amongst peers so (over) explanation perhaps wasn’t really necessary...