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Hardcore Year is done: My journey from quitting my job to building 7 apps and $1,000+ MRR.
Hard to believe it’s been a year, but I’m happy to say that finally I achieved my goal of $1,000 monthly recurring revenue after 14 months.
Hi!
This is Andrey.
Hard to believe it’s been a year
but I’m happy to say that finally I achieved my goal of $1,000 monthly recurring revenue after 14 months.
## TL’DR:
* Mar 2018: [Quit my job to ship products with $1,000 MRR](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability-6159db01d9c2)
* Mar 2018: [Sheet2Site](https://www.sheet2site.com/) a web app that allows to create a fully functional website from Google Sheets without writing code. [Story](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/hardcore-year-first-month-getting-press-coverage-and-reaching-361-m-revenue-f3fdd875de07)
* Apr 2018: [Progress Bar OS X ](https://www.progressbarosx.com/)a macOS menubar app that shows you exactly how much % of the year
month and day has progressed. [Story](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/hardcore-year-i-learned-swift-build-a-mac-app-and-earned-1635-in-1-5-months-4ebb3c44105b)
* Jul 2018: [Make OS X Great Again](https://www.makeosxgreatagain.com/) a tool that fix annoying things in macOS like stopping asking if you want to update or disable opening iTunes when you connect your iPhone.
* Aug 2018: [Preview Hunt](https://previewhunt.com/) a web app that can preview and prepare your Product Hunt submission.
* Oct 2018: [MacBook Alarm](https://macbookalarm.com/) (acquired) an macOS app that will secure your laptop with an alarm if someone will try to still it. [Story](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/the-crazy-story-of-how-my-first-mac-app-got-acquired-258bd03d8840)
* Nov 2018: [Encrypt My Photos](https://encryptmyphotos.com/) an end-to-end encrypted photo storage. [Story](https://medium.com/@producthunt/how-this-maker-quit-his-job-and-made-his-side-projects-profitable-in-1-year-9c24ece56133)
* Jan 2019: I won [Product Hunt’s Maker of the Year](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/im-product-hunt-s-maker-of-the-year-c25d67a162ee)
* Mar 2019: [Sheet2Site 2.0](https://www.sheet2site.com/). Brand new version with templates like affiliate
job board
event
travel
and features: maps
tables
search
filters
HTML snippets
* May 2019: Achieved the goal
## Video Summary
✅ Hardcore Year is done!
— Andrey Azimov (@AndreyAzimov) May 31
I reached my goal I set a year ago of $1,000+ MRR: from quitting my job to building 7 apps and $1,000+ MRR:https://t.co/t5Bk9X5vtr pic.twitter.com/o7oMQwhS8Y
2019
## Why did it take 14 months?
Recurring revenue is generally harder to generate than one-off sales. Subscription products have to be continuously needed by users for them to justify the monthly cost.
I have 7 products but only 2 of them have a subscription:
1. [Sheet2Site](https://www.sheet2site.com/) (subscription)
2. [DarkModeList](https://darkmodelist.com/) (subscription)
3. [Progress Bar OS X](https://www.progressbarosx.com/)
4. [Make OSX Great Again](https://www.makeosxgreatagain.com/)
5. [Mac Book Alarm](https://www.macbookalarm.com/)
6. [Preview Hunt](https://previewhunt.com/)
7. [Encrypt My Photos](https://encryptmyphotos.com/)
## So why did I build a bunch of apps that only charge the user once if my goal was to generate recurring revenue?
When I initially set up this goal I just want a stable $1,000 income to be able to pay my bills and working on something that I like. I was not really care if it’s MRR or Gross or whatever. MRR was just look more stable for me back then.
The reality is that subscription products usually harder to monetize and it’s take longer time compared to one time payment products. People are hate subscription.
After I quit my job in March of 2018 and launched my first SaaS product[Sheet2Site](https://www.sheet2site.com/)
it started making between $100-$200/month right away. It was really exciting to get my first paying customers
but was generating far too little money to pay my bills.
## I had enough savings to last about 3 months
I started building any apps that solved problems I’ve experienced and that could be monetizable in any way. If I didn’t
I would have been starving and live in a tent 🙂
I was living in Bali a cheap room
eating street food.
I couldn’t afford a motorbike
so I didn’t have any form of transportation. I walked 4–5km per day.
During the night was pretty hard here because of dogs:
Sometimes I worked in very weird places at night
where everything was close:
I even have a spreadsheet that showed me how many days I still can live (money in the bank/ave cost of the day). I thought when I will have on save point I will go back to subscription based apps.
## It was harder than I thought
When I started it I thought like I will be sitting in cafe for a year and wring a code but I under estimated a lot of things.
### Payments
Each of my morning started with reading an email and hoping that PayPal didn’t send me an email of death “Sorry we blocked your account and we can’t tell you why. Your money will be available after 6 month.”
### Technical problems
Somethings was not working all the time. Pain from trying to solve some technical problem is common :).
### Discipline
It’s hard to be consistent and keep doing it something for a year. Especially something that have very clear metric like revenue and this revenue is not growing
sometimes even falling. But even more harder to keep doing after some success. How many artist that made a 1 cool song continue doing it?
### Finish it
It’s really hard for me to finish all that I start. Especially on the final stages. Even this post :). But during this year I develop a habit to finish everything that I started.
### Emotions
50% of the year I had anxiety
stress
procrastination
don’t know what to do. Thanks for friends that stopped me to gaveup.
## After 9 months on the save point
After 9 month and making 4 apps when I was on the save point I have choose make a new subscription product or improve an existing one and I choose the last.
## [Sheet2Site 2.0](https://www.sheet2site.com/)
Sheet2Site was the first app that I launched in my hardcore year (Mar 2018) and it has subscription.
Sheet2Site is a tool that can create a website from Google Sheets without writing code.
In December 2018 I decided to focus on Sheet2Site to be able to achieve my initial goal in $1,000 MRR and next 4 months worked on it full time.
Firstly I run a survey to existing customers to identify what are the biggest problems.
I understand that main problem was that is have 1 to generic template which people are trying to use for everything but it’s not good enough.
### I added a [lot of new templates](https://www.sheet2site.com/templates/):
* Affiliate
* Job board
* Table
* Travel
* Tweets
* Facebook posts
### Also I added a lot of new cool features:
* Filters and search
* Detailed pages
* Maps
* HTML snippets
* Amazon affiliate
* API (for people who want to build their own website from Google Sheet)
### Landing page redesign
Old landing:
New landing page:
I made a promo video
I used QuickTime + iMove for editing
And demo video
Testimonials
Documentation and manuals how to use it
Showcase of websites made with Sheet2Site
Remove free plan. Here is a [tweet thread with details and numbers](https://twitter.com/AndreyAzimov/status/1097596687554555904):
## Launch
As always I launching it Product Hunt.
I decided to make a special video for the launch where I talking a bit. Firstly I tried to act like a cool but it didn’t work so I included all failed moments :).
It went pretty well and become #1 of the day.
## Villa Pool Party
With my friends Pieter
Marc
Lenilson and Daniel we rent a villa in Bali and made a huge party with around 100 people. In the middle of the party I stopped the music
went to the scene and yield:
Attention please
I’m launching Sheet2Site and press the button on laptop! And people start cheering! I felt like a rock star :)
## Sheet2Site Revenue
## Total Revenue
In 14 months all my apps (without acquisition of MacBook Alarm) generated $32k in revenue
## Am I happy now?
Yes :). It’s very great feeling to make thinks that I love
see that people are using them and I be able to pay my bills.
## What I learned
1. Follow a dream and do something that you a passioned about. This fuel will help you to do not comfort and boring things that are exist in any stuff that you are doing. Better to have hard things on easy way.
2. Surround yourself with people who believe in you. I was super lucky to meet such cool people what helped me. I even think that it’s mostly their achievement
not mine.
3. All important details you will start to find after you will start doing things
not before
4. Always finish what you start (close the loop). It’s critically important. You will learn a lot each time you build a product from zero to the end. Make a habit to finish things. Most people give up. Train your “finishing muscle”.
5. Don’t relax after each success. Use this momentum for next step but take a bit of time to actually enjoy your achievements and don’t jump to the next things instantly.
6. It’s marathon
not a sprint so you need to charge your batteries!
7. Focus on product
not tools (code
no code whatever.). Your users will not care how you done it. Your product should solve their problem.
8. Don’t validate it too much
just build it quickly and see what happen. But don’t build shit. It should work! Share to your friends first (if they are your potential users)
## Should you quit your job?
I would suggest to start building a product while you are working on your job. It’s much more safer and less stressful
especially if you have a loan
a family and kids. And after your product will generate minimal income can quit.
## Start making something NOW!
If I can do it you can do it for sure!
Stop thinking and start making! I believe in you!
Andrey ❤
## What’s next?
1. Keep working on Sheet2Site and make it really awesome.
2. Launching new apps
3. Incorporate a company
bank and Stripe
4. Take my mom to Bali. I haven’t seen her for 3.5 years
Follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov). If you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov).
----
## Thanks
* Users who are purchased my apps
* [Pieter Levels](https://twitter.com/levelsio)
* [Marc Kohlbrugge](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge)
* [Jeroen Pixel](https://twitter.com/pixelprotest_)
[Lowen](https://twitter.com/flowen_nl)
[Oskar](https://twitter.com/oskarth)
* [Michal](https://www.instagram.com/mintoxmike/) and [Kat](https://www.instagram.com/katerinaku/) from [Dojo Bali ](https://www.dojobali.org/)co working space
* [Yaroslav Lazor](https://twitter.com/yl_) and [Lena](https://www.instagram.com/superkaramel/)
* [Fyodor Ivanischev](https://twitter.com/cbrwizard)
* [Pierre-Gilles Leymarie](https://twitter.com/pierregillesl)
* [Daniel Lockyer](https://twitter.com/DanielLockyer) and [Lenilson](https://twitter.com/lenilsonjr)
* [Pat Walls](https://twitter.com/thepatwalls)
* [John O’Nolan](https://twitter.com/JohnONolan)
* [Filip Hráček](https://twitter.com/filiphracek)
* [Craig Brott](https://twitter.com/craigbrott) and [Ben Rahnema](https://twitter.com/brahnema)
* Thanks people who helped me with coding and designing my apps: [Max Rovensky](https://twitter.com/MaxRovensky)
[Sergey Gerasimenko](https://twitter.com/gerasim_sergey)
[Joel Dorne](https://joeldorne.com/)
[Sasha Koss](https://twitter.com/kossnocorp) ,[Max Manzhos](https://twitter.com/manzhosm)
[Miljan Aleksic](https://twitter.com/AleksicMiljan)
[Marie Denis](https://twitter.com/marie_dm_)
[Lukasz Oslizlo](https://twitter.com/lukaszmtw)
[Raman Ksaitor](https://twitter.com/ksaitor)
[Dasha](https://www.behance.net/dashka_s)
* [Juliana](https://www.instagram.com/where.is.donde/) and [Jayden](https://twitter.com/jaaydenh)
* My patrons: [Max Makarochkin](https://twitter.com/makarochkin)
[Sindre Sorhus](https://twitter.com/sindresorhus)
[Joel Runyon](https://twitter.com/joelrunyon)
[Georg Martinka](https://www.instagram.com/georgmartinka/)
[Daniel da Rocha](https://twitter.com/danrocc)
Harry Guinness
George Belanger
J[ake Bernstein](https://twitter.com/jake_bern)
Justin
Sindre Sorhus
Aleksandra Jovanović
Maksim Golub
Aamir Javeed
[Armin Ulrich](https://twitter.com/arminulrich) and all people who donated
* Product Hunt and the team: Ryan Hover
[Nick Abouzeid
](https://twitter.com/nickabouzeid)[Amrith Shanbhag](https://twitter.com/shnbhg)
[Abadesi](https://twitter.com/Abadesi)
[Andreas Klinger](https://twitter.com/andreasklinger)
* My Blog subscribers
* Twitter followers
* Thanks people who proof read my articles: [Eva Gutierrez](https://twitter.com/theevagutierrez)
Chris from Ireland and all other people
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2558/1*95h-l3oo4KDhetkIYOCDrQ.png
🏆 I’m Product Hunt’s Maker of the Year!
This was 4th Annual Golden Kitty awards and it was the biggest one .
This was 4th Annual Golden Kitty awards and it was the biggest one .
People nominated their favorite products from over 12,000 total that have been launched in 2018 on Product Hunt. There were only [322 products left in the final](https://www.producthunt.com/golden-kitty-awards-2018) and people voted for the best products in 22 categories.
## I won:
* 🏆Maker of the Year
* 🏆Side Project of the Year: [MacBook Alarm](https://producthunt.com/posts/macbook-alarm)
* 🥉3rd place in Lifehacks: [Make OSX Great Again](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/make-os-x-great-again)
It took me almost two years from when I first learned to code
[build my first web app and launched it Product Hunt](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/I-learned-to-code-and-build-a-web-app-in-2-months-da8f2932c139) till I now when I have won best side project and become a maker of the year.
## Congrats my friends who won or were nominated:
* [PixelSnap](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/pixelsnap) and [CleanShot](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/cleanshot) by [Luke Oslizlo](https://twitter.com/lukaszmtw) and[ Paweł Magiera](https://twitter.com/PawelMag)
* [Blurt](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/blurt) by [Corey Gwin](https://twitter.com/corey_gwin)
* [Shipstreams](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/shipstreams) and [MakerWidget](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/makerwidget) by [Armin Ulrich](https://twitter.com/arminulrich) and [Melanie Massinger](https://twitter.com/_feloidea)
* [FeMake](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/femake) by [Steph Smith](https://twitter.com/stephsmithio)
* [Threader](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/threader) by [Marie](https://twitter.com/marie_dm_) and [Vincent](https://twitter.com/yesnoornext)
* [Maker Rocks](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/maker-rocks) and [Kanban Mail](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/kanbanmail) by [Ethan](https://twitter.com/Booligoosh)
* [There](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/there) by [Mo Rajabi](https://twitter.com/morajabi)
* [Simple Analytics](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/simple-analytics) by [Adriaan van Rossum](https://twitter.com/AdriaanvRossum)
* [Make Book](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/make-book) by [Pieter Levels](https://twitter.com/levelsio)
* [WIP](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/work-in-progress-2) by [Marc Köhlbrugge](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge)
* [Screely](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/screely) by [Jurn](https://twitter.com/jurn_w)
* [Everyday](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/everyday-2) by [Joan Boixadós](https://twitter.com/mezood)
* [Refined Twitter](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/refined-twitter) and [Gifski](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/gifski) by [Sindre Sorhus](https://twitter.com/sindresorhus)
## Product Hunt is a unique website.
It allows you to share your idea to thousands of people just in one day for free and see if people like it.
It helped a lot of indie developers find their first clients and generate their first revenue.
I [made 9 apps ](https://producthunt.com/@andreyazimov)and all of them I launched on Product Hunt. All my apps got around 80,000 unique visitors for the time that Product Hunt analytics tracked
but the real number is probably more like 90,000–100,000.
