Hit the front page of HN & Multiple Subreddits, how would you monetize this?
Hey IH,
Yahia here. I've always been a fan of going off the beaten path and making businesses out of markets that other people try to avoid like the plague (usually B2C) which brings me here
Well i've got an interesting one for ya'll today. I built knifegeek.io and it's getting quite a bit of traffic but i am quite conflicted on how to monetize it.
- Add alerts when brands drop new knives? (fairly certain some people willing to pay)
- P2P used knife marketplace w commission
- Ads
- Sponsorships
- Affiliate marketing
I hit the front page of HN and multiple subreddits a few times already and SEO investments i made a few months ago are taking off.
Any ideas?
PS: i'm trying to tweet more, i'm 100% not a threadboi so follow me here if you're interested.
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Not familiar with this market, but sponsored content for manufacturers, paid reviews (while maintaining objective) and referrals for retailers seem to be the most obvious. I think a platform like this should be free for the user to really gain and keep a good user base. Maybe a membership that gets you discounts at a list of stores could work (possibly funded by commissions from that store)? Then of course ads (and the membership that hides ads).
Great ideas!
Yep makes total sense, i'm keeping the platform 100% free for users and will figure out how to monetize it with businesses interested in the userbase.
It's a super weird feeling to have tens of thousands of people using something and racking my brain around how to monetize it. Complete 180 from the usual B2B saas
Affiliate Marketing + Sponsored Giveaways + Ads
Makes sense!
Awesome website. I love seeing little projects like this.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing here seems like a no brainer for monetization, especially from an effort to impact perspective.
You're probably already driving a bunch of traffic to these places to purchase, you should get a cut of it!
Building email list
You should definitely start collecting emails, even if you're not intending to build something immediately. Building a list will help make this whole project more 'sellable', if that is your eventual goal.
I've got experience with newsletters so am partial to that medium. A simple pop-up with a lead magnet like 'An expert guide to sharpening' could be an easy draw.
This could grow into weekly reviews on knives, sponsored content, etc.
Memberships
This is the best 'type' of revenue, but is the most difficult to build and maintain.
Paid communities and memberships can be tricky to maintain a value prop, especially for a retail product. This isn't a daily or weekly purchase so you'd need to be thoughtful on what a premium tier would get access to.
Keep it up!
Thanks a ton!
Affiliate Marketing Totally agree!
Building email list Doing it at the moment but seems the signup rate is too low, need to tinker around with it. The idea of a lead magnet is interesting!
Memberships The creme de la creme of revenue, i don't think it's gonna be do-able on this platform but if i can get to 10K hits a day i'm pretty sure i can sell one-off ads quite regularly with a self-service portal to knife makers so we'll see
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I'm not 100% sure what you're saying tbh
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Thanks a ton! Appreciate the insight :)
2). TBH i'm super interested in building this from an engineering standpoint but i totally agree that it would be a huge pain + competition is tough
5). Already started but some of the knife sellers aren't playing ball with their affiliate programs :(