I started an online subscription business from Malaysia | Hacker News Reader

I started an online subscription business from Malaysia

starterstory.com

113 pointspatwalls76 comments

Here I am, a 40 something very mediocre webdev with 2 kids and a mortgage, taking home 30K / year struggling to learn the framework-du-jour my boss thinks I should be using, unable to find another job cause I'm too expensive, wondering what the hell to do with my life.

And then there's a kid in Malaysia of all places selling frigging vapers, taking home every month what I take home per year.

Where are you based?

Belgium

How can you earn 30k gross there ? Is not under the minimum wage ?

That's net, gross is around 50K.

> That's net, gross is around 50K.

The taxes are a bit high but have a lot of benefits of living in Belgium. But it is true that you have to make some compromises/sacrifices if you want to make your disposable income stretch.

Taxes are brutal, thankfully it gets better once you have kids.

Are you self-employed? That can be a way to bump your income significantly in the belgian IT world. My email is in my profile if you want to talk about it. (self-employed for 5 years, 1 kid, early thirties, also in Belgium)

Couldn't find it in your profile. Does it end in us.io ? NL ?

Yes, indeed.

What he did is nontheless impressive. You sound a bit negative in your last sentence, but getting a good business going is about finding the 'gap in the market' and knowing how to fill it. He did this, so where he is from does not really matter, does it?

Not meaning to be negative or disparaging at all, I admire him and he deserves it all. Vaping seems like a totally over saturated market, was just a little surprised.

> Vaping seems like a totally over saturated market

It is, but I think that's where the "gap" presented itself. It's crazy how many ejuice brands, varieties, and flavors there are. I'm just surprised no one has been successful with a "flavor of the week" style "club" until now. It's almost impossible to navigate the ejuice landscape on your own.

Cigarette smokers tend to always stay with one brand, same with Swedish snuss. Seems weird that vapers would want tons of different flavors?

I don't know about smoking / snuss, but does one brand == one flavour? Or is it like a "Doritos" situation where you have x different flavours of the same brand?

If you use the same juice frequently, over time that flavor will diminish. This is known as "vape tongue" in some communities. When I vaped after kicking cigarettes I had 2-3 different flavors I would rotate to mitigate this.

There is always room for improvement in everything.

I like to think about something Leonard Nimoy said about a chance meeting he had with JFK that encouraged him to stick with his goal of becoming a professional actor:

In the 1950s, Nimoy was struggling in Los Angeles with a wife and two kids, he said in his speech. He spent his days in auditions and his nights driving a taxi for steady income. One night he picked up Kennedy, who was a Massachusetts senator at the time, at the Bel Air Hotel. He said:

We chatted about careers … politics and show business, and we agreed that both had a lot in common. Maybe too much in common. He said, "Lots of competition in your business, just like in mine." And then he gave me this: "Just remember there's always room for one more good one."

Words to live by, and I did.

https://www.businessinsider.com/leonard-nimoy-bu-convocation...

What's the saying? "Where you are in life is a result of choices you made in the past."

Something like that. While not 100% accurate, I've found it to be mostly true with people in my life.

Tell that to the millions who choose to be born in the slums. Then there is also the fact that we are not equally the same upon birth. Everyone has different traits. I suspect that when you really weigh in the factors, a lot of the result we get is caused by a lot simply being at the right time in the right place.

Please see "not 100% accurate." I get that uncontrolled circumstances are inevitable, but hearing others bitch and complain about how good others have it while riding their pity pony drives me mad.

The original author (clearly not living in slums) didn't have to get married, have two kids, and take out a mortgage on a home. Also, being a mediocre developer is in his control too.

Get your big boy panties on, change your mindset, and make change in your life, not excuses.

Sorry for being a hardass, but the original author sounds like me 11 years ago. I thought life happened to me, and I had no control over it. I've since changed my way of thinking, and just this week my bootstrapped company reached 10 million in ARR.

One simple change to the statement accounts for your observation:

    "Where you are in life is a result of choices you AND YOUR PARENTS have made in the past."

If by some remote chance there's a young person reading these comments and you are living in the slums, you have to start making better choices than your parents did (and their parents did) TODAY if you want your kids to have it better than you do.

Start with Walter Williams (Economics Professor at George Mason) advice on how to not be poor:

    1. Graduate from High School.
    2. Don't have children until you're married and stay married once you get married.
    3. Take any kind of job (except illegal ones).
    4. Stay out of jail.

Start there and move up as opportunities arise and it is almost guaranteed that your kids will do better than you (if you are currently in the slums.)

In the UK at least, the people who've managed to bootstrap themselves to success through hard work and good decision making are the overwhelming minority.

