How to Make $37,000 in a single day | Hacker News Reader

How to Make $37,000 in a single day

37signals.eventbrite.com

59 pointsbradleyjoyce60 comments

Seeing people question the $1000 price tag made me chuckle.

Some comps - Shoemoney's elite retreat for affiliate marketers is $5k a head for 2 days, multiple real estate seminars are $10k a day, heck even the "Rich Dad advanced seminars will set you back $2500 a day.

The price of admission is cheap for people that go in with the right mindset of:

A) Networking like crazy - one good connection is easily worth the price of admission and at $1k a ticket you're going to meet some interesting people.

B) Pumping the speakers for information - the entire second half of the day is set up for hands on consulting from these guys. Let's say you've got a GREAT app, these guys bring really relevant experience, they're one click away from Jeff Bezos and lots of VCs, a post on the 37 SvN blog, etc.

I have said my fair share of detracting comments about 37signals, but if I were closer to Chicago I'd be there in a heart beat for the above reasons .

>A) Networking like crazy - one good connection is easily worth the price of admission and at $1k a ticket you're going to meet some interesting people.

OK, but you could just as easily meet people at free events like SuperHappyDevHouse. So it only makes sense to go to these $1k/ticket event to meet people when you're already going to every free event you can find.

You are right about opportunity costs. But it also makes sense to go to those 1k$ events, if they just have better contacts (e.g. by filtering out those cheapskates).

You're right of course, sorry.

Very true. In our industry, well-known professional photographers easily command $1k+ for a one-day and $2-3k for a 3-day workshop. Plus, they often get additional revenue from corporate sponsors.

I was so glad to see your comment at the top of the pile. It seems like lots of people "want" to be rich, but when they see somebody who's actually making lots of money, out comes the resentment.

So many people are incapable of thinking beyond gut reactions of jealous or hatred that somebody is "getting one over on them" to realize the value that one might get from such a thing, at such a price.

It's really sad, because a lot of the people with that particular reaction are otherwise very, very smart. But you can never make a great business, if that's your true mindset (underneath what you say). They will always feel like they are doing evil in the world by merely selling, or marketing.

This is really 37signals cashing in on years of blogging, so saying it was made in single day is a bit misleading.

This is a business lesson.

Say what we want about 37signals, their marketing and community engagement are truly exceptional. They've communicated their value so thoroughly that people will drop $1,000 to spend a day with them.

Why? Trust.

Regardless of any other factor, it's easy to trust the fact that these guys know what they're talking about. They spend every single day showing us, through their products or their blog, or many other channels, that they do.

Rails, for example, is one of the most brilliant marketing moves in the history of software development.

And maybe in the history of marketing.

There's no point to arguing the relative value of their training versus other consultants. The difference between these guys and any consultants who may offer training like this?

Everyone in your industry has heard of 37signals. No one has heard of your guy.

Your ability to generate wealth is a function of how many people trust you can do what you promise. My hunch is that they're under-charging. But clearly, this is entirely in the realm of what the market will bear.

I don't read most of the 37 signals stuff, but it feels pretty cult-like for people to be paying $1000 for a one day "master class". I mean seriously, for the same cash you could get all of the following: a professional logo designed for your business (~$100?), a 3 hour consultation on your pitch with a copywriter or speech writer (~$100?), 2 hours with an accountant ($200?), 1 hour with a lawyer ($200?) and then flying out to nice weekend relaxing listening to business podcasts and with two nice business books from Amazon on a south American beach (insert nearby cheap holiday destination, $500?). Also, putting your app/idea/code/whatever onto an "Ask HN" costs nothing. But if people are paying, people are paying I suppose. Furthermore, they must be masters of something to be getting people to pay that much and selling out the tickets so there is obviously something to be learned from them (although attending the event might not be required to learn it).

$1000 is cheap. If you're willing to pay a lawyer $200/hour, why would you be reticent about paying one of the pre-eminent web product design teams half that rate for a day of consulting?

I don't know why it is, but there seems to be a certain resistance that many people in our field have to considering ourselves professionals, deserving of the same rates that other professionals charge and subject to the same types of standards that other professionals have.

If IDEO were charging $5,000 for the same thing, I don't think many traditional product designers would complain; they'd simply wish they could afford it or ask their companies to send them.

In the management/money-making/etc. field, I think many people are skeptical of the other experts as well. Sure, tons of companies will pay more than this to send MBAs to management classes, but it's not necessarily money well spent. This seems pretty similar to the quite standard management-guru book->speakingtour->workshops circuit, except that in this case the management guru is someone the HN community has heard of.

In technical areas, the courses are generally cheaper. For example, one day of SIGGRAPH tutorials costs $375. Of course, there you really are buying a tutorial from experts, whereas here you're probably buying networking as much as anything.

