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My thoughts after making my first $100k

Gale4rc

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It's Saturday night 11:51PM and I'm just taking a break from reading my new book "Adweek the copywriting handbook".

My business which took a year to get here is about to reach $100k/yr and it feels great. Everyday I wake up comfortable knowing I've finally built something successful.

Our growth is only getting better and I can see the path to $100k/month.

What's different between before the business and now?

Not much.

I think I can better evaluate ideas (I'm also starting another startup on the side) and I have more experience now but nothing is really different.

Why?

Because I always believed in myself and that's really all it takes. I never once gave up. Ever. I just kept going through every failure knowing that I would eventually make it.

You can see I joined this forum in 2013 and I've been on the grind even before that but was a little immature and didn't take my ideas as seriously as they needed to be taken to succeed.

If you factor in all the time/failures you can easily say it took 3-5 years to reach the point I'm at today.

It was worth it.

The grind feels the same at $100k as it did $1.

Commit to something and don't stop.
 
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eekern

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Nice work, only 3 years is fast. It has taken me 6 years to create a $36/ years business :) What do you do beside writing books ?
 

Gale4rc

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Nice work, only 3 years is fast. It has taken me 6 years to create a $36/ years business :) What do you do beside writing books ?
I don't write any books :) Although I do want to one day...

I created a SaaS. Which I don't want to speak too much about on these forums :)

Congrats on your first dollars. Hitting milestones are always the best part of owning a business.
 

eekern

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I see, I follow many podcast that focus on SaaS :) my $36K is recurring and it it pure profit so yeah, it is a big milestone for me.

Anyway if you don`t want to pitch your service, would you maybe share some resources that got you where you are today ?
 
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Gale4rc

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I see, I follow many podcast that focus on SaaS :) my $36K is recurring and it it pure profit so yeah, it is a big milestone for me.

Anyway if you don`t want to pitch your service, would you maybe share some resources that got you where you are today ?

I honestly wouldn't even know where to start.

There comes to a point where all the saas podcasts and growth podcasts start repeating basically the same information over and over so you can stop listening to them but still need to stay up to date with all the latest information because there are still golden nuggets of information being passed around that you need to know.

To find those nuggets I use growthhacker.com and inbound.org today

To get here, it was more of learning whatever was needed at the time. E.g. I really want to get higher conversions on our landing page, well the best way to do that is to be really bad a$$ at copy. So that's what I'm learning now.

But I don't even think you need to know everything that I do, I honestly believe all you need is an idea and commitment. I think most people fail at both. They start with an idea they don't fully believe in and they don't go all in because of a lot of reasons, one of them being because they doubt their idea which they didn't believe in, in the first place.

Quick side rant about the idea:
I really hate this BS that everyone talks about of interviewing people and trying to find a problem. That is complete horse shit. Yes it works but you're a lot better off pulling from something you know and building something for someone like yourself who is a part of a much bigger market. When you do this you can think for your user because you are your user. When you build something you don't know, you have to question every step and there's a million chances to get it wrong.

In fact when I interviewed my target market before I built my product, they all told me they dont need my service. It was only through my domain experience I knew they were full of shit.

A few examples:
  • Mj's limo business came from him being a part of a limo service!!
  • Napster was created, the guy created airtime which failed, went back to an industry he knew and created spotify which is now HUGE.
  • Slack (fastest most recent billion dollar company) was built for their own team because they needed a better internal tool to use for communication. Solving their own need.
  • Facebook wasn't looking for a problem, he built something he himself thought was cool... same with instagram/snapchat/etc
And MOST of the products you use today were built using the same methodology but people seem to ignore that. Instead people are looking for a get-rich quick idea disguised as interview some random dude in a random industry.

Is it possible to be successful doing this interview BS? Yes, it's just a lot harder and you're setting yourself up to fail. You have a set of unique experiences and a perspective that will give you an idea to build something that people like you will love. Build that, not something random.
 

eekern

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Thanks for your honesty, well I have started to understand that the path is different for all of us, and that makes the "I will teach you" part very diffuse.

I am looking at the SaaS model with big interest but where I am right now is to just make my number one income source bigger and learn the b2b space and their problems/frustrations.
 

Gale4rc

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Thanks for your honesty, well I have started to understand that the path is different for all of us, and that makes the "I will teach you" part very diffuse.

I am looking at the SaaS model with big interest but where I am right now is to just make my number one income source bigger and learn the b2b space and their problems/frustrations.

My whole theory is basically don't confine yourself to "learn the b2b space and their problems" instead look at your own problems and solve them. That's how this product was made and that's how I got the idea for my next product. I wasn't looking anywhere else other than my own experience.
 
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eekern

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I understand, I have a friend who run a small restaurant, I work there for a year and created a web agency for restaurants, I really just tried to help the problem we had with reaching more people online. The problem is that other restaurants don`t believe they can get customers online, and if they do their budget is wat too low (the high end restaurants all have great sites) I have many stories where I try to solve my own problems but failed hard...

