ketau

Starting companies/testing ideas is cheaper than ever today - especially if you are willing to get your hands dirty and learn to do the work yourself. 10 years ago when I started my first company on the side of a day job, my friend/business partner and I decided that we were going to learn how to do every piece of the puzzle ourselves, even if it took longer. Today I still lean heavily on that investment in my own skills. Invest in yourself for the long term. Even if the idea you are working on now doesn't turn into Facebook you will open doors you dont even know exist right now. Bet on yourself, but take the long view.

In general it's tricky to make money as an extension. It ranges from asking for donations to doing something super shady like selling user data, and everything in between..

Honey makes money in 2 ways: 1) We use an affiliate link on the "install success" web page. If you click through to buy something on Amazon, we get a small cut. 2) We use an affiliate link when we do a discount gift card search on Cardpool. If you click through to buy a discount gift card, we get a small cut. Basically our belief is that we make money only when we're adding value to our users in some way.

Answered below, but will respond here too:

It really depends a lot on the stores you shop at and the products you buy. For example, Honey finds a working coupon code on Amazon less than 1% of the time. On other stores that use coupon codes, Honey finds a deal nearly all of the time. It all depends on if a deal is out there right now for what you are buying. Best stores for savings: clothing stores, department stores and godaddy (trust me on this one).

But that wasn't good enough for us so we have been working hard on a new way to help people save even if there aren't any coupon codes available. Stay tuned...

You're right (its not worth much) and no we aren't selling your info. We're taking a long term view that if we can help you more easily find the things you want to buy and help negotiate prices that work for you there are ways to get merchants involved that don't in any way compromise your info.

Like most startups there are stock options that we all know could be worthless, but the bigger thing for Honey is working on really cool technical challenges with other passionate people.