In other professional fields, people do not pay $1000 a day for a session necessarily. The only ones who do (usually) are those requiring continuing education credits - therefore, the consultants get to charge outrageous fees because they have a captive audience/market. Otherwise, the only entities that I know of who regalarly drop a grand or more on a day with somebody - or even a team - is a medium-to-large business for whom it is a tax deduction. And such decisions frequently come down to a management type who is trying to justify his/her existence by being seen to do something.

For perspective, we had a marketing workshop here in Edinburgh that basically offered intensive, MBA-level instruction on marketing. It was taught by a former head of marketing for a major North American firm who had buckets of experience and now has his own major marketing consultancy here in the UK. Around a dozen of us worked with him for 8 workshops and had three extended consultations with him about our particular business circumstance. The cost to the company? £750 ($1200 USD at current exchange) for the first person, £500 ($800 USD) for each additional. Consequently, unless these three amigos are going to ensure the success of every company who signs up, I fail to see how a price tag of $1000 is justified.

I think a lawyer has a bit more utility, in terms of avoiding massive potential liabilities, than telling me that amazing wisdom - until now unknown entirely to business people anywhere on earth and not to be found in any book on business - that "meetings are toxic".[1] Get real, and this isn't one-on-one it's going to be with many more people than most teachers consider optimal (20 or less), so $1000 is not cheap.

[1]http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Meetings_Are_Toxic.php

Of course, if you think $100 pays for a professional logo design then $1000 would be too much for just about everything.

>a professional logo designed for your business (~$100?)

An amateur logo designed for your business.

FTFY

With $100 you can hire a very good designer in China for a week ...

Overseas design is great for production stuff like "make me more pages that fit this style". It's horrible for logo design where the key is to reflect your brand's identity.

how do you define good? and how should one do it?

That's what GAP paid for its new logo.

At the same time, occasionally a single person telling you just the right thing (and you having the faith in them to believe they are right) can change the face of your business completely. It isn't about a logo, time with your accountant, or listening to podcasts- but having someone that's really in-tune with the market thinking about your product critically and passing on just the right single piece of advice to you that stops you from running into a wall.

I've run technical training sessions that cost this much before, and I think everyone in the class felt they were worth it.

I wonder how much of that is related to the psychology of the cost. That is, the more a product/service costs, the more the user is likely to assign value to that product/service that they otherwise would not note.

Psychological studies have been done that people who pay for something - anything at any price - always look more favourably on it than those who do not. One such study involved payment to see a film. Those who paid their own way ALWAYS had more favourable reviews of the film than those who were provided with a ticket for free.

Obviously, there is a limit to the psychology, but I wonder how much the feelings of a class' attendees can viably count toward evaluating the value of the workshop. Price is naturally where the willingness of the buyer to buy meets the willingness of the seller to sell, so the price of the workshop is beyond dispute in a free market context. But there are limits to what is rational, and I suspect there will be a significant percentage who will feel the workshop to be worth it merely because they paid a grand to be there. This "prestige" factor, after all, is one of the main components of a premium pricing plan.

That's a great point. The perspective is much different between hiring people to do the best job possible in certain areas of your product/company (design, copywriting, accounting, etc.), and getting external advice from peers.

You're mentioning a piece of advice that changes your product, but even just having someone like the 37signals team say "sounds like a good idea", "looks good" can be enough for someone to keep going.

Charging at the pain point can Make people feel like its worth it. Also makes them take it seriously, and listen proactively.

You can get a logo for $100, but you can be sure as hell it won't be a professional one. Real logo design will cost you a lot more, think $5k-$10k. Being a graphic designer myself, it's not uncommon for me to spend a full 30h on a logo. Sure, I could fire up Illustrator and get you a logo that will work in 30min, but that's not what real professional logo design is about. When designing a logo, you have to come up with many different directions, explore all the connotations of the symbols you're using, explore the logo in all its different applications (it needs to look good on print, on screen, on t-shirts, on business cards, at half an inch, at 20 feet wide, etc.).

I'm sure a 3h consultancy with a good copywriter will cost you more than $100 too. This isn't a day-job where it's ok to be paid $33/h. Professional freelance copywriters make (or should make) at least $100/h, if not more.

I imagine the $1,000 people drop on this conference isn't money they're taking form their logo/copywriting/accounting/legal budget.

FYI, the event is not sold out yet.

Eventbrite holds a ticket for a while once someone clicks "Order Now". If they don't complete the transaction the ticket is released back into the pool.

We had a mad rush of people click the "Order Now" button which made it look like the event sold out, but there are plenty of tickets available.

A bit over half of the tickets are officially sold now.

Haha, pessimistic locking in a public web app.

A: Work hard for 10 years building great stuff that people buy.

Or for a year and build something people really like. (See: Minecraft)

Except the guy previously built a bunch of other games over the years, which didn't have anywhere near that success.

no, that's for making $350,000 in a single day. http://texyt.com/minecraft+persson+notch+indie+game+success+...

