Digitalbook.io

Phase 1 always had a specific and achievable set of goals. Well, we made it! Digitalbook.io has a much-improved design, the UX which was driven by a principle of "less is more" has delivered great results according to user feedback, the code is maintainable, and we achieved a solid 1k MRR in the first year.

It's time to wind down efforts to include just maintenance and SEO and security. In the meantime, hopefully the site can attract investment or gain enough traction and revenue to bootstrap Phase 2, becoming a full-service online publishing system.

It's summertime and i'm off to the beach!

One person is just too lean! Given the amount of design, UX, and coding that was needed to create a modern product, it felt like another side-hustling developer was needed. But getting another dev to buy-in to your idea in his spare time was nigh on impossible. Nevermind, development will just take longer. Besides, don't underestimate the time it takes to handle finances, advertising, social media, affiliate contracts, analytics, the blog, SEO and testing etc etc. Plus a good business partner is invaluable to bounce ideas off of. Measure twice, cut once, as they say.

Digitalbook.io started with a giant commit since it's the evolution of codebase from a prototype that happily sat on the net for 5 years during the noughties accumulating backlinks. Digitalbook's own organic traffic has only recently exceeded referals from the original site, which still exists but is registered with Google as a "change of address".