Just imagine how much this could cost if I bought this traffic from Google or Facebook ads?
## Start making something today!
This means that if me
a guy from the Ukraine with very average coding skills could make successful apps and sustain myself you can definitely do it!
I keep seeing that people dreaming about making a side project but never doing it or continuing to polish it but never launching.
Don’t be that person! If you have an idea you should start making something today!
## What’s next?
There are 2 months left of [Hardcore Year](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability-6159db01d9c2) and I will focus on MRR because that’s my main goal right now.
## Want to see if I reach my goal?
Follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov). If you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov).
## What happen next 👇
[Hardcore Year is done: My journey from quitting my job to building 7 apps and $1,000+ MRR.
*Hard to believe it’s been a year
but I’m happy to say that finally I achieved my goal of $1,000 monthly recurring revenue](./hardcore-year-is-done)
___________________________________________________________________
## Thanks to:
* All people who voted and supported me and bought my apps.
* Product Hunt: [Nick Abouzeid
](https://twitter.com/nickabouzeid)[Amrith Shanbhag](https://twitter.com/shnbhg)
[Abadesi](https://twitter.com/Abadesi)
[Andreas Klinger](https://twitter.com/andreasklinger)
* [Pieter Levels](https://twitter.com/levelsio)
* [Marc Köhlbrugge](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge)
* [Jeroen Pixel](https://twitter.com/pixelprotest_)
[Oskar](https://twitter.com/oskarth)
[Lowen](https://twitter.com/flowen_nl)
* [Dojo Bali](https://www.dojobali.org/) co-working space
[Michael](https://www.instagram.com/mintoxmike/) and [Kat](https://www.instagram.com/stories/katerinaku/) and all members who helped me.
* [Yaroslav Lazor](https://twitter.com/yl_) and [Lena](https://www.instagram.com/superkaramel/)
* Thanks people who helped me with coding of my apps: [Pierre-Gilles Leymarie](https://twitter.com/pierregillesl)
[Max Rovensky](https://twitter.com/MaxRovensky)
[Ivanischev Fyodor](https://twitter.com/cbrwizard)
[Sergey Gerasimenko](https://twitter.com/gerasim_sergey)
[Joel Dorne](https://joeldorne.com/)
[Sasha Koss](https://twitter.com/kossnocorp)
* [John O’Nolan](https://twitter.com/JohnONolan)
* My patrons: [Max Makarochkin](https://twitter.com/makarochkin)
[Sindre Sorhus](https://twitter.com/sindresorhus)
[Joel Runyon](https://twitter.com/joelrunyon)
[Georg Martinka](https://www.instagram.com/georgmartinka/)
[Daniel da Rocha](https://twitter.com/danrocc)
and all people who donated
* My Blog subscribers and Twitter followers
* [WIP](https://wip.chat)
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/0*5quiaKj57H9593Fz
The crazy story of how my first Mac app got acquired
I’m sitting in a room, holding my pen about to sign the biggest deal in my life. OMG! Just like in a movie.
I’m [Andrey](https://twitter.com/andreyazimov),
I’m sitting in a room
holding my pen about to sign the biggest deal in my life. OMG! Just like in a movie.
But let’s start at the beginning and go back 3 months.
## Problem
[I quit my job in March 2018](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability-6159db01d9c2) to make apps. Most of the time I work from a coffee shop with my laptop
and from time to time I’ll go to the toilet. But whenever I go
I worry that someone might steal my laptop.
## Solution
I tried to find an existing solution to protect my laptop
but nothing satisfied me. The existing apps are either too expensive (monthly subscription)
not supported anymore or they don’t work the way that I want. For example
many of them don’t play the alarm sound when the display is closed
making it easy for the thief to run away.
So I decided to make my own perfect macOS security alarm app…
## Pre-sales video demo
To make sure that I created something that people would want
I decided to make a funny video that demonstrated the app and tried to pre-sell it to validate the idea- like [Dropbox did](https://twitter.com/AndreyAzimov/status/1022374521762865153).
In the same [cafe](https://www.instagram.com/hungrybirdcoffee/) where I worked that day
I shot the video on my phone with my friends and a few random people. Thanks to [Hagen von Tronje](https://www.facebook.com/hagen.kwetter)
[Lera Zaitseva](https://www.instagram.com/zaitcevalera/) and Seno who helped me with the video.
I was so scared to publish this
because if I didn’t get many pre-sales then it would mean the people do not want this- or this is what I learned from Lean Startup methods
at least. I failed with pre-orders before with [Push To Deploy](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/upvotes-are-not-sales-lesson-learned-from-launching-physical-product-830a292b04fa?ref=producthunt) so this was twice as scary for me.
But here is the key:
> # *Think about pre-orders as a bonus rather than the main validation people need to purchase your product. Commit to building this product anyway even if it means getting zero pre-orders.*
Why? Because:
> # If you are a beginner
finished products are critically important. You will learn a lot each time you build a product from zero to the end. Most people give up. Train your “finishing muscle” and you will never know what could happen after the launch. Never!
## Video went viral 10k views in 2 days
I published the video + Gumroad link on Twitter and shared it to my blog subscribers and users of my previous Mac apps.
## 16 pre-orders?!!
I got 10k views in just a couple of days and 16 pre-orders. 16 people trusted me and gave me their money just because they believed in me and the idea.
Lean Startup would probably say that I should not continue building this app due to not enough interest.
But for me
16 people was a huge win. I committed to finishing the app because people already trusted me
so there was no going back. I couldn’t let them down.
## Building
The logic was simple: if someone tried to steal my laptop (disconnect from the charger or close the display)
the app detects it
sounds an alarm and sends a push notification to a phone so I can capture the bad guy!
I’m a beginner macOS developer with 6 months of experience and [2 simple apps made](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/hardcore-year-i-learned-swift-build-a-mac-app-and-earned-1635-in-1-5-months-4ebb3c44105b). I used Swift all the time
so I decided to use what I already know.
## Where to send a notification?
I have 4 options:
* WhatsApp
* Facebook Messanger
* Telegram
* Build my own iOS app
Telegram was the easiest option because they have great API and documentation. The downside is that not a lot of people are using it
but I decided to start with it and add in other messengers later.
## Server
I never built a server for the app before but to be able to send phone notifications I had to learn. Thanks to the help of my friend [Max Rovensky](https://twitter.com/MaxRovensky)
I was able to build a simple server on Node.js + Express hosted on Heroku. It was unexpected but it was easier than PHP which I had previous experience with.
## The app is not working as expected
The main problem was that when the display was closed the alarm should continue playing
but the default macOS behavior put the laptop into sleep mode.
This means that a thief could just close a laptop to stop the alarm. This was critically important to fix.
I tried everything: I found a code example in Stack-overflow and Github
terminal command
asked all my friends
forums
and even dev chats but none of it worked.
## First
I tried to fix it
I found the [NoSleep](https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/37991/nosleep) app that was doing exactly what I needed and tried to run my app with it… It worked!
Obviously
this wasn’t a viable solution. No one wants to install a third-party app after they purchase a product. It should just work seamlessly
so I continued to search for a solution.
## Of course
this only made things more complicated
The NoSleep app is fully [open source](https://github.com/integralpro/nosleep/tree/master/NoSleep)d. I thought “Oh cool
I will just use its code.” The problem was that this app is not a just simple app. This app is a[ kernel extension](https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/Extend/Extend.html) that modifies standard hardware behavior. The app consists of hundreds of code files
command line tools
interfaces written on C and Objective C++ Waaat? by a guy who works at Intel. The code is 100x more complicated than anything I had ever seen.
It took me a solid month just to compile this app on my computer. I even asked my friend [Sergey](https://twitter.com/gerasim_sergey) (experienced macOS dev) for help with integrating it inside my app but still
we couldn’t make it work.
## Mental pain
I felt that my brain was fried. I had panic attacks and anxiety. I almost gave up.
The mental pain was so high that I drank Cokes and ate Snickers almost every day to stop it.
After such a “healthy diet” skin started to peel on my fingertips. Maybe don’t try this at home :).
## I was bitten by a scorpion
While sitting in a cafe drinking a coffee
I felt a pain in my hip like a bee sting. I ran to the toilet and shook this little guy pictured below out of my pants.
He was not poisonous so all was well.
## Work Hard Party Hard :)
To take a break from coding and panic attacks
I went to a party in Bali but wasn’t so lucky. Some random guy ended up hitting me in the head with a beer bottle! Welcome to Bali :).
I was lucky and all went well at the hospital. I ended up with five stitches
$200 out of pocket and two weeks of dirty hair as I couldn’t wash my hair :). Maybe parties aren’t the best activity for me :).
## Never give up!
I would give up but thanks to my spicy friends who supported me with jokes like you’ve got a nice Halloween costume :).
I took 1 day off to think about everything.
My gut feeling told me that I should try a much more simple solution to prevent MacBooks from sleeping when I close the display.
## Maybe guys from Intel like to make things complicated?
In the middle of the night in [Dojo Bali](https://www.dojobali.org/) (a co-working space)
and after countless tries
combinations
and asking so many people like [Marc Köhlbrugge](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge) from [WIP](https://wip.chat/) to send me some Stack-overflow links that I could try
still nothing worked. Most of the links sent to me I had already tried
but I decided to try again anyways and it still didn’t work…
## Eureka!
I finally gave it another go and made some changes to the code and boom! It worked!!!
It was a hack that combined a couple of terminal commands and some code that executes it. That’s it! The laptop didn’t sleep and continued to play the alarm after it was closed.
I was so happy! The problem that I worked on every day for several months was at last solved with a simple solution! I was dancing in the room! Thanks to my friend [Fyodor Ivanischev](https://www.instagram.com/cbrwizard/) who test all my 100 versions of the app.
## Almost there
The last thing I needed to do was execute the code that allows users to bypass entering a password each time they activate the app. It wasn’t critical but very annoying. I wanted to make it perfect. Again
I tried to ask friends and a devs forum but everyone told me that this was impossible but I kept trying and told everyone that I knew this was a problem.
I met a guy in another co-working space
[Matra](https://www.matrabali.com/)
named [Joel Dorne](https://joeldorne.com/). He’s an experienced Linux user and terminal guru. As a last hope
I texted him.
* 23:01 Andrey: Yo! I’m having a problem with a terminal command. Can you please come to the co-working and take a look? Pizza on me.
* 23:02 Joel: Sure! I’m coming.
After a couple of hours of work
2 cokes and 1 pizza we found a solution that worked perfectly!
### Don’t listen to people who tell you that it’s impossible
> # *Be prepared for your idea to be more complicated then you think. Be prepared for solutions to take some time. Keep trying. Consult everyone about your problem. Solutions could come from anywhere. Don’t listen to people who tell you that it’s impossible.*
## Website
icon
name
domain
I usually do all of the fancy stuff at the end when the main product is working.
I’m not the best with design
so I just used the emoji 🚨 for the icon.
I made a simple one-page website with a video and FAQ built with HTML + Bootstrap theme hosted on [Netlify](https://netlify.com) + payments via [Gumroad](https://gumroad.com).
MacBook Alarm was probably not the best name because in the search results we could see clock alarm instead of a security alarm. But I didn’t want to spend to much time on it so I decided to use MacBook Alarm as the name and bought the domain [https://macbookalarm.com](https://www.macbookalarm.com/)
## Launch
On Sunday
October 28 the app was ready. It’s time!
## Live on Twitch
During the entire 14 hours of launch
I was live on Twitch and revealed the finished product.
## Product Hunt
I launched it on [Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/macbook-alarm) and it became the #1 product of the day!
## Twitter
## [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18320487)
HN didn’t go well this time
maybe because tech people are not my target audience.
## Reddit
I made posts and crossposts in [MacApps](https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/9s501i/i_made_an_app_to_prevent_my_macbook_from_getting/)
[MacBook](https://www.reddit.com/r/macbook/comments/9udlz2/i_made_an_app_to_prevent_my_macbook_from_getting/)
[Apple](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9ttnwx/self_promotion_saturday_i_made_an_app_to_prevent/)
[Oakland](https://www.reddit.com/r/oakland/comments/9scpy6/i_made_an_app_to_prevent_my_macbook_from_getting/) and it went pretty well. I got around 3k views of all of my posts.
Pro tip: Each subreddit has its own rules like self-promotion only on Saturday. Please read it carefully otherwise your post will be banned.
## Traffic
In the first week after the launch
I got ~5,000 unique visitors
mostly from Product Hunt and Reddit.
## Feedback
After the first week of launch
I gathered feedback from everywhere. I also asked people on Twitter why they didn’t buy MacBook Alarm.
After the prioritization
I had the following list of what users wanted:
* To have different options to trigger the alarm because there was only one. If the charger was disconnected
the display was closed or both.
* To be able to change the sound of the alarm or even mute it and just receive notifications. They don’t want to bother other people.
* To make sure that a thief can’t mute the alarm when it will be played by hitting the mute key.
* To not have to install Telegram
and to instead receive notifications through WhatsApp
* To be able to prevent a thief from stealing the laptop. How can the app scare the thief away before he decides to take off with the laptop?
I predicted that users would ask for these features
but because I launched as fast as possible with core functionality only
I made sure that I asked users what they wanted so I could make updates.
I liked these signs. This building is under surveillance:
So I decided to make my own as a screensaver:
I recorded a new video to demonstrate exactly how all this worked because the previous video didn’t.
## Revenue
Total sales: 95
* 16 x $5 (pre-orders)
* 14 x $4.99
* 33 x $9.99
* 24 x 14.99
Gross Total Revenue: $834
* September: $65
* October: $384
* November: $385
## Share your products for free to some people that you meet
I’d never sold a business before and I wasn’t planning on it.
When I worked with [Pieter Levels](https://twitter.com/levelsio) in Dojo
I remember that he shared his products for free with some people that he met. He gave out free [Nomad List](https://nomadlist.com/) memberships
[Make Book](https://makebook.io/) copies
and code snippets. This is not common these days when everything is commercial but he did it and was very generous.
I also shared my previous apps for free a lot. People were always very appreciative of these small gifts. A lot of people I’ve met in my travels are using my apps.
## Sales deal
All it took was sending out a promo code one night to a guy that I saw last a long time ago in Dojo and the next day I received the following message: “Can we meet? I want to discuss something…”
We met up and I received my first offer to buy the app.
I didn’t know what price I should accept so I took a couple of days to think about it. I sent them a price a bit more than I thought the app was valued at and they ended up coming back with a lower offer. We negotiated a fair price somewhere in the middle.
> # Always price it a bit more than you’re thinking because it’s easier to decrease the price.
We shook hands and I transferred everything that I had to them and received the biggest amount of money that I have ever received in my life.
## Sold!
I can’t disclose the sale price but it’s about 12–16 months of living expenses here in Bali.
## What’s next?
I wish good luck to the new owner of the app and I know that it’s in good hands. The app has a new name
[Beepify](https://beepify.com/)
and a lot of improvements.
