556% revenue increase in 15 days of hustle
by Gabriel ChuanI launched Young Makers Newsletter 3 weeks ago to help young makers like myself. I never thought I could do it.
Here's my transparency story, the results achieved, how I started and what worked for me.
Read till the end!
If I could do it starting from nothing, so could you!
My First Online Revenue
• 8 paid subscribers
• $328 in revenue
• 150 subs
Here's how I got my traffic
Indie Hackers – 260 views, 7 subs, 1 paid
Twitter – 174 views, 8 subs, 2 paid
Direct – 170 views, 14 subs, 1 paid
Hacker News – 9 views, 1 sub
Telegram Groups – 8 views, 2 subs, 1 paid
Facebook – 7 views
Reddit – 6 views, 1 sub
Here's how I made $ from "experiments"
• $150 from mastermind group
• $15 from early supporters
• $10 from subscriptions
• $18 from buymeacoffee
If you don't experiment, you'll never know what works. I simply followed advice from @AndrewKamphey and my newsletter's actionable advice.
When I did my first few interviews, I realized these about successful entrepreneurs. They:
• had huge bias for action
• were creative about how they made money
• kept moving, never stopped
• iterated if needed
• focused on ramen profitability
• had community support
I wasted 4 years in college...
• learning things that didn't align with my future path
• building products that made a loss
• having no friends who shared indie hacking dreams
• struggling to subsist while doing what i love while helping others
However, it all changed when I did these…
STOP
• lurking in online communities
• over thinking
• over planning and
• over strategizing
Strategy is useful when you have revenue. If you don't have it, hustle for that first.
START
• putting myself out there on twitter, WIP.chat, Indie Hackers, Newsletter Geeks (an invite-only telegram community for newsletter operators)
• being consistent
• ask for mentoring
• DOING things fast
• execute, execute, execute
• experiment and improve
success = consistency * quality
if consistency was less than 1.0, no matter how much quality I put in, it would be useless. I'd still get less than 100%.
therefore I must be both consistent and put in quality work. Quality work is 10,000 iterations.
What are you waiting for?
Start building! Stop lurking.
Put yourself out there, build in public. Setup a product page on Indie Hackers and blog there. Tweet about your progress.
Use that consistency to ask for help; ask for guidance and mentoring
I'm not alone
These are the communities that brought me up:
Indie Hackers
Wip.chat
Newsletter Geeks by @anthilemoon
Reading.supply
SMUMods with my co-founder, Zachery
And many other people such as @AndrewKamphey who mentored me. As well as those who gave me guidance and encouragement along the way. My twitter followers were a very encouraging bunch as well! Last but not least, my girlfriend 🙏.
I have a rather comprehensive list of whom I'm thankful for here if you care to follow them.
Thoughts?
• Happy to help makers starting out if you need a bit of push. Just ask away below in comments or DM me on twitter.
• Is there any actionable advice you got from this milestone? Share them below so I can give you a reminder to execute it! We could also bounce ideas!
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9
Brilliant ... could not agree more, also had a problem for a long time of just lurking online and finally last week started putting myself out there. I must say it get easier the more you do it.
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110% agree with this. Once you get into the habit of doing and executing fast, results will come. It's just a matter of time.
And when they do, it really boosts your energy levels. Because now you're driven to keep going. It's in our psychology.
Really glad you gave yourself that push! Keep going Patryk! If you need to bounce ideas, you know where to find me!
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I would agree wholeheartedly. And add ...
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don't fall for the 'shiny new object' fallacy and get into whatever fad is big that month.
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if you build it they won't come. Build a Community first. Learn the principles of sales/marketing.
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most creatives/coders dont have a thick enough skin for consistent sales calls. Either outsource that work or partner with a sales guru.
Also, I dont see the problem with planning and strategizing. A bit more p&s would turn alot of zero revenue apps into winners or they'd be put to the sword sooner before they turned into bloatware that noone used.
Just my two cents ...
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I used to subscribe to the idea of running startups and succeeding crazily. I thought I would be happy and it would pay for a house. I was so wrong.
You risk everything and years of effort on an idea that might not succeed on the scale VCs want. You burn out and become penniless – happened to some friends I know.
