10words.io

After weeks of planning, 10words was finally ready for a debut on Product Hunt. The newsletter is humming along, I found the perfect hunter, and my system is in place to handle the spikes from a big feature. My plan was to work on some graphics, craft a comment and submit it on Thursday.

But nothing is ever that smooth.

Sunday morning I woke up to a notification that it was hunted by a rogue hunter. The graphics were terrible, the description wasn't even accurate, and it was sitting in last place on the list.

So I spent my Sunday on the support chat with PH's wonderful folks, while throwing together graphics, a gif icon, and description. Fortunately, they got me squared away for a Monday feature, gave me access to my post, and we were off to the races!

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/10words-io

It's still early here, but the traffic has been solid - with lots of positive comments and new subscribers. I'll post an update soon with some results!

Ahhhhhhh

Do you know the feeling? The first time somebody says "hey, this thing you built is worth paying for".

Today was that day, as 10words got its first sponsor for an upcoming newsletter.

There's some relief in there, but also more nerves than I expected. The obligation to deliver something of genuine value, so they walk away from the transaction feeling good about it. The worry that this might be the only person willing to take a chance on a new service. What if something goes wrong, what if all the subscribers decide to leave all at once, what if the link breaks? It sounds silly to read back, but the doubt is real!

Gotta start somewhere; hopefully I can hang the Stripe receipt up on my wall and look back and remember this feeling.

The 10words newsletter gained traction quickly, with hundreds of subscribers and startup submissions stemming from just a couple posts on IH. The core is a weekly newsletter, with great open and click rates, but I wanted to expand and keep trying new ways to discover startups.

So I built a Chrome Extension to show a new startup description in every new tab. I thought it was a neat way to passively discover new projects.

After a weekend binge-coding, I released it to myself and a few friendly folks - and the response was good! I was finding myself using it daily. It's fast, nice-looking, and simple.

After launching to the newsletter and user base, and even a post here on IH, I realized there probably wasn't a market for such a thing. It's been crickets ever since.

The newsletter keeps moving strongly ahead, and the browser extensions are still there - but my investment in them is over for now. The proof I needed was in the numbers, making it an easy decision to go back and focus on 10words' bread and butter.

Lucky Friday the 13th.

Today marked the first weekly newsletter of 10words.io.

The system and processes are built, submissions and subscribers are streaming in, and we're ready to go.

Let's see where this takes us!