As for me
there are 3 months left of Hardcore Year and I will focus on [Sheet2Site](https://www.sheet2site.com/)
because MRR because that’s my initial goal:
[Sheet2Site
*Build a fully functional website with pictures
text
filters and links.*www.sheet2site.com](https://www.sheet2site.com/)
Follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov). If you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov).
## Read what happened next
MacBook alarm became Product Hunt’s The Best Side Project of The Year and I become Maker of the Year
[🏆 I’m Product Hunt’s Maker of the Year! This was 4th Annual Golden Kitty awards and it was the biggest one](./Im-product-hunts-maker-of-the-year)
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2944/1*sQ8dLpe5wYEWBeV0Luy2NA.png
🎉 5 month — 5 products — $5,000 revenue
I launched 5 products that earned $5,000 in total gross revenue.
It’s been 5 months since [I left my job in March 2018](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability-6159db01d9c2) and decided to focus on making my own products full time for 1 hardcore year to get $1,000 MRR.
Since that time I launched 5 products that earned $5,000 in total gross revenue.
## TL;DR
1. [AndreyAzimov.com](https://www.andreyazimov.com): $792
2. [Sheet2Site.com](https://www.sheet2site.com): $1,054
3. [ProgressBarOSX.com](https://www.ProgressBarOSX.com): $2,120
4. [MakeOSXGreatAgain.com](https://MakeOSXGreatAgain.com): $1,029
5. [PreviewHunt.com](https://PreviewHunt.com): $7.5
Details and insights 👇
## 1. [AndreyAzimov.com](https://www.AndreyAzimov.com) $792
Since day one of my challenge I started a blog about my progress where I share openly all the data .
Also each month I feel up with a revenue table for each product.
I opened donations via [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimov/2usd) and made [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov) page so anyone who likes what I’m doing could donate $2 or more to buy me a pack of ramen.
It’s not a software product but I include this into my products list because I put in a lot of energy in these articles so for me it counts besides
it’s making money.
Results:
* Total traffic: 9,729 visitors
* Traffic last 30 days: 1,280 visitors
* Total gross donations: $792
* Patreon current recurring donations: $132
Good:
* Set a public goal and write regular updates makes me more productive and procrastinate less.
* A lot of people have supported me. I didn’t expect that.
To Improve
* A good article takes too much time. Sometimes
I spend 2–3 weeks to write one. Instead
I could be investing this time into making products. and perhaps I shouldn’t include so many details.
## 2. [Sheet2Site.com](https://www.Sheet2Site.com) $1,054
A web app that generates websites from Google Sheets. Making websites on Sheet2Site domain is free but a custom domain
chat
and analytics is paid for $10 / mo or $60 / year. You can [read the full story](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/hardcore-year-first-month-getting-press-coverage-and-reaching-361-m-revenue-f3fdd875de07).
Results:
* Total traffic: 67,626 visitors
* Traffic last 30 days: 5,300 visitors
* Total gross revenue: $1,054
* Current MRR: $66
Good:
* The product runs itself! It’s been 4 months without any significant updates
no automation (I’m still doing all manually)
no ads or SEO and it’s keep growing.
To Improve:
* This product solves a wide range of problems. It’s covering too much of different audiences but it’s not good enough for any of them. I need to make it more niche and desirable to to specific people like Susana (fictitious name) from San-Francisco
who is doing affiliate marketing and customize Sheet2Site for her to LOVE it.
## 3. [ProgressBarOSX.com](https://www.ProgressBarOSX.com) $2,120
A Mac menu bar app shows you exactly how much % of the life
year
month and day has progressed. Price is $5 (single payment). You can [read the full story](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/hardcore-year-i-learned-swift-build-a-mac-app-and-earned-1635-in-1-5-months-4ebb3c44105b).
Results:
* Total traffic: 18,444 visitors
* Traffic last 30 days: 1,199 visitors
* Sales: 423
* Total gross revenue: $2,120
Good:
* This is my most successful product so far that went viral and made most of my revenue. It’s a great example when something very small and niche could be LOVED.
To Improve:
* Whenever I launch my apps on Product Hunt
I get this spikes of traffic that are only one time results. I haven’t found another way to have a more stable traffic coming from there. Therefore
I am considering now submitting this app into the Mac App Store.
## 4. [MakeOSXGreatAgain.com](https://www.MakeOSXGreatAgain.com) $1,029
A Mac app that stops annoying things in OS X such as update notifications
iTunes opening
plus others. Price is $9.99 (single payment).
Results:
* Total traffic: 15,395 visitors
* Traffic last 30 days: 4,675 visitors
* Sales: 103
* Total gross revenue: $1,029
Good:
* The app name and the website
To Improve:
* Spend too much time on it (2.5 month). Due to technical problems with hacking OS X and almost giving up. It was probably the toughest product to make.
* Too many not related features in one product decrease its value. It’s better to make 1–2 good niche features first then 5
* A lot of negative feedback due to the high price
## 5. [PreviewHunt.com](https://PreviewHunt.com) $7.5
A web tool that previews and prepares your Product Hunt submission. I made it together with [Max Rovensky](https://twitter.com/MaxRovensky)
Results:
* Total traffic: 3,293 visitors
* Donated (Buy me a coffee): 3
* Total gross donations: $7.5 ($15 divided by 2)
Good:
* My first mini collaboration with making products. It’s pretty fast to build products (this took us only 5 days) with a clear idea and a good developer who is x100 better coding than you.
* A nice free tool that was made to solve our own problems was launched and it was liked in the Product Hunt community.
To Improve:
* In my case
donation for products has never worked. Although
the goal was to make it free from the beginning so
is all good. This is more a reminder that if you want to make a paid product
you need to charge money for it and If you want to share something for free
make it free without expecting anything in return.
## Conclusion
* It’s an amazing feeling to work on something than makes me passionate. Some days I could work 16 hours on creating my baby product. In some others
I don’t work as much but I know that my babies are working for me and making me money. This much more fun for me than working in a office job where I would exchange my time for money.
* I’m at $5,000 total revenue in 5 months
so $1000/mo in average total gross revenue. This is cool but I have a goal in MRR not in Gross Revenue.
* So why am I making products with singe time payments instead of recurrent ones? Because the ideas that I had so far are pretty simple and are a fit for single time payments. To avoid procrastination and wait until when I will finally come up with a perfect idea for a product with recurring payment (or just add recurring payment on all of my products)
I am making things that seem good enough to myself. I think it’s because I don’t have much experience yet (5 months). So I will keep making products to learn from each next and then the next one
and so on . Good ideas are born when you do
not when you wait.
* I don’t know how to generate stable traffic to my websites. All my traffic comes from Product Hunt and the press. I am considering that need to learn basic SEO and use AppStore for my future products.
* I didn’t validate any of my ideas. Just code and launch. I will reflect on whether I will need to validate before start coding and do validation learning first.
## Follow my progress to $1000/mo. No spam. Here’s a sneak peek of what I’m working on next.
And follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov)
And if you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address
or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov)
## Check what happened next 👇
[The crazy story of how my first Mac app got acquired
I’m sitting a room
holding my pen about to sign the biggest deal in my life. OMG! Just like in a movie ](./the-crazy-story-of-how-my-first-mac-app-got-acquired)
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/0*rFAPpBWQMO2OMmSj.png
Hardcore Year: I Learned Swift, Build a Mac app and Earned $1635 in 1.5 months
The second project in my 1 year challenge
3 month ago
I [quit my job](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability-6159db01d9c2) to follow my passion and make my own products. [Progress Bar OS X](https://www.progressbarosx.com/) was my second project in my 1 year challenge. This is the story of how I made it
specifically written to answer all of the questions I’ve received on Twitter.
## TL;DR
* Found an idea from a problem that I have
* Made a raw prototype in 1 day from Github example and share with friends
* Made MVP based on friends feedback in 2 weeks
* Launched and became #1 in Product Hunt
Hacker News (Show HN)
* Got some hate that it’s not free especially on Reddit
* Earned the first $700 in 2 days after the launch
* Made second version according to feedback in next month
* Earned $1635 in total after launch in 1.5 months
## Where Do You Find Product Ideas?
People have asked how I find ideas for my startups.
1. Habit of collecting ideas
I have a habit to put every single idea for problems that I have into a list. Without judgments
evaluation or thinking
I put every single idea on to that list. This means that my idea for “Uber Horse” is even written down. I use Trello and I have about 10–15 ideas naturally per month. Keeping a list of ideas is crucial to making sure that once one product is launched
I have the choice to choose which product I want to launch next. Some of my ideas
prioritized before Uber Horse
are creating a marketplace for buying crypto with Paypal and launching Progress Bar OSX.
2. Review each of these ideas with friends
Friend same values and experiences. If they would use the product
I know it has potential.
I have a group chat with friends
dubbed the “Spicy Group”. It was initially made to help me launch my first idea a year and a half ago. The group is still thriving and we’ve found a place to share our ideas
support each other
and send stupid
but hilarious
memes. I owe a lot to these people. Love you guys. If you don’t have a spicy group of your own
I recommend you look in [WIP Chat](https://wip.chat/) and find some friends.
> # Friends honest review helping to not suffering too many choices of ideas
Too much opinions is also bad
In total hypocriticism
it’s just as important not to listen to too much feedback. Too many conflicting opinions has the potential to burst your bubble and make you fearful of just trying.
## Idea of [Progress Bar OSX](https://www.progressbarosx.com/)
Since I quit my job and started working alone
I measure time differently.
> # *I don’t care about hours and minutes.*
> # *I don’t have meetings
appointments or calls.*
> # *I only have meetings with myself. :)*
> # *I don’t care what day of the week it is or whether it’s a weekend or not.*
> # *I don’t care what the date is.*
> # *Public holidays don’t matter because I always have public holidays off (if i want).*
What I really care about is life’s progress.
> # How much time has passed? How much more time do I have to finish the projects I am dreaming about?
I am a big fan of [@year_progress](https://twitter.com/year_progress) tweets. It keeps you aware of the passing time. What I wasn’t a fan of was how they only tweeted a maximum of twice a week and you had to navigate to their account to check the progress status of the year.
## What Is The Solution?
I really like Mac menu bar. It’s minimalistic and simple. What if I put the year’s progress on the Mac menu bar app? I put the idea for Progress Bar OS X on my list of ideas and kept working on my previous project
[Sheet2Site](https://www.sheet2site.com/).
## Validation
Question from [TomHughes](https://twitter.com/hughesly_bar):
> # I’d love to hear how you validate your ideas before building them out 🙂
### Solving my own problems and just building
I don’t like to validate ideas because me and a lot of other people are so bored with this “Lean Startup Method” with yet another landing page that collect emails and says that “New awesome app is coming soon” (soon forever) subscribe for updates.
These emails give some feeling that something is happening (or no) and we can get stuck in this idea validation forever. You will never know until you try to sell and see if people will pay for it. I think everything else is bullshit. For me
it’s much easier to just build stuff and see what happens.
> # In the worst case
I will have only one user
myself
and learn coding a bit more.
## Building
### How I learn new things
Questions from [JasonLeow](https://twitter.com/jasonleowsg) and [JustMissAlex](https://twitter.com/JustMissAlex)
> # I’d love to hear about how you managed to pick up a new coding language so quickly to make ProgressBar! (assuming you had to) And how the rest of us can do that!
> # I’d love to hear — whether in this article or another — about how you learned to make things. It seems like over a year ago you didn’t know how to code
and now… here you are!
### I’m using programming as a tool
> # I think a lot of people are starting to forget why programing was created.
I don’t want to learn tons of programming theory from courses and books that I will never use. I tried to complete 10 courses but I never finished any of them. I’m using programing as a tool to implement my ideas in life. For me
learn programming is not a final goal. I just learned by Googling things like “Swift menu bar OS X”. Some man say this is not the best approach because I will not learn programming basics. But I don’t want to learn basics.
This is definitely bad if I have a goal to to find a developer job because they will probably ask me on interview about algorithms. encapsulation
a bunch of other stuff. But I don’t want to find a developer job so I don’t care. And guess what. Users don’t care either. :) We keep seeing these articles “Web Developer Skills 2018”
“Roadmap of iOS Developer” paths with tons of tools that you need to know. Lists of 10 books with 400 pages that you need to read before you even can try to make something.
If you are learning programming as a tool to implement your ideas it’s much more fun and interesting. There are always problems
something will not work
but these problems are real not some hypothetical problems that will never happen.
## What language to choose?
We can make OS X apps in two ways using native Apple languages like Objective-C and Swift or we can use frameworks like Electron that allow you to write on Javascript.
I heard that Electron is really heavy weight and even simple app will be 200Mb+ so I skipped it.
Objective-C syntax for newbie looks very scary:
So when I saw this
I had panic attack and decided skip it as well. :D
Swift syntax looks like Javascript so I decided use of it.
## Find code examples on Github
Instead of trying to make the app from zero
I tried to find some examples on Github. It saved me a lot of time especially because I used a new language. I found [this](https://github.com/albertobeta/MenuBarOSXapp) example of a menu bar clock app so I only needed to change the logic to my own.
## Share with friend first prototype
On April 12th I made the first prototype in 1 day and shared it with 10 friends. It was super raw
but it worked.
And I got pretty positive feedback but I thought: *Ahh
this is friends so all of them are lying to me to so they don’t upset me*.
What really surprised me
I saw my app on some of friends laptop after a couple of days after I shared with him. And I asked him pretty seriously:
> # *- Why you didn’t delete my app? Did you forgot?*
> # *- What? No I told you I like it and I want to use it*
This was really unexpected because feedback about all my previous app was “Oh nice”. They were just being polite.
## Mr. John O’Nolan feedback
My friend [John O’Nolan](https://twitter.com/JohnONolan)
co-founder of [Ghost](https://ghost.org/)
was one of the people I asked to trail my Progress Bar OS X. He made a legendary blog post about [Ghost idea ](https://web.archive.org/web/20131215144152/https://john.onolan.org/project-ghost)that went crazy viral. Afterwards he ran a [Kickstarter Campaign ](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnonolan/ghost-just-a-blogging-platform)and raised $300,000. Now
Ghost is making [$948,744 ARR](https://ghost.org/ru/open/). I recommend to listen his [latest podcast](https://blog.ghost.org/5/) where he shares how he is doing all of this.
The thing is
John is the most critical person on Earth :D. To surprise him
you need to invent a teleporter or a time machine . When I talk with him
I feel like I’m talking with somebody 100,000x more intelligent than me with the addition of perfect British English. :D :D :D
My first success
[Dark Mode List](https://darkmodelist.com)
made me first $15 in revenue and was featured on Lifehacker. I was so happy with my success but John replied by saying:
> # *Traction = 1,000+ people want to pay you.*
> # *If you find [1,000 true fans](https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/) who actually want something enough to pay for it
then you can talk about optimising and growing it*
> # *If you didn’t hit that level. It’s not traction. Move on. We’ve all been there.*
> # *You try as many different ideas as possible until something takes off*
I was very upset. My biggest success in life was destroyed in 1 second.
Yep
this is startup reality. Startup life is not fancy romantic writing algorithm on the window
eating pizza
coding and overnight success
like in the “Social Network” movie.
