I made my first $1 from a side project this year. I’ve pursued this milestone for the last 4 years. It should have been an incredible accomplishment. It was, kind of.
People are willing to spend money on what I make. Regardless of its unpolished MVP nature. Finally, I knew. But I wasn't proud.
I’ve failed for the past 4 years, but that just pushed me closer to my goal. This time it was different. Unlike the other failed projects, this project showed me the exact direction to go next, and that’s why I’m killing it.
Lessons learned
1) Consume less, make more
I used to enjoy reading self-development content. From books to the Medium’s posts. One thing you should know is this. By making, I learned exponentially more.
2) Prioritize
Make time for what you believe in. Aline your priorities with your goals. It's hard building a project and having a full-time job at the same time. There's no magic formula. I had to make sacrifices. You do too, and probably will continue to do so as well.
3) Execution doesn't matter
No, you don't need this new framework. You'll be fine with that old one. Or with none. Serious makers don't bother wasting a second thinking about it. Why should you? Customers don't care.
4) Except when it does
Your product deserves a nice presentation. Landing pages make a huge impact. Don't underestimate them. Adding some fluff to it won't hurt. It's not pointless over-engineering. It's making sure it converts.
5) Monetize quickly
I learned the hard way. At first, users asked me for a paid plan to give them more quota. Then they went quiet. It took me 3 months to add this paid plan. But the majority of those who previously asked didn't stick around. $1000 mistake.
When to kill a side project
Back to my story. I'm not killing my project because it's technically challenging or because of bad luck. I'm ending it because it doesn't make me happy.
My journey as a maker began with building an online diary for fitness enthusiasts. I believe in fitness. It was a natural fit. My next project was in the same field.
Not this project. This project is in a completely different category. Marketing. My numero uno nemesis. The Darth Vader.
I fought the challenge. Nobody won.
I want to move back to what I enjoy the most. Building things that I truly believe will change lives of the like-minded.
What's next
As I said, this project showed me the direction to go next. It was actually the users. In fact, the user who wrote this to me:
Rounding all the edges of a side project is nearly impossible. But you should never cheat on a communication with your users. I did. I realized I had in all of my projects.
I'm pivoting, again. And I'm hoping you're a like-minded individual.
I'm going to build an emailing solution for us makers. So we don't have to cheat ever again. It's called Sidemail. Perhaps, you could sign up for early access, and get progress updates straight to your mailbox.
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Thank you for reading!
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Great article - I thought your section on Execution Doesn't Matter was interesting. I find myself spending too much time deciding between marginally different platforms or frameworks when I could instead get my feet wet in the project and just get started. Great thoughts!
Thanks Seth! :) Today's options are so exhaustive that you end up spending so much time just researching. Instead it's better to do exactly what you said. Get your feet wet.
I'm procrastinating like this with a totally stupid thing.. I need to buy a new shoes, but there's so many options.. If I keep procrastinating my feet will get wet, literally.
Nice article Patrik!
It's a genuinely cool experience to see people learn from their mistakes, then to iterate on them and make improvements for their future projects.
Sidemail looks like it could be really useful! Will definitely consider using it in the future when you get it up and running.
Best of luck!
Thanks, Landon :)
thanks for the feedback. Your landing page for sidemail is gorgeous.
Thank you! Glad you like it. :)
Great idea! I'm ashamed to admit that a proper mailer has been on the back burner for www.StripTogether.co since launch... currently when I need to email all users I run a command through my shell to output all emails of those who have "receive emails" enabled in their user settings, then I copy/paste in batches of 50 from my webmail service. It's not pretty!
I do have mailgun connected to email from my rails/heroku app, but I have yet to make myself an interface for shooting out mass emails with ease...
Thank you! :) I feel you as I did the exact same thing.
I used Mailgun in the past and it's a good email provider but bare bones. You spent a lot of time reinventing the wheel instead of focusing on your product.
GUI for sending emails is exactly what I talk about. Makers shouldn't waste their time building it. It should be included. And that's where Sidemail comes in.
Good luck with striptogether! It looks neat and I just learned what a strip is. :)
Thanks! I've signed up for early access - looking forward to it 👌
Why isn't this mobile responsive?
What do you mean?
On Android 7,Chrome browser,your website isn't mobile responsive.
Edit:It looks like your website is not mobile responsive at most phones.I did a check using developer tools in Chrome and this is what i got.
https://imgur.com/a/oM2sOWc
The margin and padding is messed up.
Might wanna look into that :)
Yeaaaaaah, you're right. I messed up yesterday when I shipped the "Send progress reports" checkbox. On top of that, I broke the join beta form completely. Oops! 🤯
If you wanna join the beta and it didn't work before, now you can 🤟
And thanks for reading!
Great insights. I recently decided to reduce my data intake and i have cut down on reading those news articles and i definitely feel that calm mind now. Checked out the landing page, it looks cool. Best of luck !
Thanks! And best of luck on your end too :)
Some spelling typos: "Trial expering soon", "GDRP complient" ..
On the topic of the landing page, were these self designed or did you get professional/freelance help?
Thanks for pointing that out, Bert. It's fixed now. :)
I saw that animation like a million times, so I just started ignoring it like an ad and totally forget to check those texts.
I designed and coded the LP myself.
What was your side project that earned you $1m?
I wish it was 1 million. Anyway, postedo.com
Ha! I misread it. My apologies.
No worries, and thanks for reading :)
Looking forward to your lessons for when you hit the $1m mark. ;) Onwards and upwards.
Stay tuned! 🤟 Let's make it a race.
You are on! 🤑