Alternate revenue channels

Discussions
#1

To make money out of something the two kings are basically:

  • Make the end user pay (ether a one-time payment, suscriptions, freemiums, in-app purchases, …, you get the idea)

and / or

  • Allow others to advertise on your product

But I think it would be interesting to open a discussion on alternate revenue streams that could be used. While these alternative streams may not drive billions to your account, they may be very helpful to provide a small income that could help your finances, particularly when you’re bootstraping.

Out of my mind I can think of the following alternatives:

  • Patreon. Although I don’t really think they provide good income, save for a couple superstars that do well on the site.
  • Sponsorships. You could argue this is advertising as well, but I think it’s a bit different on the way you implement this. Basically you only have one (or two? three?) big sponsors that pay for being featured on your product. They are usually not that hard to courtship, particularly if you are aiming towards a very niche/targeted audience.
#2

It really depends on the nature of your product. For example, with B2B product’s it is common to have paid support.

#3

This:

is not aligned with this:

This is because when you’re bootstrapped, your audience is next to zero, and sponsors want a large number of people to see their ads.

Patreon is just a way to pay, as I see it. How is it different from, say, Stripe?