I accepted it and memorized the quote. Better to have hardcore
but honest
feedback from people who have experience instead of fake nice feedback like
“Oh nice idea! You are so awesome”.
When I had my new idea about Progress Bar
I was scared to show him because
as cool as Progress Bar is
it’s definitely not a teleporter. It was still a raw prototype. But I decided to try and sent it to him. I was ready to hear a new portion of hardcore honest feedback but unexpectedly I had this reply from John:
> # *Yo this app is fucking cool. I have feature requests…*
No way. Probably he is kidding me and this is his sarcastic humor but it wasn’t. He was quite serious. He didn’t joke. Even most critical person on Earth can like my app. :)
So I started to implement his and my other friends’ feedback and made it all public in [WIP chat](https://wip.chat/products/1099).
## Design problems
I want to show a progress bar icon that moves when the progress is changing. From the first impression
it’s a very easy task but after I dug deeper this became a very challenging problem. The design had to:
* Fit Apple menu bar design
* Be small because menu bar does not have a lot of space
* Not conflate with battery bar
I thought before that UX designer work is easy
they just draw something and get paid well. But now I know how wrong I was. This work could be more difficult than a developer’s work.
I even decided to install Sketch. Before I used only standart OS X image editor. :D
The design took almost two weeks. I tried many different ideas like:
All of them sucked. The trick with a design
if you’re not a designer
is that you know that it sucks — but you can’t change anything. Everything you try makes it even worse and then you tend to feel useless.
I needed somebody who could rescue me from design hell. I asked my friend [Dasha](https://www.behance.net/dashka_s) for help
she is designer and I really like her style.
After of couple of hours of collaboration and experimenting we finally got something that at least didn’t suck and I liked it. :)
## Making a website
I want to make the user see immediately what the product looks like in real life
without shiny marketing design.
I was inspired by [Pixel Snap](https://getpixelsnap.com/) and their cool website
but I want to make not just a standard MacBook with a GIF inside. I wanted to give users the ultimate experience from the app within the first seconds when they opened the website. So I decided to make a fullscreen image slider with Mac desktop to show the user how the app will behave on their desktop just after he downloads it. Thanks for [Raman](https://twitter.com/ksaitor)
S[asha Koss](https://twitter.com/kossnocorp) and [Max Manzhos](https://twitter.com/manzhosm) who helped me to implement it.
[https://www.progressbarosx.com/](https://www.progressbarosx.com/)
I have a big desire to use @year_progress’s which is really good “The one progress bar you’d rather see go slower” but thankfully my friends stopped me. :) So a couple of days later I was struggling with a slogan for my app. Thanks for my friend [Raman](https://twitter.com/ksaitor) that suggest to use a slogan from “Fight Club” movie:
> # This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.
## Monetization model
> # It will be paaaaaid! Paaaaaaaid only!
Today people are used to things being free
freemium
open sourced or cracked and for me was really hard mentally to make a decision to make it paid only and sell for $5. But my friends convinced me to try making it paid only.
Besides
I’m an indie developer and need money to pay my rent and bills. If I work for free I will starve and die and not be able to make more apps. :D So I decided to make it paid only and see what happened. I prepared myself that there would be some negative comments (although there were more than I expected but more about that later).
## Payment System
I didn’t want to put this into the Apple Store because I didn’t have time for Apple review which could take weeks. Also
I didn’t want to pay $100 for Apple Developer program and give Apple 30% from each of my sales so I skipped it.
Probably you will think about using Stripe. But Stripe isn’t supported in Ukraine. :D so I did some [research](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/how-to-accept-payments-online-if-you-cant-use-stripe-a16e6df98b1d) and found [Gumroad](https://gumroad.com/). It takes the fee are 3.5% + $0.3.
OK at this point the app is ready to take off and I had spent around 2 weeks on it.
## Launch
I launched Progress Bar OS X Sunday
April 22nd 2018
### Product Hunt
I prepared standard Product Hunt launch kit as always (title
description
GIF thumb
screenshots and the first comment )
I [launched](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/progress-bar-osx) on Sunday 00:01 San Francisco time and announced it on my Twitter
Facebook
WIP chat and emailed it to all my blog subscribers.
Small tip: the first image will be used as a sharing image in Facebook and on Twitter so make sure it gives a clear understanding on what your product is about. To check or refresh the image use [twitter card validator](https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator) or [facebook debugger](https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/).
The app become #1 Product of the Day
### Hacker News
Next
as always
is Hacker News (HN). I submitted the app in Show HN but my [post](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16896140) failed Probably because the title wasn’t clear enough.
I almost gave up but thought ‘maybe I need to try one more time. In the worst case they will just delete the post. So just before sleeping I [submitted it with a new title](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16897803).
When I got up
I was very surprised when I saw that my post #1 in Show HN. But with a lot of hateful comments. :D
> # *If your post failed in Hacker News try to re-submit it one more time with different title. *And remember to wait 4–5 hours after posting before making a verdict on the success because posts don’t go to the top immediately.
### Reddit
My favorite is Reddit because so far
I never succeed on it :D I submitted to [/r/macapps](https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/8e4q0h/progress_bar_osx_how_much_of_the_year_month_and/) but this time I got a lot of comments…a lot of hateful comments even more than on HN.
## How about Marketing?
Questions: from [MaxRovensky](https://twitter.com/MaxRovensky) and [Srebalaji](https://twitter.com/srebalaji)
> # Marketing! I know how to build things
but have no clue how to get them in the hands of people
> # I want to hear how you market your product in your April results.
### But what is marketing?
I don’t know how to do “Marketing” and what it really means to be honest. Is it paid ads? I just follow pretty same process: Launch on Product Hunt
Hacker News
Reddit
share with my followers everywhere. After I writing a story on Medium about results. That is basically all my “Marketing Strategy”.
## Five dollars for this? It MUST be for free! 😡 😡 😡
It was very painful to read this comment. A lot of people said that it should be free
refer to existing open source tools or saying that they can make such app in 5 mins.
Here are some of them:
> # - Why the price of 5$? Maybe start with a lower price? Not much functionality here to justify the price point.
> # - This can easily be done using the program BitBar
> # - I’m not against selling software
but $5 for something I could probably whip up in an hour and post as open source is really not the best way to get people to use your app. This app just doesn’t provide enough value to be $5–maybe if it was a dollar.
> # - Should be free
with no annoyware and offer a $5 purchase for some extra features
or simply ask for donations
> # - If I had a mac
I would probably a make a free version of this
> # - Five dollars for this? Are you NUTS?
> # - I really hate paid stupid apps like this in Apple ecosystem.
> # - $5 for massive anxiety???
> # - Your charging 5 dollars for that math to be displayed in the menu bar. That’s an incredible amount of money for nearly nothing.
> # - I’m in no need for such a thing. Simply stating that charging 5 dollars for simple division is a bit steep.
### Someone even tried to to bargain in chat.
So true:
## Even Dropbox and Airbnb was hated
Based on this behaviour of Hacker News users you can even make an app for free :D.
So remember:
> # *When HN hates something as being stupid / simplistic / easy to make in 5 minutes. Usually
means it’s a good idea © John O’Nolan*
> # If people are bitching about the price you hit the right spot. Because if they don’t bitch they either don’t care for your or they think tit’s a bargain
So I decided continue and took this as a good sign. :)
## Press
I contacted around 40 journalists but didn’t get much press attention this time
maybe because the app looks simple or because it’s paid only. But I’ve got featured in [Lifehacker Russia](https://lifehacker.ru/instrumenty-dlya-otscheta-vremeni/)
[Applesfera](https://www.applesfera.com/aplicaciones-os-x-1/progress-bar-para-macos-ver-en-la-barra-de-menu-lo-que-llevas-de-dia-mes-ano-es-mas-reconfortante-de-lo-que-parece) and bunch of other small sites.
## Nas Daily
Also I found [Nas Daily ](https://www.facebook.com/nasdaily/)— this is an awesome guy who quit his job and decided to make 1 min inspiration video every day. He has been doing this more than 1 year every day and 6.7 million people like him. He has progress bar t-shirt so I thought it should be a perfect fit for him.
I messaged him without any hope because I thought famous cool people never reply but he replied pretty quickly:
> # *YO I LOVE IT! Thanks for making it*
It was very unexpected and a big pleasure for me.
## Traffic
I got almost 10k visitors to the website in the first 3 days from launch day
Mostly from Product Hunt and Hacker News. And almost 15k in all the time. Obviously traffic is dying.
## Top 5 traffic sources
1. Hacker News
2. Product Hunt
3. Twitter
4. My Personal Site
5. Applesfera
## Conversion rates
What we see here is everything is dying. Product Hunt and Hacker News traffics obviously don’t last forever.
But the conversion rate from unique visitor to click on buy page increase twice in period of May 1–31 because traffic became better qualified.
## Month 2 — v2
Typically after a launch I get a lot of feedback from the users so I spend the next month implementing a lot of features that were requested and making free updates for all users.
* Custom day end time
* Custom deadline with emoji support
* Launch at login
* Save all your settings after quit
* More accurate month progress (by hours)
I was a bit tricky to implement Day Progress function with Start and End day condition. I need to make sure that it’s handle all possible scenarios and corner cases like what if current time ≤ OR ≥ that now. Thanks [Sasha Koss](https://twitter.com/kossnocorp) who helped me with an algorithm.
### Unit testing with Google Sheets
I didn’t know how to write unit tests is Xcode and since I a big fan of Google Sheets
I event buit a tool that allows you to [create beautiful websites without code from Google Sheet](https://www.sheet2site.com/)
I decided to write unit testing directly there (everyone stay calm). I made a function and test it with a a lot of different inputs:
## Should I stop and keep working only on this app?
I had a thought:
> # *Maybe I should stop and keep working only on one app because people are paying for it and it’s kinda validated?*
It’s such a comforting idea that you can stop launching new apps every month and focus on one and just keep polishing it.
> # Hell No! It’s a cool sign but it’s definitely not enough to stop and get married to this app.
## Revenue
My hope was that I will make around 50 sales maybe in the best case 70.
After launching I went to sleep and when I got up I saw that I made $700. This was insane. In two days
I made almost my monthly income before.
And $1635 by the end of May
### Net Profit
I paid to Gumroad 3.5% + $0.3 from each sales so I get only $4.525 from each sale. In edition I paid extra $10 monthly fee to get this lower fees otherwise I would paid 8.5% + $0.3
Net profit: 327 sales X $4.525 – $10 fee = $1,469.6
The real fee is 10.1% and it’s not so obvious when see 3.5% + $0.3 fee at the first time because for low cost products like $5 fee is high.
## Magical feeling
It’s a very cool feeling that some random people will pay you and use your product. It’s totally different when I exchanged time for money when I worked on a job.
### Passive income?
It’s definitely not a passive income because sometimes I work 16 hours a day on my baby product
fixing bugs
implementing new feature
talking to users etc. It’s so fun and my passion + other people use it. So cool to know that some random guy from Paris or Los-Angeles or somewhere else purchased your app and sent you some grateful feedback that he likes your product. But I know when I’m sleeping or tired
my baby is working for me and making me money.
> # I still didn’t get 1,000 true fans that are willing to pay me
but I’ve got 327 so only 673 left to go
Question from [Roman Mishiev](https://twitter.com/rmishiev):
> # *I want to hear about your plans to make the same results in May but recurrent. Without detracting anything from you accomplishments
I would be interested to know if you’re doing any tracking on the results of*
### This is just a leap of faith
I don’t have any plans
just a leap of faith. I’m just throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what will stick. I wish I had a plan that gave me some stability
but probably it’s go back to a real job. :D
## Menu bar apps revolution
After I launched Progress Bar OS X
menu bars apps started launching on Product Hunt every week or even more often.
Some even tried to make the same app and put a gig on Upwork LOL. :D
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery :)
I think this is a good sign that we found some product validation model that could get value for people and they will be happy to pay for.
## Hardcore Life
I want to share a bit about what hardcore mode is like. In general
it is pretty comfortable. Working from coffee shops
sleeping and going to the beach for sunset. But
there some not very uncomfortable moments. :D
### Dogs attack
I’m not renting a bike
saving me $50 per month. I walk a lot
almost 3–4 km per day. It’s good exercise especially if I’m sitting all the time. But the main problem is if I need to walk at night. There is a 2km dark road full of dogs gangs that want to attack me. :D I made a short video for friends but I decided to share it with you as well:
### And 1 meter snake at my house
## Problem with a bank
All my revenue was sent by Gumroad to PayPal. I opened a bank account in Thailand while I was there. It’s not easy because you need to have a work permit
but after trying at 20 banks one finally gave in.
When I entered the wrong pin code via phone
they said:
> # You card has been blocked and you need to go to Thailand to unblock it. It doesn’t matter that you are in a different country.
> # Sincerely your,
> # Awesome bank ;)
This was my only way to withdraw money haha. :D
It’s a strange feeling when on the Internet
you have revenue but in the real life you are starving because you can’t access your money.
There was a day where I ate only bread and cookies. Some people do a juicing diet but I made a bread diet hahaha. :D
I drank free tap water in Starbucks. OMG
what could be better than a glass of tap water in hot Balinese weather?
I also worked there till night and then
even longer because it was free. :D
Sarcasm hashtags: #StartupLife #FancyOfficeInSanFrancisco
Luckily
one of my friends helped me. I sent money to his PayPal account and he withdraw cash for me at the ATM.
I ran into a local cafe for food and bought a big noodle and omelette. This was one of the tastiest dinners in my life. :D
## Total April and May results
## Revenue
April Total Gross revenue was insanely big for me
$1570 but MRR is low. Why? Because the biggest piece of Total Gross Revenue was made by Progress Bar OS X which doesn’t have any monthly recurring payments. This data is open on my site: [https://andreyazimov.com/](https://andreyazimov.com/)
## BTW 30% of Hardcore Year already passed. Damn how fast.
## Expenses
Question from [Dennis Vermeulen](https://twitter.com/Dennissimeau):
> # Tell us about the costs you made this month (techstuff like servers and software
but also your living stuff like food and rent etc..)! It’s sets the revenue in a good perspective of your total balance.
## Personal expenses $544 / month in Bali
We see that my expenses are growing 5–8% per month. Probably because I started to make some money and ate more and because of visa extensions. :)
## Typical Business expenses for 1 month:
* Domain progressbarosx.com $10 / year
* Hosting for Sheet2 Site: $5 / month
* Gumroad Pro $10 / month
## But you done all this because Pieter helped you!
Question from [@DanielMeade](https://twitter.com/_danielmeade):
> # Without detracting anything from you accomplishments
I would be interested to know if you’re doing any tracking on the results of Influencer Marketing. Your association with levelsio will have undoubtedly helped your reach.
## Pay it forward ❤
I don’t do any tracking on how much Pieter has helped me. But
this is definitely a significant part. I got a lot advice and inspiration from him. It’s super lucky that I met him 1.5 years ago here in Bali and we became friends.
To be fair
retweets obviously helped. But the key is is the product because if the product is shit nobody will buy it.