The causal chain seems to roughly be: Top jobs tend to belong to those who attended top universities. => Top universities are attended by those who went to private schools. => Those who went to private school are either from wealthy families or attending on scholarship due largely to the fortune of genetics and/or an educated family. I certainly benefited from that (school scholarship => Oxbridge => good tech job), but I don't know that I could have if fortune hadn't smiled on me.

I agree that even with all those benefits, you can still fail if you make poor choices. However, I don't think the vast majority of people with worse circumstances can just choose their way out of it. It's not to say that it's impossible - my grandma has a rags to riches story that's only slightly marred by her similarly ethically dubious sales techniques...

For software engineering in the UK, they actually look at where you went to school?

I’ve done probably a couple hundred interviews (me as the interviewer) in SF and outside of the “oh you went to MIT? Cool” it was still onward with the live coding session. No one got a free pass.

I’ve definitely seen people from MIT, Stanford, get passed up on.

I’ve seen boot-campers hired, hearing impaired, white/black/Asian/Indian. For any of them, not a clue where they originally went to school.

1) Having a public project will get you an interview.

2) Being able to discuss design decisions surrounding that code will earn you points.

3) Being able to make changes, refactor on the fly, will win you a job.

3a) Some places will have you code an algorithm - also a way to win the job.

Oh, I certainly don't mean that a good university place guarantees you a top job. My company targets top universities, so it naturally has to reject a bunch of people who just aren't the right fit. However, it is certainly the case that you can usually infer the other way around (i.e. that people with top jobs tend to have good degrees from well-respected universities).

For many graduate software roles over here, recruiting targets people studying "any numerate discipline". These people don't have any professional software dev experience or a CS background, so wouldn't be able to demonstrate those skills from the start. However, the decent degree from a good university is a proxy for the appropriate skillsets required.

The problem remains that there are people with all the skills who just can't get their foot in the door because their background just didn't give them a reasonable opportunity to do so.

In the US none of my friends went to a top university and we all make a good living as programmers (150k+). Of course we're from the previous generation (in our late 30s) and things might be different for people in their 20s.

Edit to add: my dad dropped out of high school. My mom did not have a college degree. My siblings and I are the first generation in our extended family to graduate from college. None of us went to private school. My siblings have a similar income to me: 1 works as a CPA, 1 as a lawyer, and 1 as a software project manager.

I still consider myself lucky, and recognize that not everyone may have had the same support as we had growing up.

That's great to hear to be honest. It sounds like you're one of the self-made grafter types. :) My parents' background is similar - they both put themselves through university as adult learners having a pretty poor time of it at the end of high school (for various reasons).

My dad is potentially a good, albeit anecdotal, example of this. He's one of those people who's had every semi-skilled job under the sun, mainly to make sure that he could provide for his family. Eventually, he paid his way through university and chartership and now he does what he enjoys and he's a very well-regarded psychologist. But the thing is that he could have had all that for his whole life, instead of having to struggle his way up there, if he'd lucked into the right background to begin with.

The other thing that we on HN have to consider is that we're generally able to work very well in analytical and numerate disciplines compared to the average of the population. As another anecdotal example, my sister has a (mild) learning difficulty, but it really does just mean that her prospects are much more limited compared to mine. She has a great life, but it's very unlikely that she'll ever be a high-earner. It's most certainly not for lack of will or graft though, just the lottery of life.

For my lot, I'm just glad I happen to have the skills that people want to pay money for. I recognise that I worked hard to get here, but I also acknowledge that luck played a substantial part in everything and I'm grateful for that.

i'd wager a four figure sum that birth zip code (or 'hood outside the US) more accurately predicts outcome than choices you've made in the past.

I am presuming that you're from a "better" country, so it should be easier for you to repeat what this guy did, now that he told you how.

You're comparing apples to oranges. He's not a developer, he's an entrepreneur.

> You're comparing apples to oranges. He's not a developer, he's an entrepreneur.

True. But still depressing...

Bear in mind that the 60k/month figure is turnover. Not profit. He employes 8 people, has to pay for inventory and packaging, postal, logistics, accounting and whatnot.

Also, judging from the archive.org records it's a 4 year old business. It's not an overnight success.

> Also, judging from the archive.org records it's a 4 year old business. It's not an overnight success.

This is key, obviously. A lot of people will read something like this and assume it’s some kind of overnight success. For that, I give kudos to this guy for what is a business built most likely around long nights and days and determination.

> Bear in mind that the 60k/month figure is turnover. Not profit.

He's not shy about the details -- he gives the profit figure in the article. It's still $25k / month.

> entrepreneur

Tried that many times, albeit without any relevant education.

