Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?

I'm slowly hacking away at a niche B2B SaaS product after work and on weekends.

I'm looking forward to the prospect of some extra monthly cash. I get a kick out of thinking, "At $30/mo, I only need 200 users to bring in a cool $6000 a month!" (gross, of course)

...but wait. Will I get even 200 subscribers? Maybe I'll struggle to reach 10. What if I'm underestimating my market here - what if I get 2,000?

I bounce ideas around in my head: "Of course I'll get 200 subscribers. 1.3 million people live in New Hampshire alone, and we're just one small state in the USA!" Even though my product is for a niche market, my local Yellow Pages confirms there are a dozen likely candidates for my application. I sometimes think I could secure 200 subscribers from just New York City alone, never mind the rest of the country, world.

I'm genuinely interested in the product I'm working on and the experience developing and marketing it is invaluable. I'm excited to see how my projections line up with actual revenue, good or bad.

What revenue goals did you have when launching and did you hit them? Were your pre-launch market analysis/projections correct or way off?

(Patrick, writing about BingoCardCreator on his blog, said that his initial goal was $200/mo. His very next sentence? "The business has been successful beyond my wildest expectations and has made it possible to quit my day job at the end of this month." Makes me smile every time I read it!)