And it’s not only Pieter
there are some other people from Spicy group who helped me build “the right” products and believed in me more than myself as I mentioned before.
But I would not call it “INFLUENCER MARKETING”. I think it’s normal when your friends help you and believe in you. Someone is helping you and you’re helping other people. Together we are building an ecosystem of people that are helping each other to make great products.
### So if you are reading this please help at least 3 people achieve their goals.
## Lessons learned
> # Product / Market fit is much higher with simple and clear products that hit one niche pain point rather than complex technical products that target wide problems.
## UPD: Nov 2018
In November 2018 I released [Progress Bar to the AppStore](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/progress-bar/id1441939775) and after year_progress Twitter account with 200k followers featured it. I took the original idea from it and the creator agreed to featured it:
After Jeff Atwood (co-founder of StackOverflow and Discourse co-founder retweeted it)
And even [Paul Graham liked it](https://twitter.com/AndreyAzimov/status/1068420517781098496):
After it was featured in Uncrate:
And main Lifehacker website (before it was featured in only Russian branch)
## Here’s a sneak peek of what I’m working on next
### Have you ever been annoyed by that?
My next app will solve all these issues and some more just from one window. I will lunch it soon
UPD: Jul 2018 — Launched
## Want to see if I reach my goal?
And follow me in [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov)
And if you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address
or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov)
_____________________________________________________________
## What happen next?
[🎉 5 month — 5 products — $5,000 revenue
It’s been 5 months since I left my job in March 2018 and decided to focus on making my own products full time for ](./5-month-5-products-s5000-revenue)
_____________________________________________________________
## Thanks
* Spicy group for initial advices
product concept
your support
kicking my ass
hard kicking my ass
all memes and that you believed in me more than myself.
* Friends who tested first 100 version of the app before it was ready: [Juliana](https://twitter.com/clashmoonpy)
[Jaayden](https://twitter.com/jaaydenh)
[Fedya](https://twitter.com/cbrwizard)
[Sasha Koss](https://twitter.com/kossnocorp)
[Miljan Aleksic](https://twitter.com/AleksicMiljan)
[Marc-Antoine](https://twitter.com/marcantoinefon)
[John O’Nolan](https://twitter.com/JohnONolan)
[Pawel Gola](https://twitter.com/gola99)
[Fyodor Ivanischev](https://twitter.com/cbrwizard)
[Sindre Sorhus](https://twitter.com/sindresorhus)
[Daniel Di Giusto](https://www.facebook.com/ddigiusto)
* [Slava](https://twitter.com/yl_) and [Lena](https://www.instagram.com/superkaramel/) for support
* [Michael](https://www.instagram.com/mintoxmike/) and [Kat](https://www.instagram.com/katerinaku/) from [Dojo Bali](https://www.dojobali.org/en)
* [Sergey Gerasim](https://twitter.com/gerasim_sergey) for your code advices. Launch on startup feature maid cuz you helped.
* [Sasha Koss](https://twitter.com/kossnocorp) for algorithm for progress of the day with day end change and helped rewrite slider on the website to Javascript
* [Dasha](https://www.behance.net/dashka_s) for design ideas
* [Raman Ksaitor](https://twitter.com/ksaitor) for slogan idea and first version of slider on the website on pure CSS with keyframes
* [Lukasz Oslizlo](https://twitter.com/lukaszmtw) for payment system consultation and [Pixel Snap](https://getpixelsnap.com/) website inspiration
* [Wilbert Liu](https://twitter.com/wilbertliu) that you helped save setting after quitting the app
* [Marie Denis](https://twitter.com/marie_dm_) that you helped add Emoji button
* [Max Manzhos](https://twitter.com/manzhosm) that you helped more images add to slider
* [WIP Chat](https://wip.chat/) for kept me focused and for your support
* [Eva Gutierrez]() for editing this article
* Chris from Ireland for proofreading this article. My English would sucks if not you
* Ben for “Ben’s coffee” and advice :)
* All Users who decide to buy Progress Bar OS X and for all your feedback and ideas
* All people who votes and comments in Product Hunt and Hacker News
* All my patrons and who donated: [Max Makarochkin](https://twitter.com/makarochkin)
[Lowen Flowen](https://twitter.com/flowen_nl)
[Sindre Sorhus](https://twitter.com/sindresorhus)
[Fyodor Ivanischev](https://twitter.com/cbrwizard)
[Joel Runyon](https://twitter.com/joelrunyon)
[Cam Adair](https://twitter.com/camerondare)
[Justin Brooke](https://twitter.com/justinbrooke) and all of others.
* For all people who subscribed on blog
* Everyone who read this
Love you ❤
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2560/0*UGXKmbcX5bmVWbUY
How to Accept Payments Online If You Can Not Use Stripe
I did some research and found two payment systems that could solve this problem
When I made a [Mac app](https://www.progressbarosx.com/) and [Web app](https://www.sheet2site.com/) I was wondering if there is any easy way how I can sell them. I didn’t want to open a company in Singapore
Dubai or US. I just wanted to validate my idea quickly and see if users will pay for it.
But if you are living in one of the [countries](https://stripe.com/global) where Stripe is not supported it’s a big pain the ass :( I’m dreaming that someday I could use Stripe. I’m really jealous of people from US or Europe because they can use Stripe :D
## Is there any good Stripe alternative?
I did some research and found two payment systems that could solve this problem: [Gumroad](https://gumroad.com/) and [Paddle](https://paddle.com/) so let’s try to compare them side by side.
## [Gumroad](https://gumroad.com/) vs [Paddle](https://paddle.com)
Gumroad has two options: free and paid ($10 / month) with lower fees. Paddle has only one free option.
It seems like reasonably fees but let’s see what will happen if we will sell a $5 product
In the real life you would pay $0.73–$0.75 from each transaction which is 14–15% OMG WAT??? Because you will pay $0.3–$0.5 and for small price products it’s a lot so please be aware of it. Gumroad also has a $10 monthly fee.
### Calculate fees for your specific product
You can play around with this sheet and change a product price and monthly sales to compare Gumroad Free VS Gumroad Paid VS Paddle for your specific case
👉 [Make a copy of sheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ArR_KOv8dSZXL7w-YF2kVjgjPHL_mhya3b3PcPwvDs8/copy)
## Examples of checkout pages
[Gumroad checkout page](https://gumroad.com/l/progressbarosx)
[Paddle checkout page](https://pay.paddle.com/checkout/532963)
### More info
* Gumroad also supports recurring subscription payments. Read more [here](https://help.gumroad.com/11163-products-and-customizations/subscriptions)
* Gumroad and Paddle support PayPal to charge your users (not only credit cards)
* If can’t sell any product on Paddle. Please read [this list ](https://paddle.com/support/what-products-am-i-not-allowed-to-sell-on-paddle)what you can’t sell otherwise they can block your account
* Paddle will charge 10% extra if they first payment wasn’t completed but they converted users with their auto email follow-ups. It’s called “Checkout recovery” — user opened email
clicked on the link and made a payment. But you can [turn it off here is how](https://paddle.com/support/what-is-checkout-recovery/)
* With Paddle if you have $99 on your account you can’t withdraw it because the minimum amount to withdraw is $100 so you need to wait or buy your own product to get ≥ $100.
## Is it better than just PayPal?
If you want get donations or make some quick tests if user will pay you
you can create a PayPal link like this: [https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimov/2usd](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimov/2usd)
PayPal has lowest fee: 2.9% + $0.3 but there is no automation from the box. You will need to make all manually like sending downloads links.
You can try to make automation with [Zapier](https://zapier.com/help/paypal/) but it’s only available in Premium accounts starting from $18.33 / month + PayPal has some [variable](https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/paypal-payments-standard/integration-guide/Appx_websitestandard_htmlvariables/) that you can pass in url to identify each payments but I didn’t try this way.
## Also you can create a subscription payments with PayPal without code and business account
1. Login PayPal
2. Seller preferences
3. PayPal buttons -> Update
4. Create new button
5. Type -> Subscriptions
6. Add the price
period etc.
7. Save and get the embedded form code!
8. Add the code your page
Example of page: [https://www.sheet2site.com/pay/60/](https://www.sheet2site.com/pay/60/)
## Conclusion
* Use Gumroad if you have a PayPal and you can withdraw money from it. This is my personal choice and I’ve been using it for two months.
* Use Paddle if you don’t have PayPal just order [Payoneer](https://share.payoneer.com/nav/9Hc4k7hSo8ZXbV4kNVUmAODLtYU2f3HnNQ5poJbzMrGLREVUSlzTabT7z3QCk5Wt3CBfYq7dp955wqLvo4xj3A2) card which will allow you to get money from any country. After you can connect it to Paddle you can withdraw money what ever you country from. Paddle also is supporting wire transfer you you can send directly to your bank account.
* Use PayPal for super quick payments tests.
## Recently I [quit my job](./i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability) and I have one year to get to profitability. Want to see if I reach my goal?
And follow me in [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov)
And if you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address
or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov)
__________________________________________________________
### Credits
Thank you guys for answering all of my questions and helped me to choose the payment system: [Sergey Gerasim](https://twitter.com/gerasim_sergey)
[Lukasz Oslizlo](https://twitter.com/lukaszmtw)
[Lisa Dziuba](https://twitter.com/LisaDziuba)
[Roma Sevastyanov](https://twitter.com/romasevastyanov)
[Vlasti](https://twitter.com/VlaFiser)
[Bharathi3P](https://twitter.com/bharathi3p)
Also thanks to my patreons and who donated me for you support: [Max Makarochkin](https://twitter.com/makarochkin)
[Lowen Flowen](https://twitter.com/flowen_nl)
[Sindre Sorhus](https://twitter.com/sindresorhus)
[Fyodor Ivanischev](https://twitter.com/cbrwizard)
[Joel Runyon](https://twitter.com/joelrunyon)
[Cam Adair](https://twitter.com/camerondare) and all others.
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2048/1*HzILYBAA7eiqNKWRrz22Kg.png
Hardcore Year First Month — Getting press coverage and reaching $361/m revenue
The story of Sheet2Site.com
I recently [quit my job to follow my passion](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability-6159db01d9c2). I gave myself one year to find success and a two step plan.
Step One: Solve my own problem
Step Two: Build a startup to solve said problem
This is what happened
## TL;DR
* Worked on problem that I have and made the solution for myself
* Procrastinated for 1month
* Quit job and wrote a blog about it
* Launched [Sheet2Site.com](https://www.sheet2site.com)
* #1 Product of the Day + #3 Product of the Week on Product Hunt
* #1 Hacker News of Show HN
* Featured in Lifehacker twice
* 30,000 unique visitors
* Sheet2Site Revenue: $237 16 sales (2 yearly customers)
* Hardcore Year Blog Revenue: $94
* March Total Revenue: $361
## Story of [Sheet2Site.com](https://www.sheet2site.com)
In my previous startup
my step one was to create a list of apps that supported dark mode. The problem was people not having a direct list of these apps and my solution was providing it. When I was making my previous project [Dark Mode List](https://darkmodelist.com/)
a list of apps that support dark mode
I needed to manage a lot of content. I didn’t know SQL but I used Google Spreadsheets a lot
inputting name
link image
etc for each application. I connected the spreadsheet just as I would a database and started to use it.
This method of building lists has become increasingly popular. People are building collections of best tools
places
influencers
cryptos
etc.
With increasing popularity
I quickly looped back around and was back at my initial step one.
I had found a problem and I was even more sure that I knew the solution.
Wouldn’t it be useful to have a tool that will generate a beautiful website from a Google Spreadsheet?
The rumors were true. While building my first startup
I had run into a much bigger
and much more profitable
problem that I knew how to fix.
Game on.
## 🛠 Build
I made the first raw prototype in a couple of nights with PHP. It was able to build it quickly because half of the code I pulled from Dark Mode List. As coder with some experienced
I know that reusing code from old projects is a major hack. My stack is:
* Vanilla HTML
CSS
Javascript
PHP. No frameworks
* [Heroku + Dropbox](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/how-free-heroku-really-works-and-how-to-get-maximum-from-it-daa53f2b3c57?source=user_profile---------2----------------). Not Git. Only Zip as you know :D
* WIP Chat for accountability. All product was built in public with . Here is the list of all [my tasks](https://wip.chat/products/250) that I’ve done.
The first version looked like this:
I made a cats list from the spreadsheet as an example:
I continued working on it
improving the design of the front page and the generated pages for about one month. It needed to be user friendly and easy for anybody to understand. These were the improvements.
When I started to showing it to people
they were all still confused. They didn’t understand what they needed to do to make their website. As the creator
this surprised me. I thought it was blatantly obvious how to create their website.
I was totally wrong.
## ✔️ User testing
I started walking up to people in my co-working space and asking them to test my project. Probably I looked like this:
> # I’d just sit with them face to face
watch how they are using product and listen to their feedback. No arguing
no hints
no ego explaining “how genius my instruction is”
etc. Just pure
unfiltered feedback. Face to face real people feedback can teach you more than an entire month of working alone.
I spoke with ten people and each time
based on their feedback
I improved my instruction. True success hit when the user didn’t need any instructions and understood the website without my external help.
## 😥 Depression
After the site was semi-ready
I’ve made a soft launch and shared it in my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AndreyAzimov/status/949295261741756416)
[Indie Hackers](https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/need-feedback-sheet2site-com-generate-a-website-from-google-sheet-d573a6bb6d)
[Beta List](https://betalist.com/startups/sheet2site). I felt like everyone would be using it because it was solving such a popular problem.
This is not what happened.
What happened was people saying
“Oh
nice idea”. This hurt.
Someone even told me that the website was pointless
as Wix
Squarespace and other website builders were already doing this.
Feeling the pain of a failed project
I walked away. For one month
I didn’t touch Site2Sheet. I didn’t want to look at it
think about it or even talk to anyone about it.
Thankfully
I didn’t fully give up.
What I know now is that depression stage is a standard in any creative process. If you hit this stage
know that you are on the right path and that it is crucial:
> # You do not give up now. You can do it if you persevere.
## ✨ Perfectionism trap
After I succeeded at pushing through the first hardship of my entrepreneurial journey
I immediately fell into the next. I started working on Site2Sheet again but quickly became obsessed with perfecting it. I didn’t want to launch it until every single thing was in perfectly in place. At the time there was something wrong with the CSS all the time and I became addicted to continuously fixing and polishing the website. I feared that when I launched
people would judge the final product as a shitty version of the big website builders. I fell into the trap of perfectionism
continuously polishing and never launching so that I wouldn’t have to deal with judgements
rejections or people questioning why I created it in the first place.
Here’s the thing:
> # Users won’t pay you if you polish your product to its ideal state. Users will only pay you if they find something valuable for them within the product. They are only going to pay you if you solve their problem.
With over thirty things to do before the official launch date
I scrapped the list and hit publish.
Perfectionism would not keep me from fulfilling my mission.
## 🚀 Launch
After deciding to launch
I was finished in two days. Apparently
deadlines give you wings.
On Wednesday
March 21th 2018
I launched Sheet2Site.
