hacking and gonzo since 2000

Self-made millionaire?

I don't think it's hard to become a millionaire. I think it's a realistic goal and it can be achieved in a lot of ways. My way will be to create web-applications.

The Internet is a major market, it's a market of around 1 billion people. On the Internet creating something that people truly want won't only make you into a millionaire, it will make you into a billionaire, great examples on this phenomenon are Google and Skype.

The biggest issue is to create something that people want - just like Paul Graham preaches.

A plan to become a millionaire? Say we have around 100.000 users. Is it unrealistic that 5000 of them would pay $5 pr. month for some extra service? If this isn't unrealistic, then it's possible to become a millionaire in 1 years time (at least in danish kroner):

5000 * $5 * 12 = $300000 = 1.6 million kroner

In my opinion the above math isn't unrealistic, but it requires hard work and some luck. What do you think?

Life • 30. May 2007

8 comments so far

[ICR] 30. May 2007: It's certainly possible, it's just unreliable.

Brendan 30. May 2007

Amir,

Just make sure you live (or continue to live) in an area of the world where a million dollars still means something :-)

Cheers,

- Brendan

Alex 30. May 2007

It's possible but people always want something new and better.

Don't forget the government will take about 1/3 of that million. ;)

Kurt 30. May 2007: Not only possible, but if anyone can pull it off, it will be you.

Mike 31. May 2007

Your math isn't unrealistic I think. You're clearly a great coder and you could probably make a million kronor if you really wanted!

It think it was a bad idea to make todoist.com/static/ 403 forbidden though. I'm a programmer and curious by nature and sometimes I'd like to see the code that makes the magic happen. The generated, compressed JS may be good for performance but it's completely unreadable! Did you do this intentionally?

Open source is clearly not the way to go if you want to if you want to make it big though, so NEvermind me and go for it! ;)

Simon Carstensen 1. Jun 2007

5% paying users might actually be a little too high. I remember reading an article on the topic a while back in which most of the web apps quoted had 1-2% paying customers.

Also you don't mention anything about expenses, but I expect your todoist expenses to be pretty low, though :-)

RStankov 1. Jun 2007

The percent of paying user is very dependent on the service it self, and what group of people it is based for and if you pay what more do you get.
Recently I have read some article about 37signals.com and www.basecamphq.com, its not exactly self-made millionaire but is somewhere near that.

p.s. It will be go to have some Post Preview button :)

amix 13. Jun 2007

Kurt:
Thanks :)

Mike:
I have given my share of code to open source and frankly I have received very little in return (both money and external help wise).

Simon:
Like RStankov, I think it depends on what you make, who you make it to and the quality of the software. For some products it may very well be 2%, for others it may be 20%.