I'm sure he tried many times and failed too, and this is a later success. He does say he struggled to save even $5k, and this MRR looks like it took him 4 years to reach.

I think this is about risk; being a freelancer is relatively low risk (higher risk than traditional employment though?) and thus doesn't have higher payoffs.

There's also innovative ways that many "normal" freelance developers are able to earn $200k+/year. Maybe check their methods out and try to emulate what they did in your market? I'm sure you could find a clear path to reach their level with some self-training and practice.

I know it's difficult and scary, but that's just life.

My thoughts as well. Selling something online could make anywhere between $0 to millions and one does not need to be a developer wizard to do it.

I'm now trying to blend the two and building an e-commerce platform while still being true to the love of programming :)

I make U$7.5K/year as a Vue developer in Brazil. There will be always someone in worse situation than yours, if you go down that road.

Sorry to approach here, but don't know how else to reach you. I'm looking for remote Vue devs, maybe we can work together? If you'd like to talk, please reach out to hugo@saturncloud.io

I assume that's because you're working for a Brazilian company - why are you doing this? There's the whole world at your hands - target North American and western European clients and you'll be making six figures (in USD) easily.

You got two kids. That's the best thing anyone could ever do. Work is just stuff you do to fund the rest.

:D Thanks for that. They're wonderful and I love them like nothing else.

I'm sure they appreciate all you do for them as well.

The American Dream. If you want to stick it to your boss join CodementorX (now arc) and start building static websites on the side. You'll make more money if you apply yourself and then you can quit your job and move your family to Malaysia to avoid paying taxes.

If you can wake up an hour earlier every day [which may mean killing a TV habit, or something] and work on something for yourself, you may have a different story to tell in a year, or three.

Made plenty of such time, have several projects that aren't quite finished, lost confidence, etc. Working on another one as we speak :)

Having been in a similar situation once, my advice to you is stick to one project and focus 80% on marketing and 20% on dev.

Learn to sell and learn to SEO. Your traffic and leads make you money not the tech stack (but it's easy to always fall into that trap)

matter of perspective. here's another: you're getting paid to learn web development on company time, which you could easily use to double, triple or more your salary if you take advantage of it.

   >I coded the web app from the ground up using what
    I’ve learned from the coding bootcamp and launched the 
    service on the 22nd of September 2019.

Something doesn't add up here. Ahrefs shows rankings going back as far as September of 2016 with the first archive.org snapshot on September 14 2015 showing a landing page for a subscription box.

Must be 2015, as the story starts there.

Also, September 2019 is in the future.

It's a tobacco and nicotin business without regulatory oversight in MY, neighbouring Singapore just made it illegal. So there is nothing innovative in it except the product itself is responsible for selling itself like cigarettes, just with icing of no regulatory oversight.

I'm all for marketing, but there must be some honesty.

This is a lesson on how to lie your way to success. Which is an option, but any idiot with no morals can do that. Of course, large companies do this all the time with no repercussions, so I get why he went this route.

> This is a lesson on how to lie your way to success. Which is an option, but any idiot with no morals can do that.

What an idiot with no morals can do is lie. Getting to success is harder.

I assume you're referring to building out a store with no inventory to test the market? This is a pretty common tactic spread by books such as "The 4-Hour Work Week" so it's not surprising to see it in use for a site like this.

Honestly, I don't really have a problem with it. A more honest approach would be ideal, but if I had to choose between doing that and bootstrapping an entire business with stock before getting my first sale I would choose the "dishonest" method. It's a little inconvenient for the user, but presumably they want the product, so in the end they just end up waiting a bit for it.

People don't want to help you test your idea, so presenting it in any other way without rewarding them is unlikely to result in sales.

I think it's referring to the part where the web page says "that we’ve “sold out” due to “overwhelming demand”" when obviously there is no overwhelming demand at first. If you say there is huge demand for your product even though there isn't any, that's going a bit further than just "we're sold out". But since in the end the demand does pick up I get the argument that it's a grey area.

If you are selling nothing and have zero inventory any demand is technically overwhelming.

It's still a lie though like almost all of his ways of getting a customer. But I find it refreshing how clear it is.

Advertisers mostly pretend they are not lying which shapes wrong impression that advertisement can be honest. No, it can't if it is to be successful. Honest advertisement is just information and that's almost worthless for a seller.

My thoughts as well. Kind of a clever trick and I guess I can give him that this particular marketing trick doesn't have any real victims nor does it really hurt anyone, but its still dishonest at the end of the day.