But that won't give you 37k for a day!

"in a single day"? You're not serious are you? Jason and the team have been working to build their expertise and reputation for YEARS and YEARS (and YEARS) to get to this point. Far from getting $37k for a "single day", attendees are paying for the insight that comes from YEARS of 37signals' work. No one gets $37k for one day of work. They might have an additional $37k in their pockets in one day, but they EARNED it over years and years.

Bill Gates actually made/makes 2 million a day, and he's not alone. But I get your point.

54,000,000,000 / (55 * 365) = 2,689,912.83

yes, I'm serious. 37 seats x $1000 = $37k in pocket as you said. No one is debating the fact that they are only able to do this after years of hard work. Could Joe Schmoe of the street do this? No, absolutely not. But putting "How to make $37,000 in a single day after YEARS and YEARS (and YEARS) of hard work" doesn't exactly fit in the title field.

It looks like Amy Hoy (HN: ahoyhere) is probably going to net $50k today (or at least pretty darn quick) with http://unicornfree.com/2010/the-deal-30x500-launch-class-spl... too :-)

Awesome. But her class lasts 4 months.

But you bet the second I can make that money on a single day, I will do so. :)

The course is prepared material plus some personal guidance from me. It's not 4 months of live or even semi-live teaching. It's written and recorded content, followed up with live nudging/feedback.

Tix to my husband's & my live JavaScript training classes are about $400-500 each, though, but we keep them small because debugging people's code is rough over 25 people. The business education stuff scales so much better.

Here is the problem I see with this: $1000 is a price a big company would easily pay for its employees, as a benefit, to go attend a class on something. I think though that the content of this class would be more valuable to people who are trying to build / bootstrap new companies. But for the latter the opportunity cost is too high.

Maybe 37signals could do something online and charge less per person?

How do you know they're charging too much? If they don't sell tickets. However, I imagine they're going to easily sell every ticket. Supply and demand. They're running a business, not a charity.

You know what would be funny? If they sold 37 seats at $1000 and then when you get there they told you that's what they did.

All kidding aside, if I had the money, I would be interested in this. It is a bit steep, but I admire these guys and their business philosophy.

It is funny, but its also internet business 101. Many of the "gurus" in the field never made a dime til they lied about making big money selling their program, when really that was their first time making big money. Also, see Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Given their success and popularity, that seems like a fair price.

How much do you think Steve Jobs could make in a day running a class like this?

This might be slightly off topic, but I see Ryan's name in the announcement, he did a very interesting talk about "Designing with Forces: How to Apply Christopher Alexander in Everyday Work" http://vimeo.com/10875362

Actually, they've only sold 7 out of the 37 spots at time of writing (see: http://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/27258896050).

They sold out in 15 minutes, so the price must be right.

Actually, considering it sold out so fast, they should most probably double the price.

If they were doing that full-time, that would put the activity in the $8-10M/year range. I imagine significantly under their annual revenues with apps. Not only would they make less money, they wouldn't learn anything new to talk about. So at $1,000, they're doing you a favor. :)

edit: looks like they didn't sell out in 15 minutes. I guess doubling might be too much then, but the rest still stands.

The second part of the day could either be great or completely throwaway. If you get some good ideas out of it that help your startup, it's well worth the price or more. But what if you're not really working on a startup?

Then you probably aren't the type of person that will get much benefit out of it and shouldn't go.

Does this remind anyone else of the old adage that the best way to get rich is by telling other people how to get rich? 37signals may have something to teach the world, but I think its message is already out, and a lot of its success involved being the right place at the right time. It is not a particularly innovative company (Rails notwithstanding). And I doubt that their formula (make a blog that happens to get popular, then take a side project and start selling it as SaaS to the blog readers) is especially reproducible.

There are more than just a straight up formula. The concept, the mindset, the big picture, the strategy, etc.

I'm sure it's well worth the price!

I'm somewhat new here, and expected some kind of story about how someone made this money at eventbrite. Instead it is an ad for a masterclass, targeted towards the readers of this site. Very sneaky. Also I would recommend the story links open in a new tab. Feel free to tell me if this comment is appropriate or not.

Welcome to HN! Your comment is appropriate.

I agree with bl4k that the current behaviour of opening in the same page is right, and have to add, that this is off-topic.

It is up to user if a link should open in a new window or not, not something that markup should determine.

Thanks for this post. I just bought my ticket. I've seen other classes go for a lot more that offered a lot less.

Good for them. They've worked very hard and been extremely thoughtful about how they've built their business.

The tragedy of it all is that Eventbrite won't let you order more than 3 tickets in one go...

We put that limit in place. Eventbrite lets you set any limit you'd like.

A: Sell seats to your pointless masterclass for $1000 a pop.

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