[righyeah]

If the niche products are doing so well, then why the need to sell consulting? I mean if you have a product that is truly revolutionizing the time management space, one would think that business would constinue to grow and require a lot of energy to maintain.

It seems like this niche is a given number of programmers with poor time management skills surfing the web (what a coincidence :). Giving them a quick fix impulse buy is the niche. You will not catch enough fish to last a lifetime but some not-so-smart fish will get caught in the net, consistently.

And we can apply this same idea to selling admission to a talk or sellling an ebook. The point is to sell a perceived quick fix to people who are foolish enough to believe in such things.

No one would question this works as a "business". People _will_ pay. I would not doubt someone could make 30K in one month.

What's being questioned is whether you want to sell to an audience of people who you know will, with very rare exception, never have that success. This is because they believe in quick fixes. And of those rare cases where a buyer does succeed, can you really take credit for their success?

[ahoyhere]

1. What consulting? I don't do consulting.

2. Are you privy to hard facts about my customer base like "it's all programmers with poor time management skills"? Or how big a global population that might be? If so, that's very valuable data for me… please share!

3. How much do you think Harvest, Toggl, Freshbooks, etc., make off selling their "sexy quick fixes"?

(I believe you might be the only person ever to suggest that time tracking applications are a sexy quick fix.)

Please, if you're going to a debate, bring a coherent argument to the table, with facts, instead of changing goal posts from "Nobody could make $5,000" to "Of course people could make $30,000 -- off idiots" etc. etc. etc. I'm sure you feel righteous and like you are making great points, but you've got no evidence or solid reasoning to back them up other than "Only stupid people would pay for a professional tool, ergo, only stupid people would pay for a professional tool."

[18pfsmt]

Just in case you hadn't noticed, there are 3 throwaway accounts (apparently opened just for this) running around this thread attempting to discredit any of the ideas expressed by the OP because the OP had the audacity to charge for his time and efforts. It either set off their BS-alarm, which may be improperly calibrated due to their own views of the world which they then project; or, it might be simple jealousy.

Either way, I guess my point is that we (well, I, anyway) have all wasted too much time giving them the benefit of the doubt, I appreciate reading these types of posts (and yours and patio11's), yet would never spend money on any of the products mentioned in any of them.

[ahoyhere]

I noticed. :) The arguments among the "green" accounts all have a similar incoherency. Looks like astroturfing to me.

But I still can't bear to let them stand because if you aren't privy to underhanded "argument" techniques, they sound mildly persuasive. I'm not arguing trying to convince the "greens," but rather the silent majority reading.

I don't say anybody ought to buy my products or Brennan's, but the unfounded accusations flying around are hilarious.

[adrianhoward]

I don't say anybody ought to buy my products or Brennan's, but the unfounded accusations flying around are hilarious

They're not amusing - because the silent majority might take them seriously. And I already have enough problems with developers and founders thinking that they just need to build it and people will come ;-)

[ahoyhere]

I agree with you about the silent majority - that's the only reason I bother to show up here and argue. To represent. I surely don't believe I'll actually convince one of the aggressors that they're wrong. Ha!

It's still kind of funny, though, to watch them twist and pivot their arguments, moving the goalposts and on moving sands, in order to prove that they are more "rational" than we are, we evil people who sell things.

[righyeah]

Upon further reflection, I retract all my prior statements. I concede defeat. You win the "debate". Alas I cannot downvote my original comment back to "1". I will need help. Any takers? What were those upvoters thinking anyway? Surely we need more ebook marketing of this variety on the HN frontpage.

[ky3]

It's not about ebook marketing. It's not even about marketing at all.

The silent battle is between taking glam money (angels and VCs) versus rolling your own.

It's between sexy, techcrunch-y, big-name funding versus toiling in the pits unlearning all that self-defeatism and pulling yourself up inch-by-inch.

And sad to say, despite all the assumptions of meritocracy being the super default setting here, it's also about the crab bucket syndrome [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality