"Roughly $35,000 for what he describes as a trivial amount of work each month, while he was holding down a job as a salaryman.
Now that's he's gone full-time, there's no doubt in my mind that his revenues will be prodigious."
The app took him a few hours to make (I seem to remember this on from JoS). I think the service he has now was created by freelancers he hired (which is a smart move for someone without a lot of time to work on their business). The development of the app was trivial, but the amount of time and effort he has put into marketing is not.
Even working full time for 5 years, if you are marketing it every day (which he was), you should be able to get a better ROI than this.
My feeling is that the reason he isn't making that much money is because the market for such an application isn't that large. I see that he is also coming out with other services/products, which is further proof that he is moving on to bigger and better things. He probably should have done this a few years ago.
Even so, success isn't based on what you could possibly do in the future, it's what you have already achieved. My main point still stands: he made some money, but should not be considered a commercial success.
If I am reading his blog posts properly (and I believe I am), the time he put into marketing was also trivial.
Of course, he chose a small market. He was basically monetizing some spare time. And there's no doubt that he'll be more ambitious in the future, now that he has more time to spend on these projects.
I consider making $35,000/year in a few hours a week to be a "commercial success." Especially, since the kind of work he is doing is easily repeatable in other niches.
"I consider making $35,000/year in a few hours a week to be a "commercial success." Especially, since the kind of work he is doing is easily repeatable in other niches."
If you have followed his story at all on the JoS boards, It sure doesn't seem like only a few hours of work a week. If he is only working on it a few hours a week, he even has less credibility. It's little more than a side project that is now making some money.
I think it's great that he's making money, I just get tired of seeing interviews, articles, and posts claiming that he is running some kind of really successful business.
"Especially, since the kind of work he is doing is easily repeatable in other niches."
Marketing experience can be used in other niches. However, if you spend 5+ years on a niche to make $30,000, you are doing something wrong.
"What do you consider a commercial success, then?"
A commercial success to me is the ability to live comfortably off of the business (and quit your day job). I suppose Patrick has quit his day job for $30K/year, which I think will make it difficult to survive without savings. (even in Japan).
Now that's he's gone full-time, there's no doubt in my mind that his revenues will be prodigious.