[_xnmw]

I think the Flywheel analogy is great. One of the big differences between working a regular job and running your own product/content business is that it's a flywheel - it works even you don't. Your creative/productive output might be very sporadic and jerky, but the output tends to be smooth and compounded over years.

One of my "revelations" when I founded my own SaaS project a while ago is when I realized there are a bunch of abandoned, yes, completely abandoned, apps on various App Stores and marketplaces that still make a few thousand $ per month, years later, even though they don't even even work. The founder clearly put in a bunch of effort to build it initially, and then didn't carry on for whatever reason, yet it still gets a steady trickling stream of actual customers paying real money.

It's also one of the reasons it is counterproductive to burn out or over-hire or over-raise when building a bootstrapped SaaS. Just don't die, keep pushing the flywheel occasionally when you have some creative inspiration, and eventually you may build something truly great. Or maybe you won't, but at least it will keep you going. But have a flywheel, something that stores your energy and continues output, don't just waste energy trying a bunch of different unreleased projects.

[atombender]

> still make a few thousand $ per month, years later

How did you find out? Apple doesn't reveal anything about how many are paying to an app, do they?

[_xnmw]

You can guess from the number of reviews and downloads as they change over time. Everyone says it "doesn't work" yet people still download and try it, which means they paid for it. Granted some might chargeback and refund, but not all. Also my personal experience as the owner of such listings is that you get about 1 review per hundred customers (unless you have a very pushy review process). I've made thousands of sales with only a dozen reviews. Also I'll admit to once having an app on a marketplace that was never updated and barely worked still making hundreds of dollars a month almost a decade later.

[atombender]

Given how easy it is to get a refund for an app purchase, I would be really surprised if this results in a significant revenue stream, but I don't actually know, of course.

[_xnmw]

You'll be surprised at how many people don't know or don't bother to refund.

[atombender]

Do you have concrete numbers for that, then?

[_xnmw]

Warren Buffett has a term for this, it's called "float". At my current (active, not abandoned) startup, my guess is somewhere around 30% of active paying customers are also non-users. Lots of industries have this. The majority of gym membership sales (50%+) and even a significant number of airline tickets are unused.