I wasted 2 years on a $0 project. Then I made a $1,000 project in a month. Here’s what changed.
Two weeks ago I launched an app via a post to reddit. The reception was absolutely beyond my expectations.
I was sitting at my PhD student desk working when to my amazement, I saw a notification from stripe saying that I received my first payment of $7.5. I have never had such a flood of good hormones go through my body. Thank you whoever you are for clicking that purchase button and thank you to the continued interest of people that keep purchasing the app (It's now at $1000).
This is my 3rd attempt at a startup in the last 3 years and is the first time I have ever received an internet dollar. I spent 2 years on my last project - building tests for this, tweaking styling for that, optimising page load times and what did that get me? $0
What changed is I decided to make something useful, not revolutionary. Something that people search for regularly (you can find this out on sites like ahrefs), something I do regularly and something that I could build and test in a month. I thought: don’t focus on features no one will use until you’ve tested whether there’s interest in the essential features that solve the problem. If no one showed interest, i would move onto the next idea.
I settled on a universal file converter that does conversions locally on your device. There are plenty of file conversion sites, but when you use them, you’re sending your files and data to their servers. I didn’t like that and I wanted to use local tools but with a drag and drop app, so non-programmers could use it.
With my last failure, I honestly thought that maybe I wasn’t cut out for making my own apps/websites. However, this new mindset is working - build it fast and see whether people buy before you spend years on it. I hope this post is a bit of inspiration for people who are in a similar boat to how I was feeling. After your first failure, learn then build and launch to test your next idea. The feeling of having one actually be wanted by a user is the best feeling I have had in years.
Dude, congrats! $1k from a side project is the dream and only the beginning! The point about not getting bogged down in features before validating the core idea really hits home. Inspiring stuff.
I'm really glad you liked it. Keep on building, friend!
Wow, this is such an inspiring story! Build it quick, test if there's demand, then go from there. Your approach of focusing on something actually useful, not just revolutionary, is so refreshing. Anyway, huge congrats on hitting $1,000 in just a month! That feeling of validation is unbeatable. Keep going!
I really appreciate it. Keep going yourself!
Great story! The best of luck
Thank you, friend!
congrats Jake!!
Hi, I need some advice, I have an idea to create a website, and I think it can work, I don't know how to code. So, what I've planned is, to open a YouTube channel where I make some content, not specifically related to the site, but to gain an audience to which I can then pitch my idea in order to validate the idea, while building the MVP alongside. What do you think about this method, as gaining an audience on YouTube won't be easy and will take at least 3-6 months, so is it worth building the channel or should I focus on building the MVP and just post on X, reddit, etc for spreading it?
I think you’re on the right track. I would honestly try each and whatever you get the best response on, focus your efforts there. Be prepared for a lot of failure and hate for some things but just keep learning from what works (and doesn't) and you’ll get better results next time. You’ll find that when you get nice comments (like you’ve just given me) or, better, people buying what you’ve made, you get more motivated to keep doing it.
For me, I’m currently trying to grow my audience on X too (https://x.com/JakeManger). It’s hard but I have had much better success on reddit in my case - posting about what I’ve made.
As for YouTube, I know a lot of people have great success with it, others don’t. You just got to give it a try and keep improving with it.
I am absolutely not qualified to answer this, but I'm dealing with the same issue - trying to "get an audience" while working on actually building something. I've been doing POSSE (Post On (Your Own) Site Syndicate Everywhere), meaning I post stuff to my website, and then I copy that content to LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, and Mastodon. So far it hasn't "worked," lol, but I'm still trying different things to see if something sticks.
Never heard of mastoden. How are you finding it? I'm doing the POSSE route too
Mastodon seems promising. Definitely some interesting people have moved there from X, but like I said, as far as an audience goes not really different than any of the others.
Congratulations Jake
❤️
Congrats Jake! This is super inspiring man keep at it.
Keep at it too yourself!
I know you said 2 years working on your project? but how many hours do you think you've put into it?
ooh well at least 3-8 hours a week after work/on weekends. Waaayyy too long on something I should have 1) market researched and 2) tested much earlier
Congrats Jake! Wonderful to see your success! I also launched my product recently with similar motivations, to prevent data being sent to 3rd party servers for cleaning Gmail Inbox.
Congrats back to you!
Congrats Jake! Thanks for sharing your learnings and new strategy. I wasn’t aware of the existance of sites like Ahrefs. Brillant for checking out ideas of what people are looking for.
Wish you good fortune with your projects.
Yeah, ahrefs is great. I didn’t know with my last project too and now that I do, things are working!
First of all - congrats! Can you share what tech stack did you use?
Thanks! It's built with:
- React
- Tailwindcss for styling
- Tauri - for building to Mac, Windows and Linux
- Javascript and Rust
Nice! I have never heard of Tauri but it's good to know that something like that exists.
Awesome man. love the idea!
Thank you!
That's awesome man! Congrats on your new found success. That's also a good idea. I noticed the same thing a year or so ago and thought "I wish I didn't have to send my file to their servers".
Good luck on your journey!
Thank you haha I'm glad I'm not alone in that thought. Good luck on your journey too!
Keep going
You too!
This is extremely inspiring for me at this point, right now, today. Thank you.
You got this buddy 🤞 and if your idea isn’t a success, keep improving and get the next idea out. It gets faster each time