A chinese villager who sells more software daily than you do | Hacker News Reader

A chinese villager who sells more software daily than you do

maxkle.in

51 pointsbjonathan20 comments

No pictures, no links and no supporting information at all in the article. How do we know this isn't an excellent fiction piece?

All that aside, using those services to farm for project ideas is pretty cool.

Maxklein is so Meta, I'm not sure if the story is true, but there's almost always something to learn from those posts, like: If you are looking for ideas to build something, hack all the creative process/brainsstorming etc... and do port your brainstorming to freelancer boards for ideas, it's ok to do what you enjoy doing, no matter how rich you are or the financial reward. I agree to both.

I think this story is actually about Max Klein. The TechCrunch pickup, the villager are all story avatars. Another HN commenter found out that he writes video encoding software, along with a franchise of profitable information iPhone apps. It is a pretty powerful idea - build what people are looking for - but not as a software soldier-of-fortune but as an owner.

Every month, he makes more than $5000

At the moment he’s making more than $5000 a day

Which is it?

Yeah, I thought that too... It might be a past/present kind of thing. Like, at the time the author was in China, he was making $5000/month and now that the article is published it's $5000/day.

Although, $5000/day seems a bit high, so I'm thinking it's a typo.

It's 5000 a month, made a mistake, corrected now.

I'm not sure exactly what you're taking issue with, but both statements can be equally true at the same time, and I can't read either of them in a way in which one contradicts the other.

While you are correct, Max Klein has come under fire for credibility issues on HN as of recent. I think that's the commenter's underlying question. Is this just another one of Max's "stories." However, it does seem pretty legit, as it's not that far fetched.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1611165 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600782 http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353307 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353181

Give me a break. Is he making closer to $150k a month, or $5k a month? Both statements cannot be "equally true" coming from a human pen.

They very well can be equally true. $5,000 a day is 'more than' $5k a month, no matter how you read it. While I agree that it's a potentially confusing statement, I just don't see anything factually incorrect about it.

For what it's worth, my interpretation is that 'on average' or perhaps 'since he started', he's made generally over $5,000 in a month, but lately he's doing far better than that.

Perhaps I'm the one reading too much into it here, but I strongly disagree that it is in any way misleading or semantically problematic.

No person says "more than $5,000" to imply that the value may be any amount greater than $5,000, with equal probability. Saying "more than $5,000 a month" if you actually mean "$150,000 a month" may as well be the dictionary definition of misleading, and totally defeats the purpose of giving a number at all.

The obvious explanation is that one or the other statement is a typo, and it would be nice to know which, since it's a big difference. It's possible that one means "since he started", or whatever, but again, it would be nice if the author said so.

I suppose if you disregard the rest of my statement, then you are justified in your comments, but again, based on my reading, it makes sense note the 'lately' in the second part of the statement? To me, that's a qualifier that during the current timeline, he's doing exceptionally, or abnormally well.

Without contacting the author, the subject of the story, or someone in the know, we just have to keep peeing in each other's corn flakes, without knowing the true answer. Regardless, I just don't see justification for taking such issue with the statement.

Edit: I was missing a 'you' in the first sentence.

Well, if you got that interpretation out of the sentences in the article, you're a more adventurous reader than me.

I suppose. I don't think so, but if the votes matter at all, I suppose the majority agrees with you, though I'm more than a little surprised by them, since I believe I am factually correct.

So it goes.

Technically speaking, both can equally be true.

Every month, he makes more than $5000

At the moment he’s making more than $5000 a day

If one makes more than $5000 a day, clearly that person will make more than $5000 a month.

We aren't speaking technically. It's a story.

I half expected a response like this, but I decided to let it run as is.

that just sounds like bullshit to me:

   He did this, and rather than making software for 
   clients, he created his own software products, which he 
   put on the internet. He said that 3 days after he copied 
   a simple idea from the rentacoder list on his website, 
   he was making 2 sales a day. $20 per day, which "

you don't just release something and then magically start making 2 sales a day...you still have to market. And I doubt many people would buy from someone who wrote in broken english.

isn't it odd, how somehow you ALWAYS manage to find all these interesting people...in all these odd places.

Why don't you go outside and snap a few pictures of China for us. That would at least prove that you are actually in China and not just pulling everyone's chain.

Well, why don't you just click on my flickr link? It's right there on my blog - a little flickr icon. I regularly post photos.

"He said he tried selling Firefox for a while, but sales were very low due to the free competition."

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