### 😺 Product Hunt
All of my previous projects such as When to Surf
Push to Deploy and Dark Mode List I had launched on a Sunday because of less competition. On the other hand
this means less people will know about your site and you will have to compete for TOP 5 products not only on Sunday but Sunday and Saturday as well.
I couldn’t wait until Sunday
so I launched on Wednesday. More competition
but this could mean more traffic.
I prepared standard PH kit
* Title
* Description
* Thumb (I’m always do GIFs so it makes more visible compared to static images)
* Screenshots
* First comment — The story how I made it and description. PH people like stories. Small tip: You can add screenshots in your comments if you will just put direct image link like [https://www.sheet2site.com/img/sheet2site-cover.jpeg](https://www.sheet2site.com/img/sheet2site-cover.jpeg)
I [launched](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/sheet-2-site) in 00:01 San Francisco time as it is always better to have a larger time slot for votes (00:00–23:59).
I announced the launch on my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AndreyAzimov/status/976368376019795970)
Facebook
WIP Chat and emailed it to all my blog subscribers.
Launch Tip:
> # Do not ask people to vote for your product. There is a big difference between asking people to check out your project and giving a person the choice to vote or not.
PH Results
* #1 Product of the Day
* #3 Product of the Week
* #2 Product in [Spreadsheets](https://www.producthunt.com/topics/spreadsheets) (Trading) and #8 Product in [Spreadsheets](https://www.producthunt.com/topics/spreadsheets?order=most-upvoted) (Most Upvoted)
* #10 Product of the [Month](https://www.producthunt.com/time-travel/2018/3)
This is my biggest success so far in PH.
## 🤓 Hacker News
After PH
it is good to launch in Hacker News in the Show HN section
for sharing personal project.
> # Hacker News is a very straight forward community. They like when everything is clear
short and to the point.
So I optimized the PH post and made it very short. HN didn’t care if I had quit my job or not
they wanted to know what my product was about.
[Sheet 2 Site in Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16636935)
It got very positive feedback and went surprisingly well. It went to #1 in Show HN and #12 on the Front Page. Unfortunately
I forgot to screenshot the screen when it was #1 and only screen shotted when I hit #2.
I ended up getting three times more traffic from HN that I had from PH. This taught me a valuable lesson in ensuring your server is capable of this many hits.
Later I’ve even got to [Hacker Newsletter](https://mailchi.mp/hackernewsletter/395?e=cd05d24381). This is not official weekly newsletter of the best articles on HN. Some said that they’ve got 50k subscribers.
## 🤔 Reddit
I can’t say I fully understand how Reddit works
but I knew that posting there could help. So far all of my project promotions have failed except for Dark Mode List
which found success by being [submitted](https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7p4unl/a_list_of_56_apps_that_have_dark_mode/) by some random guy.
Due to forgetting to remove “Subject” from my post
it was banned by the Reddit moderators.
I [resubmitted](https://www.reddit.com/r/spreadsheets/comments/864vi6/create_websites_out_of_google_sheets/) it to /r/spreadsheets but it didn’t get a lot of votes.
I hope maybe someday I will be able to resubmit it in the “right Reddit way” :)
## 🎉 Launch celebration
This is me celebrating the launch in coffee shop in Canggu
Bali. Celebration of choice?
A bar of chocolate :D
> # I think launching is a lot like this chocolate. If you don’t eat your chocolate in time
it goes bad. If you don’t launch your product in time
the idea spoils in your mind.
## 📰 Press
What could be better than being featured in Lifehacker?
Being featured in Lifehacker twice 😝!
Sheet2Site was featured in [Lifehacker Russia](https://lifehacker.ru/2018/04/04/sheet2site/) + [Lifehacker Japan](https://www.lifehacker.jp/2018/04/sheet2site-is-web-service-to-build-website-from-google-spreadsheet.html).
Lifehacker had previously [written](https://lifehacker.com/find-all-the-mac-and-ios-apps-that-support-dark-mode-1821804227) about Dark Mode List and this leverage helped me become featured again. I reached out to the journalist who had originally written about Dark Mode List and he share Sheet2Site with some of his colleges.
Let me note:
> # Don’t annoy journalist that helped you before. Ask them once and if they respond
take the opportunity. If they don’t
appreciate their time and look for other ways to promote your product.
Site2Sheet was also covered by [Genbeta](https://www.genbeta.com/web/sheet-2-site-genera-una-pagina-web-completa-y-pocos-minutos-a-partir-de-una-hoja-de-calculo-de-google)
a famous Spanish techno news site that had also written about [Dark Mode List](https://www.genbeta.com/web/dark-mode-list-aprende-como-activar-el-modo-oscuro-en-decenas-de-aplicaciones). before
as well as some [Turkish](https://webrazzi.com/2018/03/26/google-e-tablolar-araciligiyla-kod-yazmadan-sitenizi-olusturabileceginiz-arac-sheet-2-site/)
[Polish](https://antyweb.pl/czy-da-sie-zrobic-strone-internetowa-z-arkusza-kalkulacyjnego/)
[Ukraine](https://ain.ua/2018/04/06/generator-sajtov-iz-google-tablic) press.
### Yeah
cool but what should you do to be covered in Lifehacker or other cool site if you hadn’t been covered anywhere before?
* Find articles in your niche. I’ve just googled “Dark Mode”
* Find contacts of journalist of this article
* Write personal
polite
short email without how cool you are. They don’t have time to read your super story
Here is what journalist saying why he wrote before about me:
> # He emailed me a quick
polite tip because he noticed I’d recently written about dark mode. I get a lot of irrelevant emails so I love the relevant ones.
## 📈 Traffic Boom!
Behold
one of the most beautiful views of my entire life.
After launching and press
the traffic to Site2Sheet was insane. I’ve got more than 8,000 people visiting my website on the launch day and had 300 people on the site at the same time. At this point
the site kept crashing. I’ve used only [Free Heroku I’ve got maximum from it](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/how-free-heroku-really-works-and-how-to-get-maximum-from-it-daa53f2b3c57) :D
After launch I have a consistent 23k people and around 30k all time.
Check open results: [https://www.sheet2site.com/open/](https://www.sheet2site.com/open/)
## 🤑 Monetization
In the middle of launching
I realized that I hadn’t added a pay button on the website :D I had been so excited about launching
that I hadn’t even added an option for viewers to pay. This was a huge mistake.
> # You need to validate your ideas not just through emails
traffic and PH votes but the most important validation is if somebody is willing *t*o pay for it.
Cue the PayPal button.
## 💰 Revenue
In 10 days after launch I have made 16 sales. I tested different prices started from $5 / mo and then raised to $10 / mo or $60 / year
* 1 month subscriptions: 13
* 2 months subscriptions: 1
* 12 months subscriptions: 2
Sheet2Site Total Gross Revenue for March is: $237
## Wait how about MRR?
The difference between total gross revenue and MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) is that for yearly sales you need to divide sales price on 12 and only 1/12 (not all $65) to March revenue.
Sheet2Site MRR for March is: $119
As of now
[Site 2 Sheet](https://www.sheet2site.com) is my most successful product.
I’m very excited about it and am going to continue to chase the feeling I get when the PayPal notification pops up that somebody has chosen to pay for my product.
It feels really
really good.
## 🔥 Do things that don’t scale
I listened Paul Graham’s advice and have chosen to [do things that don’t scale](https://paulgraham.com/ds.html). My projects don’t have any automation of: sales
email
connecting custom domain. I’ve done everything manually.
### Connecting custom domain
After I launched and get first payment from PayPal button I start thinking how I can actually connect user’s custom domain to sheet2iste? :D.
The easiest way was just send html with iframe inside.
This is how my “CRM” looks like:
### 💬 Chat is a great sales channel
More than 100 people ended up writing me in the chat. I tried to answer them all one by one but it was hard to keep track of the unanswered verse answered messages. It was pretty intense.
I started to use [Crisp Chat](https://crisp.chat/?ref=andreyazimov)
which is free and leveled up my customer support.
Almost all of my sales came from chatting with a person and answering his or her problems and solving their issue.
> # People are tired of all the marketing sites. They want to speak to a real person that will help them quickly
Different people will interpret your UX or texts in different way
especially during the early stages of the product.
Before implementing any automation
I decided to talk with each user personally and find the patterns of text that I needed to change on the site.For this reason
I seriously suggest:
> # Connect chat to your site. You will know what users are thinking and they will get fast personal support.
## Sheet 2 Site Results
### 🌏 Traffic
* 30,000+ Unique visitors
😺 Product Hunt
* 1500+ upvotes (910 in the first day)
* #1 Product of the Day
* #3 Product of the Week
* #3 Product in Spreadsheets category
🤓 Hacker News
* 143 upvotes
* #1 of Show HN
* #12 of Front Page
📰 Press
* Lifehacker cover twice
* And other sites from Spain
Turkey
Poland
Ukraine
### ✅ Registrations
* Contacted in chat 172 (all)
* Contacted in chats: 112 (leave their emails)
* Sites made: 821 what was (visited at least 1 time)
### 💰 Revenue
* Total gross revenue: $237 (16 sales)
* MRR: $119
## 💪 Hardcore Year Blog
It was every unexpected but I’ve got a lot of support from people with my [last article](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability-6159db01d9c2)
This is absolutely true
I’ve only asked for $2 but many people donated more. Waking up from receiving notifications with like this reminded me of what I had initially set out to create:
> # *What’s better than Ramen? 10x Ramen! All the best for the coming year
hope your plans work out. Cheers from Columbia to Bali*
### Hardcore Year Results
* Medium claps: 2382 from 232 people
* Email Subscribers: 225
* Donations: $94 from 20 people
## Total March results
### 📈 Total Gross Revenue March
* Sheet 2 Site: $237.0
* Hardcore Year Blog (Donations): $94.00
* Dark Mode List: $30.00
* TOTAL: $361
36% of goal has achieved in this month. Great feeling. I very excited about it 😊😊😊
### 📉 Expenses
It is almost possible to live in Bali for $500
as I expected.
## 🎓 Lessons learned
* 💡When you are working on a project and come across problems
these are potential ideas for your next project.
* 🛠 If you fixed a problem for yourself
there is an extra chance that other people also face this problem and you could create the solution.
* ✅ Do face to face user testing to check how people understand your product and UX.
* 😥The depression stage is a standard stage in any creativity process. So
if you here you can confidently know you are on the right path. Do not give up! You can do it!
* 🙌 Random people can support you if you are excited about what you are doing and honest :)
* ✨Do not go in perfectionist trap. Users will not pay you if you polish your product to the ideal state. Users will pay you only if they will find something valuable for them. They will pay only if this product will solve their problems.
* ❤️It’s an incredible feeling to work full time on your true passion. You got up in the morning
worked 14 hours and go to sleep happy. There is some boring tasks of course but they are not so hard in the big picture. Passion and support from other people is great multipliers of your chances of success
* 💬 Sales from support chat work very well because you helped person. Do not forget to connect chat to your website
* 💰 And most importantly
validate your ideas not just through emails
traffic and PH votes but validate it through revenue so do not forget to put Pay button before you launch :D
### What’s next?
I want to continue to improve Sheet2Site according to feedback of my users. You can see my full to do list here in [WIP Chat](https://wip.chat/products/250/pending)
And while I worked on Sheet2Site I found the new problem and I’m already working on something new 👇👇👇
## Follow my progress to $1000/mo. No spam. Here’s a sneak peek of what I’m working on next.
This is OSX menu bar that showing progress in % (how much passed of Day/Month/Year.
I will launch it soon so please subscribe for updates:
And follow me in [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov)
And if you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address
or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov)
## UPD: Check what happen in next 2 month 👇
[Hardcore Year: I Learned Swift
Build a macOS App and Earned $1635 in 1.5 months](./how-to-accept-payments-online-if-you-cant-use-stripe)
________________________________________________________________
### Thanks
* Thanks all people who voted in PH
* Thanks to all users who left feedback
* Thanks for the users who decide to buy a Sheet2Site Pro account
* Thanks for all who supported me and subscribed to my blog and bought me a ramen!
* [Pieter](https://twitter.com/levelsio) for feedback and mentoring and support
* [Yaroslav Lazors](https://twitter.com/yl_) for your mentoring
knowledge and thanks to [Railsware](https://railsware.com/) (my ex job). A lot from this approaches like Spreadsheets
Data blending
Add Chat for feedback
Do not automate first I learned there.
* [Marc](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge) ideas and feedback
* [WIP Chat](https://wip.chat) for accountability and feedback
* [Sasha Koss](https://twitter.com/kossnocorp) for big help with CSS and Javascript
* [Vlastimil Fiser](https://twitter.com/VlaFiser) for CSS help
* [Eva Gutierrez](undefined) for editing
* [Tristan](https://www.instagram.com/tristanhero/) for user testing
* [Pascal](https://www.instagram.com/the_dude_bali/) from [district canggu](https://www.districtcanggu.com/)
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*2JZ4XjmVUHyoW-BvZPLsJQ.png
I quit my job and I have one year to get to profitability
In March 2018 I 😱 quit my job and I have 1 year to get to 📈 profit as Indie Maker.
In March 2018 I 😱 quit my job and I have 1 year to get to 📈 profit as Indie Maker.
## Update: May 2019
I launched 7 apps
achieved my goal and become 🏆[Product Hunt’s Maker of the Year](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/im-product-hunt-s-maker-of-the-year-c25d67a162ee) and [achieved my innitial goal](./hardcore-year-is-done)
## Story
I have a dream — I want to ship products and earn $1,000/month (recurring) doing it.
Why $1,000?
I’m currently living in Bali
where I can live comfortably off of $1,000 per month. This isn’t San-Francisco or Dubai where $1,000 moves quickly. In Bali
$1,000 can pay for your rent
scooter
eating out three meals a day and most importantly all the coffee you could possibly drink.
## OMFG STOP!
Mr. Aj if he is reading this he is probably facepalming because he said “OMFG STOP” to a similar guy.
##This dream started at a crucial moment
Struggling through the drowning effects of a tough headache
I entertained myself by chatting with my users of [Dark Mode List](https://darkmodelist.com) and trying to offer ads to them. That’s when this happened.
I took those $4.00 as a sign 🤑
Later
I’ve got the advice from my friend
[Pieter Levels](https://twitter.com/levelsio) while we sat in the local Balinese cafe at 4AM:
> # *It is better to be a 26 year old man who hates his job and quit than to be a 36 year old man who hates his job.*
I didn’t hate my job but I knew that following my passion
instead of just daydreaming about it
was going to be the road to success.
I felt the looming urge to take the jump
but the logistical part of me was terrified.
## I have too small coding experience :(
Before
I coded only time to time and in period of Dec 2017 — Feb 2018 (15 months) I launched only 3 products:
* [WhenToSurf](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/i-learned-to-code-and-build-a-web-app-in-2-months-da8f2932c139) — web app that shows best time to search based on your location: Revenue: $16 from donations.