Having seen how bootstrappers silently slugging it out and succeeding, it left me thinking. Could it be a pathway I'd be happier with? I'd be able to make an honest living without worrying about saving up for a house to build a family. Neither would I be overworked from hustling for returns I might never see.
When I got on Twitter and Indie Hackers, I saw that this was all possible. But the first steps they all took were always to take action, execute fast and get to ramen profitability first. It was never about "lets spend a few days to strategize". A few days could mean an advantage for a competitor to copy you and steal your customers. Every dollar counts.
That mindset made me appreciate every experiment I ran. Even if it's a buy me a coffee $3, it's still money to me. I can use it to pay for the bills.
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The most successful entrepreneurs always start with marketing. The best marketer wins everytime in business. Marketing is the master skill of business.
Unless you can get into the mind of your target market. All your marketing efforts will have been wasted. Interviews. In depth research. Careful study of target market.
At the very least you should answer these questions before writing a single line of code ...
Know your target market first..
What is their gender, geography and age ?
What keeps them awake at night ?
What are they afraid of ?
What are they angry about ? Who are they angry at ?
What are their top daily frustrations ?
What trends are occuring/will occur in their businesses ?
What is the one thing they crave above all else ?
What do they secretly desire most ?
What language/ jargon do they use ?
What magazines/ websites do they read ?
What is their dominant emotion ?
Imo know these answers before you spend a single minute writing code.
I learnt this the hard way btw. And finally remember you are not your consumer.
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Start building! Stop lurking. You rock Gabriel!
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Cheers Damon! You're already building something incredible! Next step: experiment and iterate!!
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Great start, thanks for being transparent and sharing your journey with us.
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This is great advice & a winning attitude!
What do you mean exactly by mastermind group? What kind of group is it and how did you find one? Or maybe I'm missing something here?
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Thank you! I hosted a 2 weeks mastermind group for premium subscribers. It describes as something like that:
• Launch and grow your newsletter to 50+ subscribers in 2 weeks
• Get video feedback of your newsletter setup
• Growth and monetization tipsThere’s only 4 slots in a mastermind group, going at $50 per slot.
If participants try their best and do everything we go through in the mastermind group but don’t get results as above, I’ll refund them.
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Awesome, thanks for explaining!
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Congrats Gabriel...Good start...I probably have some friends that probably need Young Makers
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Excellent post. Because I kept jumping around from one idea to another i don’t even know how to relate to my little 300 followers on twitter. I went from app developer, to data specialist for a science research publishing company (Nature), to now i’m a music platform developer. People want to categorize other people. I’m definitely going to follow you on twitter to see if I can follow your lead on building public.
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I can relate to that! I used to work on many side projects without launching many of them. My friends lectured me and told me I sucked at focusing. They were right.
Till today, I'm still bad at focusing. But I keep myself to 3 things at a time as best as I can. It's just 1) My full-time job, 2) Young Makers and 3) My Family, Girlfriend and Friends.
I would suggest sticking to 1 thing and become really good at it. At least enough to pay for a living. Use that income to explore complementary interests. At least, that's where I'm heading! You're welcome to join me on my journey 😊
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Very cool man! Congrats! Just curious - how do you work around Reddit? Since Redditors are most often very hostile against promotion and ads etc.
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Congrats Gabriel! Thanks for the lessons. And inspiration 🙌
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Really interesting read and I am impressed by the progress 😊
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Thanks Joyancefa! How's your maker journey coming along? Don't forget to take action on the advice! Try them and see what works for you 🙈
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Yes! Really liked it especially the reminders to focus on making a profit which I really need :) Plus discovered the website landingfolio (https://www.landingfolio.com/?ref=youngmakers)
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Love it Gabriel, keep at it. <3
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Congratulations. The Hustle Podcast discussed the opportunities with churches. It was mostly focused on digital apps to collect donations, but there might be some insights there for you as well?
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This comment was deleted 6 years ago.
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This was me! Try these out:
1. Join online communities like Indie Hackers, WIP.chat, Makerlog
2. Build in public on twitter.
3. Reach out to me on Twitter DMs if you need help – happy to advise where I can. I'm no expert but if it can help unblock you, lets try it.
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