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Comment by devmunchies | Hacker News Reader

Awesome! I built a side-business that runs completely on Crystal + SQLite. Very light, fast service and makes ~$200k/mo.

I just cp my sqlite file to S3 every 2 hours.

From my app, i have a page[1] where i can load any snapshot database saved on S3. I can backup at anytime too with a click, which i do before deployment.

[1]: https://i.imgur.com/Ls1Tnxc.png

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$200k/mo is remarkable for a "side" business! Can you share more of your story?

Sounds like it's https://cravecookie.com/ – so my guess is it's $200k/mo in revenue, not profit... but that's still seriously impressive, assuming at least decent margins!

They mention margins of 35-40% percent here: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/166-sam-eaton-of-crave-...

So, $70k - $80k a month in profits

That’s about 60k cookies per month, or about 1 cookie every 50 seconds.

This guy cookies

and he doesn't use cookies on his site

I would very much like a cookie

As a non-native speaker I struggle with "make". To me "make" for a side-business means "personal income" but it looks like you mean "revenue"?

If the side business makes $200k/mo, that usually means the revenue of the side business is $200k/mo.

Another non-native speaker here. I was also confused by this wording.

I'm a native speaker and it confused me to. If I make $50k, I mean I am taking home $50k If I've revenue of $50k, I am taking home less than $50k

> If I make $50k, I mean I am taking home $50k If I've revenue of $50k, I am taking home less than $50k

That is not normal native usage. If you make $50k, you're salaried at $50k, but you take home considerably less than that.

Another native speaker here: I think the fact that we can debate this is evidence enough that it's confusing :) Yes with salary I usually say I "make" my pre-tax income. But I don't know if that's really what "make" means per se, or if that's just a side effect of how most jobs advertise salaries in pre-tax terms. (Also I assume this usage is actually older than the income tax.) In my mind, if someone tells me they "make $X / month" from a business, it sounds to me like they're trying to draw a comparison with "making a salary of $X / year", which is a lot closer to profit than revenue.

I guess in the end, it's just uncommon to say something like "Microsoft made $X billion last year" by itself, because it's just not clear what it means. Business news articles will almost always phrase something like that as "made $X billion in profits" etc.

I think the fact we can debate this is evidence that it's not confusing!

Most people use "make" w/ a salary, so like "I make $80k/year" is your salary before any taxes, benefit costs, etc. It's ambiguous when it comes to a business but, on an internet forum that's fine. If you want to be specific you can use ARR and the like.

Edit: It's also totally cool to ask for a clarification, e.g. "huh do you mean total annual revenue or this is your annual salary from your business?"

Also got this gem from the Crave Cookies website:

"The software is built "from scratch" like the cookies and is part of Crave's success story. No other food company has the software Crave has for managing deliveries."

You should definitely do a write-up on Not Invented Here syndrom. And we sometimes "reinventing" the wheel, in moderation and for core components, really is the best solution.

Most of the time it's a matter of distilling to simplicity. No so much building a better mousetrap, as much as needing only a mousetrap instead of an Animal Processor 5000.

Good observation.

Honestly, that's a great solution that I've used before too. It seems like a potential 2-hour data loss window isn't catastrophic for your side business so something like Litestream could be overkill.

OT: Love the name! I've leaned into my name and make all my side hustles Crave {product} (ie, "Crave Training"), so I guess I'll cross cookies off my potential list lol.

Sounds fantastic, proves you don't need an overcomplicated tech stack to make bank.

Congratulations my dude!

I've legit fallen in love with sqlite. i save my global-scale infra chops for the dayjerb

Such a nice little mini-dashboard. Nice work. I'm copying it!

P.s. Crave Cookie looks neat.

Hey Devmunchies,

I'm too building a site on Crystal. This is my first production site(static comment). Would love to hear some story about how you run it.

Especially how you manage migration with Crystal+SQlite?

Is this a public business? Would you mind sharing, if so?

We do local cookie delivery[1]. We run our own mapping software and have our own drivers so most of the software is internal facing.

Talked about it on Indie Hackers podcast[2], where i briefly mention SQLite as well.

[1]: https://cravecookie.com

[2]: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/166-sam-eaton-of-crave-...

You make $200k/m delivering cookies in two cities? That’s incredible!

Always amazed by these niche businesses that make bank

we only have a single kitchen and it seems just above 200k is our ceiling for a single location. Expanding soon.

we took down our revenue from indiehackers but somebody took a screenshot and posted on twitter of the stripe verified revenue. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXbNBVUX0AAotOo?format=jpg&name=...

Is that gross?

No the cookies are good apparently

I'm sure it's delicious! :)

Nice!

Looks to be. Still very impressive!

That growth curve is impressive. If you keep that rate it won't be a side business for long.

Dammit man, now I want cookies.

Looks like it is Crave Cookies: https://www.indiehackers.com/product/crave-cookie

What crystal web framework do you use?

none. I had built a Crystal web framework that i retired[1]. I created something else that I use that's faster than the popular ones. Not open sourced.

Funnily, been into F# the past few months and built a web framework for that too. Still in progress[2].

[1]: https://github.com/samueleaton/raze

[2]: https://wiz.run/

Would you be willing to opensource that "something else" or if not then perhaps write a blog post about how it works?

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