My business grew over 1000%+ last night! Here's how I did it.
I was cooking dinner last night when I received an email from Stripe.
My heart skipped a beat when I read it as I realized I had just achieved well over 1,000% growth.
The email read "Your funds are on the way! A payout of $2.48 is on its way to the bank account for The Active Consumer ."
I'm not sure if Wendy's still has a dollar menu, but if so, I'm celebrating with TWO ITEMS tonight yeeeheewww!!
$2.48 may not seem like a lot to most. But I started my company 1 year and 10 months ago and this was the first money I've ever made working for myself.
It's been a slugfest getting it built with Covid and all, but I DID IT!
Moral of the story. Anything over $0 in income is guaranteed to be your highest growth period (a period of infinite growth, technically).
So get out there and do it (this is the one hack mentioned in the title, btw ;) )! While you're doing it, don't forget to celebrate the little (tiny in this case) wins. Those are what keeps the journey exciting.
go to the bank, withdraw one of the two dollars, write your business name on it and the date, and frame it. You'll always have the first dollar you ever made yourself.
I actually did that 11 years ago. :D
Still have it?
Yes, along with a 50/50 "contract" written on a napkin with my (now) wife. We started our design careers together and earned our first money together.
This is an incredible idea!! I'm gonna grab myself a $2 bill this afternoon.
this reminds me of Bogdan, the car wash owner with the eye brows that won't quit in Breaking Bad
Misleading title - "here's how I did it"
"So get out there and do it (this is the one hack mentioned in the title, btw)"
Sorry about that, this sentence was meant to explain how I did it.
I'm in a ton of Founder's Groups and I hear questions like "how should I know when I should really do it?" and "When should I feel confident enough to start?". The key for all founders in that stage is to just do it.
It wasn't an attempt to mislead, but it may be a tip for the less seasoned entrepreneur.
I'm not sure what you mean when the title still says "Here's how i did it".
Really do what? Start what? And the title is still misleading.
LATER EDIT: Just to be clear - what you did is commendable, but the title is misleading :D
I'm fairly new to IH so this is good to know, thanks!
Misleading title.
Sorry about that. See my reply to CinematicStudio for my thoughts.
I think the Econus idea is really interesting, although I have one doubt. Wouldn't you (& and the users) benefit more by making it completely free and % based?
On another note, the Straw reference on your landing page reminded me a bit of a line in the Doc Seaspiracy, where they talked about highlighting the impact of a something that has tiny proporsion of the blame in order to deter the focus from main polutants, (like Fishing nets from big corps; which they mentioned in the doc). 😅
Thanks! And yeah, I agree that it would make it easier to acquire users if we made it free and % base. The problem is that it uses users' spare change for their donations, which means the contribution each individual person is giving is already pretty small. Some of our spare change competitors are charging 10-15% to the non-profits (which is necessary because of all the Plaid + Stripe fees the platform gets charged), but at that point, it's not helping the non-profit enough to make it worth their time (which is why I think they are all growing slowly). That being said, if the $1 subscription is too big of a pain point for users to get over, we may have to change up the model.
In regards to the straw reference, we are actually playing on the Seaspiracy hype ;) Yes, saving a straw could make a difference, consumers should consciously choose to make individual impacts, but they should also use Econus to empower them to actively engage in the economics of their consumption. As we say, when you consciously consume and are actively engaged in the economics of your consumption you become more than a conscious consumer, you become an Active Consumer.
Yea, that makes sense. So, you don't charge the non-profits, correct?
(If you don't then that could also be a good point to make on your page, like under the pricing section. "Unlike others we don't charge the non-proftis" or something like that) That could inspire a bit more confidence for the users too probably.
Correct, we do not. That is a brilliant suggestion, thank you! This is why I love IH!
Glad to help! Also maybe adding a bit of an explainer video on the top of the main page could help. I was gonna say that I could help you create one if you needed on (thinking about creating a saasplainer production service maybe🤔) , but then I found you had one the other day, I just couldn't find it again today. 😅
You're probably referring to our promo video, which kind of explains it a bit, but I'm not sure where you would have found that link either as I haven't shared it much haha
I have an actual explainer video in the works, I think this will help explain what we're doing much better than expecting people to read my entire website, but I haven't heard from the production team in quite a while so I s'pose we will see...haha
Yea haha, I remember watching it, but for some reason I can't remember at all where I found it 😅.
Definitely, would love to check it out once it's up.
Thanks for sharing. Hey quick question for something like this where initially you were unsure when or how much you would collect from the project, when do you incorporate for the stripe account?
No problem!
I had thought about the issues behind sustainability in-depth for months. I had actually just quit my job and went to a couple for a few weeks to doing rigorous research. I knew that what i was building could make a real impact on the world and incorporated. Over a year later I have the beta ready. So I guess when you believe in your project so much that it's either going to work or your going to go down trying, that's when you incorporate.
Kudos on believing in an initiative/idea & executing on it.
Really don't like the click-bait title of this post, or the lack of any specific advice. "Doing it" isn't a hack nor is it really advice. So, minus 1 karma point for that.
Regardless, congrats on taking action and getting your first sale.
Thanks, iammike!
In regards to "doing it" not being a hack I'm going to have to disagree. There is a reason entrepreneurs are a minority and it's not because of smarts. It's because of the fear of the unknown. In my opinion, doing it is the greatest hack.
Congrats on the first earnings milestone.
I've lauched my website on the 27th of April and on the 14th of May had my first payout of 1.72€ (that's around $2.10)
There we go!!! Looks like we're on a similar timeline.
What are you building? I would love to check it out.
My first project is Cloud Home Lab, a low cost Nextcloud hosting solution.
You can check it out at this link: Cloud Home Lab
Wendy's, are you sure? Hahaha, you're right man, every little win is still a win deserving to be celebrated. Looks like an interesting product, is it your main gig?
Hahaha. I never buy fast food and don't really know who else sells dollar items. Maybe I'll just go buy some balloons from the dollar store....haha
But yeah, full time on this sucker, it's really coming along though. The website is one thing, but it's all in preparation for our mobile app. Here's what we're launching on June 4th: https://youtu.be/9gTJ2pDJnFA
You made me smile :D
Thanks for reading :)
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I'm doing the same! What an incredible business Stripe is, empowering people all over the world to create and achieve.
May I ask what you built and how it's going?
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The site looks great. What's your USP? And by that I mean, why wouldn't someone like myself store their e-books on their Kindle?
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