Day 06 of 30 Days of Starting Up
Seven days ago, I started fresh into my new job - indie hacker / startup founder. I took my cofounder Hua’s advice to launch a 30-day project to kick start as a way to keep my workday structured, and at the same time, validate ideas and get traction. It is very helpful. @HuaShu, thank you!
The first update from the past weekend is that I made a website for this #30DaysOfStartingUp project; the URL is https://startup.wentin.net/. The website makes it easy to browse all the past content and find where else it is being posted. Show me some love with your upvotes and favorites!
Project website: 30 Days of Starting Up
The #30DaysOfStartingUp project has been motivating. Every night I feel accomplished going to bed, and every morning I wake up to stats I want to check immediately. The feeling is a familiar one - I was like this when I did passion projects. Stats kidnap me!
The stats are different from what I am used to with passion projects, though! It is much harder to get people’s attention with a startup than with free passion projects. I had project launches with 20,000 visitors on launch day and get on the front page of hacker news. Examples:
Google Analytics for Type Detail in the first week:
Google Analytics for CSS Icon in the first week:
Google Analytics for Font Playground in the first week:
Now looking at my startup journey in its first week. I promote mostly my newsletter page, the stats of page visitors:
My old self would dread seeing this. However, my entrepreneur self looked at it from a different perspective. I learned my first lesson: passion projects are a short game; most of my projects reach their peak on launch day. Startup is a long game. We never want the peak to come.
Instead, I found encouragement in a different set of stats: the open rate is consistently above 40%. As long as I am putting in good work every day, people are coming back to see my content and progress. That is the second lesson I learned: Persistency and consistency work.
I am sure there is still overnight success stories out there for startups, for example, Clubhouse. However, personally, I am not tuned into any clubhouse rooms anymore. What remains are the true fans. Overnight success certainly doesn’t hurt, but it is far from being necessary.
I was originally only planning to write the newsletter daily for 30 days. Now I have a bigger plan after 30 days: I will switch to biweekly and keep it running as long as the startup is open. Stay tuned at https://wentin.substack.com/.
Congrats! Are you tweeting about your progress?
yes, i was! my twitter is https://twitter.com/designjokes
NP, wentin! thank you for sharing these stats. Start-up is definitely a long journey, and you are doing great so far 💪
Thanks @huashu! It definitely needs a fresh mindset! Passion projects are easier to grab people's attention because they are fresh ideas and free, but I was never able to make a substantial income from it. Startup is slower to get noticed, but I am confident that it will pay off one day!