There may be some dubious/shady aspects of this enterprise or at least the way it's been presented. I just look at it as an eye-opener. With the view of challenging my thinking about where I am now, where I want to be and what paths might be available to get me there. For instance, e-commerce hadn't come to me as an option. Looking at this account makes me at the very least think about whether or not it is worth pursuing. It could be a different product, market, etc. It may well be that it wouldn't work for me. But the exploration of the basic idea is worth my while.

There's a huge rabbit hole you can go down :) Finding products (either reselling existing ones, having your own made, ...). Many people do this successfully on Amazon (as many benefits as caveats)

Launching something on your own e-commerce platform is pretty hard, requiring either an extremely attractive product that spreads with word of mouth, or you need to invest heavily in "social" or SEO. Otherwise you just won't stand out anymore.

The last company I worked at was geared at optimizing recommended items to customers on a storefront. Working there I kind of realized how saturated e-commerce has become. There will always be room for new ideas and tricks to squeeze money out of the space, but I can't help think you're not really providing a lot of value add most of the time.

Leaves me very uncomfortable, this combination of honesty as a humblebrag with ethically-dubious practices.

What lesson does this teach me, an unemployed program manager with plenty of experience and principles?

A practical one. Your principles may not be conducive to creating wealth and if wealth is your goal you should adjust them.

That’s backwards. This shows that it’s possible to have a successful business without the principles the OP adheres to. It does not say anything about whether or not it’s possible to be successful with the principles, or if there is a need to adjust them. It’s completely possible the principles the OP adheres to make success more likely, or is likely to make any success larger. Or the opposite may be true, but this one story does not tell you anything about that.

I like you. I see the logic but now I wonder whether the article hints at the possibility that the principles aren't helpful. Following your logic it sounds like the only way to be sure is to wait until OP passes away or we have a large sample size of people who have similar principles.

What about the opposite though? We have numerous examples where people who some could argue don't have the best principles but have been very successful. Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Carly Fiorina, Marissa Mayer, Henry Nicholas III, Elon Musk, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and more. Putting it bluntly, they just do what's needed to further their goals - and everyone else be damned if it's not helpful to their goals to help them out. If you go past the puff pieces and dig a bit you see the net effect of their principles is to let them win.

Maybe lack of evidence about the effectiveness of OP's principles is not evidence but it's reasonable to consider following in the winner's example.

This is a really elaborate way of saying that you can sell things better if you lie to people. I think most of us know that.

That's part of it. More like, just play the game within the written rules instead of the unwritten rules.

Sure, ethics be damned right? I know a few pyramid schemes that are technically all within the rules as well.

And I know of a few ponzi schemes that are technically within the rules. There are reasons laws exist. Follow them and soothe your misplaced guilt by spending your money on good causes. That's what Elon and Gates are doing. I don't see a problem with this line of thinking.

I know we're speaking broadly here and there's a lot of nuance to what constitutes right or wrong, but I think its pretty reasonable to say that if you're gaining money from being unethical, you are part of the problem - that's the issue.

Love how candid this is, real insight into the shady world of e-commerce.

The worst part is the more you know it the more unbelievable it becomes to you and you start to think to yourself "yeah right nobody would believe that."

Then you do a split test and bullshit like this (fake scarcity, benefits not features, forced optins, etc) show a conversion rate of 8% whereas your honest to goodness page is at 0.5% you understand that it's not your customers who are ignorant, it's you and your understanding of how the world works :/

“To put things into perspective, the median average household income in Malaysia is USD1,215. Not too bad for a single unmarried 28 year old chap eh?”

Maybe he should just leave this part out.

Lying about being sold out and asking to share the link is not something I'd be comfortable with doing myself.. but then again, his business has gained success through it and I don't have a business :D

Apart from the ethical issues, I do think it was a smart idea. Kudos to him.

Some of us may think that he's ways of getting customers are dishonest. Please treat it as a reminder to yourself that there's no such thing as honest advertisement. If you are seeing advertisemnt you are being lied to. It might be hard to spot because the parts of your brain that the advertisement lies to might be far from your conciousness. But you are lied to nontheless.

Honest advertisement is just information and that's almost worthless for any seller.

There's a great movie documentary "Czech dream" created by two film students opening fake Wallmart type store.

Especially wonderful is the scene in marketing agency that is to prepare large marketing campaign mimicking campaigns of other similar stores. They are in on the joke and are completely fine with decieving the public, except for one employee that feels strongly about "you won't go home emptyhanded" line on the advert because there is no store and "you can't lie in advertisement!"

He calms down after students promise that if anyone shows up to the fake store opening they'll give them baloon so they won't go home emptyhanded.

Your successful advertisement is always a lie. Regardless of whether you can massage yourself into believing it is not.

Launched September 22, 2019, is that a typo?

He also bootstrapped a time machine, but since vaping is all the rage these days, that’s where the story is.

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