[lngr]

This is what I call meta advice.

He makes most of the money now from persuading others starting a passive income side gig, for which he coincidentally has a starter pack to sale. While this might be a reliable income, it is in no means a template for other people to start a successful passive income business with a working business idea.

[SketchySeaBeast]

It's been repeatedly shown that the best alternative source of income is selling to people looking for alternative sources of income.

[aatd86]

One extra level of indirection always solves everything.

[ipython]

Business idea: I can sell you a list of people who you can then pay to tell you how to make money on the internet!

[el_memorioso]

Except for too many levels of indirection.

[avgDev]

When there is a gold rush sell shovels.

[SketchySeaBeast]

The modern version of that is GPUs.

[scarface_74]

Or consulting…

[Ekaros]

If I cared I would probably start selling material on how to sell material on alternative income... I think that would still be mostly reasonable point of meta. Good thing for world is that I do not care enough.

[madcaptenor]

It worked for Levi Strauss.

[factorialboy]

Well, I agree and disagree with this comment.

For a minority % for whom Django is the tech-choice, there indeed is a product being offered.

But for them, and the majority who might not choose Django, there is enough general-purpose advise in this essay.

Everything is meta.

Even a shower, a clean shave, and a well-tailored outfit can be classified as marketing / lead-gen / sales.

As can brushing your teeth :)

[czue]

This is a fair general critique of a category of advice that I try hard not to fall into. It is true that I make a fair share of my income from a starter kit, but I tried quite hard to generalize my advice and only mentioned it in passing once or twice (and the only slide that really pushed it, I acknowledged it was a shameless plug).

If you read my writing[1], it will be clear that I've been documenting my journey in a probably-too-transparent way long before I had a product that benefited from getting exposure to other developers. This talk is mostly just a distillation of that knowledge, because I have graduated from "idiot figuring it out" to "experienced person who may be able to say something useful for beginners".

Also, for the record, I hate that starter kits became one of the trendy (and sleazy) products in this space, exactly because it generates reactions like this. I wrote about this last month[2], saying "They make the whole industry look bad, and make me feel like a grifter selling Pegasus, even though I have worked my ass off on it for 5+ years and think it’s great. Maybe a corollary to this point is that I kind of don’t like marketing in my industry anymore?"

Again, I think it's a fair general critique and a correct reaction to this type of advice, and also I hope that I didn't really do what you said if you read or watch the contents of the talk.

1. https://www.coryzue.com/writing/ 2. https://www.coryzue.com/writing/dec-2024/

[daliusd]

I liked what you have shared. I am in similar position and tried to do the same as you but without success. So it is interesting to check what I can improve.

[latexr]

> This is what I call meta advice.

That’s what I call a grift. Your description reminded me of Dan Olson’s fantastic video on that type of strategy—where you make money by selling the idea that anyone can make passive income by doing something the seller doesn’t themselves do (anymore)—using the Mikkelsen Twins as the example.

In Dan’s words (emphasis mine), the Mikkelsen Twins aren’t special, grifters like them are a dime a dozen. He chose them as the example “because they are of a type. They are a representative sample of a category of grift. And also because they’re kind of incompetent and that makes them entertaining”.

He’s not wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw

[TheCapeGreek]

Cory built and grew SaaSPegasus to success long before the starter kit trend among indie hackers of the last year.

[jamiedumont]

Hate to break it to you but this trend of selling people a system to make money where the seller is actually enacting the system they’re selling is older than the internet.

I can recall online versions in 2012 - that I’m ashamed to say took me for some money - were not just in existence but popular and fashionable the way indie hackers is now. Nothing new.

[kristianp]

Rich Dad Poor Dad was published in 1997. I think it fits into the category.

[mixmastamyk]

The Dave Del Dotto system! Late 80s?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Del_Dotto

[latexr]

It’s not too dissimilar from MLMs, and those are older than the oldest living human, dating at least to the early twentieth century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing

[TheCapeGreek]

I'm not talking about selling shovels in general.

I'm talking about the specific SaaS starter kit trend of recent and that Cory's work predates it - specifically because of snark like yours, which has seen an uptick because of the recent trend.

[jamiedumont]

I'm only pointing out that those SaaS starter kits existed over ten years ago, and I've got the invoice to prove it! :D

[TheCapeGreek]

Okay, fair, my bad!

[scarface_74]

Even that is selling a platform to other people trying to start a business that probably won’t be successful

[Always42]

Once I realized this article was marketing I left.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Do you have more evidence of this? I'm genuinely curious. I read the whole post, and perhaps I missed it but I didn't see a breakdown of his income streams.

I say this because, at first blush, I was glad that a bunch of the products he listed that he built seemed generally like real products that I could imagine people finding useful. I say this because it feels like, in contrast, so often in these solopreneur posts they're selling some kind of scammy SEO or ad-spam tool.

So yeah, I'd be bummed if this guy turned out to be the tech equivalent of "Buy my real estate investing course!", and just curious if that's really what this is.

Edit: Nevermind, I saw https://www.coryzue.com/open/.

[thrw009]

This!

I immediately thought about Robert Kiyosaki, author of 'rich dad poor dad' I was eagerly reading as student. I later came to realize Robert converted to making money by selling his story and advice (and 'rat race' game :] which I also purchased! )

[whattheheckheck]

And the book, Expert Secrets

[stronglikedan]

> it is in no means a template for other people to start a successful passive income business with a working business idea.

it is when the working idea is to sell a template for other people to start a successful passive income business

[amelius]

Sounds like the main ingredient of a Ponzi scheme to me.

[bloomingkales]

https://youtu.be/Cv1RJTHf5fk

The immortal grifter Tai Lopez lives on.

I’m a lot more proud of bookshelf you see.

[sky2224]

I can't believe that video is almost 10 years old now, wow.

[ge96]

sell the shovel