* [PushToDeploy](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/upvotes-are-not-sales-lesson-learned-from-launching-physical-product-830a292b04fa) — physical big red button that allows you to deploy your site when you hit it. Revenue: -$77.13 (didn’t get enough money in pre sales to start manufacturing so I refunded all)
* [DarkModeList ](https://darkmodelist.com/)— list of apps that support dark mode. Revenue: $100
I don’t know how I will code something complicated
but I think I will learn on the way :D.
## Fears
I feared randomly being fired from my job
emptying my bank account and wasting my time on a dream that didn’t pan out.
I wrote down these fears and realized that on paper
they weren’t so scary. My fear was coming from an emotional state. I feared the unknown that would come with quitting my job and attempting to create something on my own. Looking at my fears
I wrote down the worst case scenario for each situation.
Worst case scenario
I spend all of my money and have to move back in with my parents (Hi Mom).
It was hard to leave my job in [Railsware](https://railsware.com/). But hardest was to say this face to face to my boss [Yaroslav Lazor](https://twitter.com/yl_).
After 2 months of thinking and fighting with my fears I finally did it! I felt much more released. But what was more unexpected is boss reply:
> # If you have a goal doesn’t matter how long it will take. Time will pass in any case. Only matters how you will spend this time: not doing and regretting or die trying :) So get the fuck outta company and follow your true passion :D
Thanks you for support. That was the final straw :)
I decided the time was now.
## The first step in successfully shipping products is to find a product that people genuinely like and are interested in buying.
The main problem is finding this mysterious [product/market fit](https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/032-peter-and-calvin-of-segment). The key to my success was going to lie in discovering the intersection between pain point and a product somebody is willing to pay for.
The infamous YC quote states
“Make Something That People Love.”
But how do you actually do that?
* Do you really need to be a domain knowledge expert with 1,000 years of experience prior to creating your startup?
* Should you do it AirBnB style and work on a single product launch for two years and don’t give-up?
* Do I create one new start up every single day
throwing virtual spaghetti at the wall and hoping something would eventually stick?
These questions are the start up trap. Thinking that I have to analyze each move and make sure that every action I take is perfected is going to paralyze me.
I have to cut my fears and go head first into the startup world.
Quitting everything and attempting to create something has led me to realize some existential characteristics that reside in myself and other new entrepreneurs.
* I don’t finish everything that I start. I have yet to finish any of the ten coding courses I have registered for.
* I’m not overly disciplined. I struggle to organize myself and complete boring tasks like CSS that never work out. I know they are necessary to achieve my bigger goals but procrastinating them is so much more enjoyable.
* I don’t have consistency. Catch me working in a coffee shop for 14 hours on Monday. Catch me watching 14 hours of pointless Youtube videos on Tuesday.
* I’m not the best coder. I only know basic HTML
CSS
JS and PHP. I don’t use Git and I host everything in Dropbox (everybody stay calm!).
All of these characteristics might point to failure
but I have a secret up my sleeve.
My friend Pieter Levels
the guy who created [12 startups in 12 months](https://levels.io/12-startups-in-12-months/) earns [five figures](https://levels.io/open) by creating indie startups
is insanely inspiring.
Spending nights with him and [Marc](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge) and watching how they are built their dreams from code and scratch showed me the possibility.
Seeing somebody else succeeding in the same path that I desired told me everything I needed to know.
## The time is now!
I officially quit my job and made a commitment to myself to make product(s) with $1,000 / monthly revenue by shipping full time for 1 year. I’m going to leave the results of my experiment open for other entrepreneurs to watch.
In these upcoming 365 days
my plan is to become a hardcore shipper. I’m going to make as many products as I can in these few weeks and cross my fingers the parachute will deploy.
I’ve made a conscious decision to be as open with my goals as possible. It’s this accountability that is going to force me to finish what I started
practice discipline and learn to be consistent.
### Here are the parameters:
* Period: 17 Mar 2018–17 Mar 2019
* Goal: $1000 / mon revenue
* Minimum expenses as possible around $500 /mon
* Chart with revenue: [AndreyAzimov.com/open](https://www.andreyazimov.com/open/)
* Progress in [WIP Chat](https://wip.chat/@AndreyAzimov)
* No relationship for better focus and avoid drama :). Success first and girls later :)
* This blog is not going to be my main focus. My main focus is going to be creating products and using this blog as an accountability update.
* My plan is starts with launching [Sheet 2 Site](https://sheet2site.com) and see if people want this if no I will go to a next idea
And now
it is go time! Warning: Do not try this at home :D
## Want to see if I reach my goal?
And follow me in [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov)
And if you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address
or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov)
## UPD: Check what happen next month 👇
[Hardcore Year First Month — Getting press coverage and reaching $361/m revenue
*I recently quit my job to follow my passion. I gave myself one year to find success and a two step plan.*medium.com](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/hardcore-year-first-month-getting-press-coverage-and-reaching-361-m-revenue-f3fdd875de07)
__________________________________________________________
### Thanks
* [Yaroslav Lazor](https://twitter.com/yl_) for all what you’ve done to me. And thanks to [Railsware](https://railsware.com/) my ex job where I learned a lot.
* [Pieter](https://twitter.com/levelsio) for inspiration
* [Marc](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge) for photos and ideas
* [Eva Gutierrez](undefined) for editing
* [Fyodor](https://twitter.com/cbrwizard) proof reading
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/3616/1*Vxp7HWUTpseb0ap4XpQZAQ.png
How FREE Heroku really works and how to get maximum from it?
It was very confusing for me WTF does this free dyno hours mean?
Recently I’ve got a problem that Heroku stopped my sites (I’ve got 6) because I’ve had used all free dyno 1000 hours / month
It was very confusing for me WTF does this free dyno hours mean?
I couldn’t figure out it from the docs so after speaking for couple of hours with support I finally got it.
### How does free Heroku works
* 1 acc = N apps (sites)
* Each app goes sleep (idle) after 30 mins if no usage
* 1 acc has 1000 dyno hours/mon
* 1 dyno hour = 1 hour site is online. Just anyone who will open your site makes it run again
* If you open site for 1 sec with 30 mins interval 10 times you will use 5 dyno hours
* To not make site sleep you can use site monitor like New Relic. It will check site availability by pinging it and will make it online each 15 mins (before Heroku will make it sleep). Here is the [article](https://coderwall.com/p/u0x3nw/avoid-heroku-idling-with-new-relic-pings) on how you can setup it.
* No visitors limits
So I’m made one more free Heroku account and create only one site there + setup a monitor to avoid sleeping. In this case it will be online all the time and will use 744 dyno hours from 1000 available per month maximum.
### Add custom domain + SSL for FREE
By default all Heroku sites have domain “https://name.herokuapp.com”. And you can also add custom domain for free. But you need to pay $7 / mon for Hobby Plan to have SSL certificate.
To get free SSL certificate for Heroku custom domain I’m using [Cloud Flare](https://www.cloudflare.com/). Also it will make cache static images which is pretty nice if you have a lot of them.
Is there is difference between paid and free Heroku plans?
So there is no difference between Free Heroku with 1 app + avoid sleep trick and 7$ Hobby plan. RAM amount in this 2 plans is the same. So no make sense to pay if you just started your side project and you need some free hosting. You could even make two free Heroku accounts as I did :D
What to do if your site is static?
Heroku is for dynamic sites. Dynamic means use some back-end like PHP
NodeJS
Ruby etc. If your site is static (just HTML
CSS
JS) for example your personal site there is no sense to use Heroku and spend this 1000 hours.
For hosting of static sites I’m using [Netlify](https://www.netlify.com/).
* Nice interface
* FREE SSL certificate
* Drag and drop source files for deployment
* No limits in hours
* Here is [comparison with GitHub Pages](https://www.netlify.com/github-pages-vs-netlify/)
Hoping this article can help you with hosting of your side projects.
Cheers,
P.S. Thanks [Fyodor Ivanischev](undefined) for proof read :)
__________________________________________________________
Recently I [quit my job](./i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability) and I have one year to get to profitability
### Want to see if I reach my goal?
And follow me in [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov)
And if you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address
or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov)
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*819Pt-ki4rXma5LPlON8gA.png
MVP without code: the toolkit
I made a list of tools that could help me build an MVP fast. That way I could validate if people needed (and would pay for my idea or not.)
Many people can’t execute on their ideas because they can’t code. I was in the same situation. I was procrastinating to learn to code and therefore couldn’t test and validate any of my ideas.
So
I made a list of tools that could help me build an MVP fast. That way I could validate if people needed (and would pay for my idea or not.)
Here’s my toolkit and I’m sharing it here because it’s probably useful for some of you too!
##Front-en
### Make sites without code
*🌟[https://sheet2site.com](https://sheet2site.com/?ref=mediummvpnocode) — Generate a website from Google Sheet
* [https://carrd.co/](https://carrd.co/) (super easy one page sites + Stripe support for payments)
* [https://airtable.com/](https://airtable.com/) (embedded table with data on in your html a and you can update it like a spreadsheet)
* [https://webflow.com/](https://webflow.com/) (+ CMS API)
### Free HTML templates
* [https://html5up.net/](https://html5up.net/)
* [https://onepagelove.com/templates/free-templates](https://onepagelove.com/templates/free-templates)
### Free photo stock
* [https://undraw.co/](https://undraw.co/) — Free cool illustrations
* [https://unsplash.com/](https://unsplash.com/)
### Collect users info
* [https://typeform.com/](https://www.typeform.com/) data + payments by stripe
* [https://mailchimp.com/](https://mailchimp.com/) emails
##Back-en
### Scrapers
* [https://import.io/](https://www.import.io/)
* [https://automatio.co/](https://automatio.co/)
### DB + API
* [https://www.sheet2site.com/dev](https://www.sheet2site.com/dev) Create JSON API from Google Sheets without code with real time updates for free.
### Automation
* [https://zapier.com/](https://zapier.com/)
### Fake JSON API for testing
* [https://randomapi.com/](https://randomapi.com/)
### Hosting and domain
* Easy hosting for static HTML websites: [https://netlify.com/](https://netlify.com/) you can just drag and drop source folder and it will work. Also it support custom domain and SLL for FREE
* If you you have some back code (PHP
Python
Javascript
Ruby) you can use Heroku: [How FREE Heroku really works and how to get maximum from it?](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/how-free-heroku-really-works-and-how-to-get-maximum-from-it-daa53f2b3c57)
* Buy domain: [https://www.namecheap.com/](https://www.namecheap.com/)
* Add SSL (https) for free if you are using Heroku or any other hosting [https://www.cloudflare.com/](https://www.cloudflare.com/)
##Payment
* The easiest way to validate if people want to pay you is just add the PayPal button. PayPal allows easily add price in url. Example: [https://paypal.me/andreyazimov/5usd](https://paypal.me/andreyazimov/20usd) Also you can setup [PayPal with recurring payments](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/how-to-accept-payments-online-if-you-cant-use-stripe-a16e6df98b1d)
* [Gumroad](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/how-to-accept-payments-online-if-you-cant-use-stripe-a16e6df98b1d)
* [Use Stripe without code](https://twitter.com/AndreyAzimov/status/1081022459938103297)
## Recently I [quit my job](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability-6159db01d9c2) and I have one year to get to profitability. Want to see if I reach my goal?
And follow me in Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov
And if you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd address
or become my Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*KyC8tx9cl7ftKrPBf2wWGw.gif
Upvotes are not sales! Lessons learned from launching a physical product 🚀🚨📈
This a story about how I launched my second project Push to Deploy and what lessons I learned.
This a story about how I launched my second project [Push to Deploy](https://pushtodeploy.io) and what lessons I learned.
##The problem
When building my first project [When to Surf](./i-learned-to-code-build-a-web-app-and-launch-it-on-product-hunt-in-2-months) I was struggling all the time to open terminal
copy paste script that deploy my site. I was very lazy to do it every time.
##The solution
I wanted to push some physical button to deploy my site and see how it looked like. I didn’t want to run some scripts from the terminal
just hit it and see the result.
So I tried to find something in online shops like Amazon or AliExpress but I couldn’t. Everything was too expensive like $55 or without an USB wire.
So I tried to made my own prototype…
##Hardware prototype from a USB keyboard
[Michael](https://www.facebook.com/michael.craig.568847) from [Dojo Bali](https://dojobali.org) gave me his old USB keyboard for experiments.
So I needed to connect 3 keys: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+M into one button.
In Dojo I met [Vaibhav Chhabra](https://www.facebook.com/vaibhavc) from [Maker's Asylum Mumba](https://www.facebook.com/makersasylum/) He is a technical guy who offered me his help. So we bought some pieces in a electronic shop and we started experimenting :)
It kinda worked
and I noticed this is wasn’t something I wanted to use
so I need something different…
##Hustle with Chinese suppliers
So I believed that there was an existing product in China so I decided to research and do all I could to find this button or stop this project altogether.
So I went to Alibaba
there you can buy at least 100 items. It’s a B2B market place and there’s a greater choice of products than AliExpress
which is a B2C market where you can at least 1 item.
So I found in Alibaba the button I wanted but I needed to buy at least one hundred and I wanted just one… What could I do?
💡I came up with an idea to ask companies to send me one sample and that I could later maybe order some more :)
So instead of writing each one of them on Alibaba via DM
I figured out it could be more effective to find each company’s Skype and contacting them through it. So I created the following spreadsheet…I found the Skype details of the company on the the company’s site.
##First Success! 🎁
I negotiated with [this company](https://form-e.cn/) and they sent me one sample
I just paid the delivery and my button arrived!
As soon as I got it
I tried it immediately and it worked! I was so happy! :)
##Content of the site
The next step is to show people what this process is about (push button
run script and deploy a site) and even better
this was about a demo.
##Landing page
So I bought a domain [pushtodeploy.io](https://pushtodeploy.io)for $33 and made a simple website based on a free HTML template with a GIF on the front page to immediately show what the product was about.
I wanted to collect emails to know if people needed it
so I planned a trap: put a fake sale button that redirected the user to write their email.
Thanks [Pieter](https://twitter.com/levelsio) and [John](https://twitter.com/JohnONolan) for advices about the site
code help and for make it happen.
##Pre Launch
I showed it to people in my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AndreyAzimov)and Facebook](https://facebook.com/andreyazimov
So I had like 972 unique visitors and 11 emails pre orders. Not much but not bad.
##Launch on [Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/push-to-deploy) 😽
So exactly as I did when launching [When to Surf](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/when-to-surf),I decided to launch on Sunday midnight San-Francisco time to have more votes.
I was retweeted and mentioned by Product Hunt
Ryan Hoover
Niv Dror
So Push to Deploy became #2 product of the day 🎉🎉
And got to the TOP #4 of Best Product of the Week that arrives via Product Hunt’s daily email newsletter 🎉🎉
And launched on [Betalist](https://betalist.com/startups/push-to-deploy as well.
So I got 8,944 unique visitors and 150 emails of people who wanted to buy it immediately.
##At this point I didn’t know how would I make this happen haha 😀
Here I started to think about delivery
cost price
3PL companies (3d party logics companies… I even didn’t know this word.)
Amazon
PayPal fee and refunds and all this shit.
##Depression
I feel like I went to the total unknown. WTF should I do? And where will I I find this companies that will help me deliver these product? How much should I sell to make profit?
