I've also been thinking of the exact same thing myself, something which will generate enough profit to pay off bills, buy something nice and invest a little in growing the idea.
Recently I've been working on https://www.emlipo.com which was scrutinized by HN for essentially being "little code nobody would pay for". So I've not really wanted to work on that now.
Still, there will be something out there I'm sure.
By the way, the demo is currently offline. I'm currently at work, but shall try to get it back on.
Hey, I couldn't find your previous emlipo submission, I was going to post feedback there. It looks useful! I have a few blogs and getting spam addresses is a pain!
It took me a while to understand at first. I think the key word that's missing from your tag line is 'address' as it currently says 'verifies that an e-mail exists'
I immediately thought that was referring to searching for a specific e-mail message in an inbox.
I think the name would stick in mind better if the gmail envelope letter M was removed to make the name easier to read. I read it the first few times as Emplio not EmLIPO. It's only when I saw it written outside of the logo I realised.
I tested the demo but it didn't work (maybe too many requests have been going through it?) I tried on mobile Safari and IE 10. Both times I typed in an address, hit the button and the page just refreshed with no result. EDIT: Just seen your comment re: the demo being offline.
The navigation links at the top are very pale and tough to see (that maybe just browser related)
This could easily bring in some decent income for you. I think you just need to target it towards it's main benefit - reducing spam. The word spam isn't used on your home page at all.
HNers may have said it's 'little code' - if it's so simple then why doesn't it already exist? When something like that is packaged as a service with good documentation it's valuable. Perhaps you should increase prices. You may want to consider a forum manager / blogger level with a simplified integration process and instead of throttling on a per hour basis, could they have X number of api requests available pcm. Most people know the signup numbers to their site but can't control how they are spaced out. Good luck!
I missed your show HN thread, sorry. But for what it's worth I think your service looks cool. Your pricing looks too low to me - perhaps a sign of your lack of confidence in the idea - I think you could do with some higher-volume packages too.
No worries, a lot comes in on HN. Thank you, you have no idea how much that means to me!
Too low? That's a great sign too! In regards to higher-volume packages, I most certainly agree, however we want to ensure we're able to handle the potential volume of requests so far.
What do you think about the limits and throttles for each package?
Recently I've been working on https://www.emlipo.com which was scrutinized by HN for essentially being "little code nobody would pay for". So I've not really wanted to work on that now.
Still, there will be something out there I'm sure.
By the way, the demo is currently offline. I'm currently at work, but shall try to get it back on.