How I built a dashboard template and sold it for $90,000+

Last year I shared the story of how a dashboard template enabled me to start working full time online 8 years ago and thought I should post the key learnings from that experience.

I feel that most of them apply today and should be helpful for people who are just starting out, especially if they are looking to sell their work on an existing marketplace.

1. Being passionate with your work
   Loving what you do can motivate you, inspire you and make things a bit easier but that’s not necessarily enough in the long run.

2. What people need
   Researching the needs of your potential customers is essential, don't overlook them.

3. Deliver under pressure
   Pressure can harm your work but also might prove to be one of the things that helps you succeed.

4. Be original
   Try to make your work as original as possible. Nowadays, it might be harder to achieve this (if you are looking into design) but it's up to you to make sure that your work always has your personal touch.

5. Test everything like crazy
   Make sure that you deliver a bug-free product (at least not major ones, minors can always be fixed afterwards).

6. Balance time and delivery
   Keep a balance between the features you want to implement and the time it takes you to do it.

7. Not knowing stuff might be helpful sometimes
   As you learn more about your product’s market or about the tech you are using, it gets harder and harder to put something out there. You analyze everything way too much and easily spot the things that might go, or you do wrong.

8. Being perfect is subjective
   Perfection is subjective and related to your skills and time. Something ‘perfect’ today, won’t be perfect in a couple of years. Keep aiming for creating great experiences and products using the most of your current skills and try to keep learning throughout your life.

9. Keep updating the project
   Updating and supporting a project is one of its strongest features in the long run.

10. Implement the features you can handle
    There might be many features requests but you have to evaluate which ones to implement based on your ability to maintain, update and support them.

11. Give your best with support, you have people on the other side
    The title says it all.

12. Be grateful, learn, improve your skills, iterate
    Being grateful is not a cliché. It's free, helpful and motivational. Keep improving your skills, there is and always will be so much to learn.

If you are interested in more details, be sure to also check out the original story (sorry, it's a bit long!).