##Never give up! 😤
So my friends [Pieter](https://twitter.com/levelsio)
[Marc](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge
[Oskar](https://twitter.com/oskarth)
[Lowen](https://twitter.com/flowen_nl and [Jeroen](https://twitter.com/pxlpr) inspired me to not gave up and try to make it happen.
##Let’s make it happen!
So I just asked people how to make this happen and some of my friends recommended me [EasyShip](https://www.goeasyship.com)3PL) company. I called them and they explained me all the costs. I made a basic cost calculation:
The Goal I need to make $1000 (50 buttons) in pre orders to start the production on the Chinese factory.
###Video
I have never done any sales video so this was my first one. My friend [Alex](https://www.facebook.com/alex.borodach) helped me shoot a video in [Hubud](https://www.hubud.org/) co-working space with his iPhone :)
###Sale email 📩
So I made a sale email with this video and send to all my 150 subscribers who decide to buy the button. Marc](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge advised to make the price range to sell more than one button to one person and it worked. Some people bought more than one.
##The Results ✅
###Traffic 📈
My site got visited by more then 10k unique visitors:
###Product Hunt
* PH votes: 717 (Top #4 weekends launches)
###Email conversion rates ✉️
* 150 emails sent to people who wanna buy
* 101 people (67%) opened emails
* 54 people (36%) clicked on buy links
* 10 people (6.6%) purchased 17 buttons
##Total sales $288.5 💰
So I didn’t achieve the goal of$100 sales and I on 16th of May (on my Birthday) decided to stop this project and I made refund to all :( But it was a cool feeling to keep receiving PayPal notification when some unknown person send me money 🤑
##Money Spent
* Domain: $32.88
* Button delivery: $29.15
* Digital Ocean hosting: $10
* PayPal refund fees: $5.1
Total: $77.1
##Time spent ⏳
* Time period from idea to sales: February 13— May 16
* Pure time spent: 67:54 hours [tracked by Toggl](https://toggl.com/)
##❗️Conclusion ❗️
* You either need a big market or a big price
or both. You cannot have a product with low margins and a small market — the maths does not work.
* When you make a niche product for a niche audience
it needs to be high value. If you make a niche product for a niche audience with very low profit => doesn’t work.
* USB button is not an essential product. It’s just fun. Developers who would want it is pretty small number of people
maybe 50,000 people total addressable market.
* If you have low profit => you need to attract many people (millions)
* If you have high profit => you need to build a better product which a few people are willing to pay a premium for
###The downsides of a hardware product
* Upfront cost (buying everything)
* Continuous cost (warehouse)
* Low margins (due to shipping)
* As your sales increase so do your costs
* So you’d need better margins. Maybe 75%
###Othe
* Calculate all your cost before launch and check everything like logistics
PayPal fee
delivery.
* Define a goal what you want to achieve. Like minimum sales revenue.
* Put progress bar on your site with your goal to give people transparency what’s happening
* If you are depressed (this is standard situation in startups) and you don’t know what to do with all this unknown — talk with your friend
ask people and don’t give up!
##Stay in touch
So this was a failure
but thats ok
i learned all these lessons and will incorporate them in my next project.
__________________________________________________________
Recently [I quit my job](./i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability) and I have one year to get to profitability
##Want to see if I reach my goal?
And follow me in [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreyAzimov)
And if you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending [$2 to my PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimov/2usd) address or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov)
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/6528/1*xLkJWe1nkUfNUwDbT2Mu1A.jpeg
I learned to code, build a web app and launch it on Product Hunt in 2 months
Two months ago I started my journey to build my first web app. It’s a very basic web app called When To Surf for surfers to see when is the best time for them to surf every day. I’m launching it today.
Two months ago I started my journey to build my first web app. It’s a very basic web app called [When To Surf](https://whentosurf.co) for surfers to see when is the best time for them to surf every day. I’m launching it today.
## I am Andrey
I’m from Ukraine
I work remotely at [Railsware](https://medium.com/railsware) . Like many people in tech companies
I’ve dreamed of making my own product. My own app that people use on a daily basis. I would love to have that one day.
## Problem
Right now
I’m working remotely from Bali. One of the best places to surf is coincidentally
Bali. I took classes to learn to surf here. But when I started to surf I had difficulties to understand information in weather and surf forecast apps like [Magic Seaweed](https://magicseaweed.com). There’s tons of data like tide
swell
period
wind speed
direction etc.
Having lots of data is great
but what if most people can’t read it? There was entire 10-page manuals on the internet on how to interpret all this data.
This seemed like a usability nightmare to me.
What if I could get the raw weather data myself and then with code analyze and score it for surfability (is that even a word?).
I wanted to do this
but I couldn’t. Because I had never coded seriously. And I had no idea where to start. I also didn’t have the money to hire some big team to build an app for me. So I gave up. For now.
## Pieter Levels
A few months later
at [Dojo](https://www.dojobali.org/)
a co-working space in Bali
I met [Pieter Levels](https://levels.io)
he set a goal to [launch 12 startups in 12 months](https://levels.io/12-startups-12-months/) and built [Nomad List](https://nomadlist.com) from that. He inspired me to try to build own app. I really recommend to [watch this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3nb_Qj3mRA) by him. Here’s his principles:
* Solve your own problems
* Stop going to startup events
avoid startup coaches
* Learn code by doing and searching on Google
* Avoid courses
bootcamps
books
startup coaches
* Do the simplest thing that could possibly work with your current skills (e.g. do not waste time on super cool new frameworks like React that will take you a year to learn)
* Do it yourself (DIY)
With those principles I wanted to try to learn to code and build it. I wouldn’t be a great coder
but good enough to ship my surf app idea.
## Start
At December 3
2016
I bought the domain whentosurf.co for $6 on [Namecheap](https://namecheap.com). Just buying the domain name
got me very excited.😎
I found free hosting [atspace.com](https://www.atspace.com/) and uploaded my first ever HTML page “Hello world”:
I start to think where I can get data for my app? I Googled for weather APIs and found the [World Weather API](https://www.worldweatheronline.com/). It’s free for 2 month and they have all the data that I needed like wind direction
swell period and tide times.
I had zero experience coding. So I start trying the languages that I had seen before.
My first goal was simple: get data from API and print it in HTML. It should be as easy and with as little setup as possible. I wanted to be able to change one line of code and be able to test if it works quickly. It should be super simple as possible without installing servers
frameworks
compiling
deploying and all this stuff. I should develop fast. Not like 1 line of code per day to figure it out like some big teams who do things “properly” do.
Ship! Ship! Ship!
I first tried JavaScript. For a newbie like me
it’s cool that you only need a browser. But pure Javascript was very complicated to me. Especially the asynchronous call back functions were confusing.
// Javascript
var getJSON = function(url
callback) {
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
Scrap this. Too difficult! 😀
## Python
I thought about Python. It has a super readable syntax but I’d need to install the Django framework and set up a special web server for it and all these things. Just to make a script run! So I skipped Python.
## PHP
I tried PHP and it just works. I knew everyone says “PHP isn’t cool
you need Ruby
Node
React
Bla.JS”. But I didn’t really care. Because it was the fastest language to get me started from nothing. I mean PHP already run on my computer (macOS) and was pre-installed on my web server. No effort!
In just a few minutes of coding
I had made my first API call and got my data. Ladies and gentlemen
I present you: my first code!
$url=’[https://api.worldweatheronline.com/premium/v1/marine.ashx?key=2a5fc1776e234e14a7e172153160312&q=-8.659263,115.130158&format=json&tide=yes&tp=1&date=](https://api.worldweatheronline.com/premium/v1/marine.ashx?key=2a5fc1776e234e14a7e172153160312&q=-8.659263,115.130158&format=json&tide=yes&tp=1&date=);
$json = file_get_contents($url);
$data = json_decode($json);
$swell_period = $data->data->weather[0]->hourly[0]->swellPeriod_secs;
In 1 night I made my first web app (or site
really):
After a few days of working on it
I got some design inspiration from the internet
and made this layout:
I was very proud:
## No git
Meanwhile
everyone around me started telling me to use GitHub
and stop uploading by FTP.
I don’t like to do this every time with git:
git add
git commit -m “Bla Bla Commment ”
git push origin master
Instead
I just made a folder and each time for backups I created a new one with yesterday’s date. So I avoid git. But I still had my own basic versioning system.
## Setting up my own web server
My free hosting sucked pretty bad. And after a few weeks it stopped working well and people suggested I’d get my own VPS.
I was scared because I do now want to configure all this server stuff. But I didn’t really have a choice because my free hosting had stopped working. So I paid [DigitalOcean](undefined) $5
followed their instruction guides step-by-step and set it up. [Oskar](undefined)
a Swedish guy I met at the co-working space in Bali
helped me when I got stuck with my VPS server.
## Moving to HTTPS 🔒
The obstacles didn’t stop. I had to get the user’s GPS location from their browser. I entered the JavaScript code to do it. But Chrome recently only allows location in HTTPS certificated sites. So to do this I had to learn to set up [Lets Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org). This was crazy difficult
but again I just followed the instructions and it worked out. Then my site was HTTPS:
## Half way there
After a month
my code had become massive. But I still understood what did what by my crazy inline comments:
## Getting user feedback
[Eric Ries](https://twitter.com/ericries) from [Lean Sartup](https://theleanstartup.com) recommends to ask for feedback as early on as possible.
Another person I met in the co-working space was [Marc](https://twitter.com/marckohlbrugge)
he suggested to ask people by attaching an iPad with my app running on it with a feedback box to the wall. This made sense because 40% of people here are surfers ([Dojo](https://www.dojobali.org/) is 1 minute walking from the beach). My box looked like this:
After a day I only had a few comments. It didn’t work. I asked them for feedback and people seemed not very excited. People weren’t really interested in my app.
## Dark swamp of despair
That’s when the early excitement of building my first app started wearing off. It wasn’t exciting anymore. It was mostly painful. I had now spend weeks working in the day on my main job and staying up at night to finish this app.
I showed my surf instructor my app
and he quickly said that the idea sucked because “surfing has too many variables to predict the best time to surf”.
I realized he might be right because I hadn’t been able to predict the time yet. My data was not extensive enough and I wasn’t good enough at coding to combine and then “rate” data and pick a surf time.
To add to that
my surf app ONLY worked in Bali. I hadn’t been able to make it reliable in other surf spots in the world. I wanted every surfer in the world to open my app and get their information for their surfing day immediately.
I wanted to give up because why make something that nobody is going to use? And how could I ever get all this data and make it work for everywhere in the world?
I also got some eye infections. My eyes was very red and it was hard watching in a laptop.
But I just put some eye drops and continue coding :)
## Second round
I spoke to my friends here
and they told me to just keep developing it. Pieter told me that this was normal and “most people quit here and don’t launch because of the fear”.
The next weeks I went hardcore
we used an accountability system based on money to make us finish our tasks
and in my case
my surf app.
Even if nobody would use my surf app
I wanted to finish it. I wanted to launch.
Our nights of working where from 8pm to 6am. We listened techno and drank tea.
## Formula of best surfing time
If I wanted to know how to get the best surf time
but I couldn’t code it. I had to start somewhere else. I built a spreadsheet and started experimenting with formulas:
These formulas I then after trial and error converted into code:
## It worked
kinda!
I tried and it started giving ratings for every place in the world. Also places without beaches like
I don’t know
Kazakhstan. But that was okay
it was the first version. At least it kinda worked now:
## Plan for launch
The first basic app is done. This is where this post almost ends
because today I’m launching it. I’ll update to tell you about how the launch went.
My plan is to:
* Submit it to [Product Hunt](https://producthunt.com) myself (I don’t want to be dependent on some “influencer’ to submit it
but instead win by being a good app)
UPD: [JUST LAUNCHED on Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/when-to-surf)
* Find surf communities on the internet and on Facebook to share it with them and ask them what they think and keep improve on it
* Get people’s email addresses with a MailChimp box at the bottom
so that I can send them surf updates about their location (later on
I haven’t coded this yet) and get them back to the site later.
* If it works
compete with big apps like [Magic Seaweed](https://magicseaweed.com) by giving users a more simple experience that’s better for beginner surfers
## Time & money spent
Time:
I measured all my time that I spent by using the [Toggl](undefined) app. So it’s around 118 hours
Money:
* Domain name = 6$ / year
* VPS = 5$ / month
* Total: 11$
If I would have asked a company to develop my surf app
I’m sure it would have costed me $29,989 more :)
## Tools used to built
I used:
* [Sublime Text Editor](https://www.sublimetext.com/) for writing code
* [Namecheap](https://namechep.com) for domain
* [Digital Ocean](https://digitalocean.com) for VPS
* [LetsEncrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/) for SSL
* [Google Analytics](https://analytics.google.com) for measure traffic
* [Toggl](https://toggl.com) for track time
* Tons of sticky notes for tasks
## My code is open source
All my code available on [GitHub](https://github.com/AndreyAzimov/whentosurf/). It’s super hardcore. No MVC
it’s all in one file.
## What did I learn?
* Work on your own problems. That’s better because you actually care about them. Finding the best time to surf became this obsessive goal that made it easier (but still hard) to finish my app. You are your first user!
* It helps find cool mentors that are already at the place where you want to be
co-working spaces like [Dojo](https://www.dojobali.org/) help in that case cause there’s many people already working on cool successful stuff.
* Learn by doing. Don’t buy/read books. Don’t buy courses. Don’t pay teachers. Just Google and use what you already know. And if you want mentors
real good ones are free because they are already successful and don’t need your money! Also avoid startup coaches
they’re leeches who just want to suck you from your last money.
* Don’t be scared to use new technology. I was scared of coding
then of APIs
then setting up servers
then HTTPS. But I did it. It wasn’t scary after I did it.
* Ship
ship
ship! Don’t give up. Always try to finish your project.
## Updates and press
* [When To Surf became #1 app in Sports
Weather
Surfing on Product Hunt + 3000 people tried it](https://medium.com/@AndreyAzimov/when-to-surf-became-1-app-in-sports-weather-surfing-on-product-hunt-3000-people-tried-it-316f1b7a225b#.8bgzcf9pc)
* [ain.ua](https://ain.ua/2017/02/14/ukrainec-sozdal-service-top-product-hunt)
* [habrahabr.ru](https://habrahabr.ru/company/everydaytools/blog/322068/)
* [podcast with me](https://travelmba.net/online-business/andrej-azimov-kak-zapustit-sajt-dlya-serferov-nahodyas-na-bali-za-2-mesyatsa-i-vyjti-v-top-na-product-hunt/)
## Recently I [quit my job](./i-quit-my-job-and-i-have-one-year-to-get-to-profitability) and I have one year to get to profitability. Want to see if I reach my goal?
And if you’re feeling really generous
you can buy me a pack of ramen by sending $2 to my [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/andreyazimovpay/2usd) address
or become my [Patron](https://www.patreon.com/AndreyAzimov)
## Stay in touch
This is me and my to-do list on my arm :)
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2560/1*X9m38KOKKxCattZY4nK_dQ.jpeg