Not speaking negatively of Trennd or Josh - this illustrates the point that marketing skills are critical to success in these kinds of ventures, much moreso than development skills.<p>Tenacity and willingness to expose oneself (at obvious risk of being told negative things) is requisite to achieving success like this so quickly (and probably also when done slowly).
Hi everyone, Josh here the writer.<p>I’d like to give thanks to all the people here on Hacker News who supported the project during that launch and any questions or comments just let me know!<p>The short version (summarized from the article):
I spent 2 months building an app to detect trends. Launched as a Show HN and reached #1 on Hacker News (briefly!). Another 4 months growing and improving it but failed to monetize. But I got enough traction to get acquired by Brian Dean founder of Backlinko.
<i>> As for the acquisition number… that’s why you’ve read this far, right?!</i><p>Yes.<p><i>> We settled on an amount equivalent to how much I’d earn as a US-based engineer working 6 months, but then multiplied by X for the traction/success factor already achieved. And I also still have a stake in the project going forward.</i><p>Working <i>where</i> in the US? Software engineers can make wildly different amounts of money depending on where in the US they work. Even within SFBA and NYC, a subset of companies pay significantly more than others as well.<p>So why not just say the actual acquisition number?
> We settled on an amount equivalent to how much I’d earn as a US-based engineer working 6 months, but then multiplied by X for the traction/success factor already achieved. And I also still have a stake in the project going forward.<p>Why not just, simply, put the price? You know that most people are only, barely, interested in the "acquisition" price rather than the story of how you got there.
Neat result. I've sold a few side projects over the years, it's always nice at first, though I've then ended up wondering "what if" as the years go by :-)<p>This jumped out to me:<p><i>We settled on an amount equivalent to how much I’d earn as a US-based engineer working 6 months, but then multiplied by X for the traction/success factor already achieved.</i><p>It sounds like you have a pretty significant win here, considering there was no real revenue. I'm guessing we're talking at least $50k multiplied by something.. so not exactly pocket change :-)
This is a really cool project. To be honest, I think Brian got a steal on this. There's a ton of potential here, and I think if it was developed a bit more (developed from a business model point of view), there was potential to sell for a heck of a lot more.
I'd love to try out this product. So just curious, is this another meta post to drive traffic to the site? Hehe. Congrats on the sale btw! It's not easy pulling the whole thing off.
Isn't it a clone of Glimpse (<a href="https://meetglimpse.com" rel="nofollow">https://meetglimpse.com</a>)? They seem to have monetized it pretty well.
The Show HN was <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478339" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478339</a>.
Cool app! Curious about the data sources, or is that a secret sauce?<p>For example, you have "google cloud platform" trends going back 15 years - does that mean you have 15 years of data from all your data sources? How do you backfill that?
A couple suggestions: 1) it would be nice to have mouse hover-overs on the charts that show the exact date. 2) If something is highly cyclical (e.g., Ring doorbells seem to spike every holiday season), it's probably not right to say they have "peaked". I would suggest instead looking at the Year-over-year percentage change in the trailing 1- or 2-month period, and if that is also significantly lower, then you can more accurately say if something has peaked. 3) if the query in question is for a commercial product/company (e.g., Victure), then why not add a direct link to the company, which could be an affiliate marketing link? Seems like an obvious way to monetize this.
Gee I remember when this was first posted. I remember being jealous for not thinking of the idea myself. Can't believe it's been 6 months and that you've been acquired already. Really kind of inspirational and makes me realize what wonderful things I could have built in that span of time instead of, well, not shipping.
Awesome, congrats!<p>I've been subscribed to a similar service called Glimpse for some time. Who thought of it first? You seem to have very similar trends identified.<p>The most recent issue contained: Tiktok lights, Air Fryer Chicken, Chiropractic Y Strap, and Heated Razors.
Congrats on executing so well and the sale!<p>We often have so many "what if someone built xyz" thoughts and do nothing with them so I'm stoked you got off your bum and made this happen<p>PS: it'll be funny if you use this to find the idea for your next product
Where do you source the data? Looking at Google Trends, the graphs don't match up at all with your graphs, so I assume you have another data source that you prioritize.
I really enjoyed reading about this. Its cool to see someone get their side project out and get a bit of money too.<p>Need to get out of my head and start working on my side project now....