But even do we have different opinions about the "business idea" we both know that it is more important how much action you take, how consistent and for how long. As you wrote "Commit to something and don't stop."
 

Gale4rc

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I understand, I have a friend who run a small restaurant, I work there for a year and created a web agency for restaurants, I really just tried to help the problem we had with reaching more people online. The problem is that other restaurants don`t believe they can get customers online, and if they do their budget is wat too low (the high end restaurants all have great sites) I have many stories where I try to solve my own problems but failed hard...

But even do we have different opinions about the "business idea" we both know that it is more important how much action you take, how consistent and for how long. As you wrote "Commit to something and don't stop."
agreed
 

Iwokeup

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It's Saturday night 11:51PM and I'm just taking a break from reading my new book "Adweek the copywriting handbook".

My business which took a year to get here is about to reach $100k/yr and it feels great. Everyday I wake up comfortable knowing I've finally built something successful.

Our growth is only getting better and I can see the path to $100k/month.

What's different between before the business and now?

Not much.

I think I can better evaluate ideas (I'm also starting another startup on the side) and I have more experience now but nothing is really different.

Why?

Because I always believed in myself and that's really all it takes. I never once gave up. Ever. I just kept going through every failure knowing that I would eventually make it.

You can see I joined this forum in 2013 and I've been on the grind even before that but was a little immature and didn't take my ideas as seriously as they needed to be taken to succeed.

If you factor in all the time/failures you can easily say it took 3-5 years to reach the point I'm at today.

It was worth it.

The grind feels the same at $100k as it did $1.

Commit to something and don't stop.
HUGE congrats, man! I remember where you were a year ago...and to see that you're making solid traction is FABULOUS. Rock on dude.
Quick side rant about the idea:
I really hate this BS that everyone talks about of interviewing people and trying to find a problem. That is complete horse shit. Yes it works but you're a lot better off pulling from something you know and building something for someone like yourself who is a part of a much bigger market. When you do this you can think for your user because you are your user. When you build something you don't know, you have to question every step and there's a million chances to get it wrong.
I completely agree.
 
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Gale4rc

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@Iwokeup Good to see you again! I definitely remember you too, you've always been supportive :)
 

fastattack03

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Congrats man!! Hopefully I can post something like this soon!

Would you mind sharing how you got your first few customers?
 

Gale4rc

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Congrats man!! Hopefully I can post something like this soon!

Would you mind sharing how you got your first few customers?

I built up a list of 1k pre signups by blogging + social media
 
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fastattack03

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That's awesome. So creating articles related to your market then advertising on social media? or just word of mouth?
 

Iwokeup

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Gale4rc

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That's awesome. So creating articles related to your market then advertising on social media? or just word of mouth?

Engaging on social media. I would monitor hashtags and engage with people posting in them. When you're starting any signup is important, no matter how hard you have to work for it.

Would send the blog post to relevant social groups and try to build links which really hard but now we have a few #1 blog posts bringing in consistant traffic.
 

Gale4rc

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Here, have $100 Rep to go with that $100k

On to something new, but when my first business broke $100k it felt unreal. Congrats on that!

Now on to $1m!

Thanks bro! I am pretty sure I'll be able to do $1mil by the end of next year :)
 

Iwokeup

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Thanks bro! I am pretty sure I'll be able to do $1mil by the end of next year :)
Can't wait to see you post that. Remember when you thought that it wasn't going to work?? ;)
 
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Gale4rc

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Can't wait to see you post that. Remember when you thought that it wasn't going to work?? ;)

Haha me 2 man! That's going to be an awesome feeling. Especially since I have some failed progress threads here too.
 

fastattack03

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Engaging on social media. I would monitor hashtags and engage with people posting in them. When you're starting any signup is important, no matter how hard you have to work for it.

Would send the blog post to relevant social groups and try to build links which really hard but now we have a few #1 blog posts bringing in consistant traffic.

Very valuable advice. thanks man
 

Gale4rc

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@Dojcinovski sent me a PM and I thought it would be better to have a public answer.

He asked how I know an idea is worth pursuing.

Thanks for all the kind words! It's still a struggle :)

All I can say is how I know an idea is worth pursuing for me:

1. Development time
Is it a huge project or small project? It took me a year to build this product and I never want to spend that much time in development again. We did launch within that year but it took a year to be a solid product.

2. Market size
How big is the potential market?

3. Price
How much is my target market realistically looking to pay? The higher priced, the less people I have to sell to and the more money I'll have for advertising campaigns.

4. How can I connect to this market?
How am I going to get my product in front of these people? If it's really easy then that's a huge + or if it has a natural viral loop somewhere inside of it, that's another plus.

5. What value do I see?
Personally, I don't work on ideas outside of my knowledge. Like you mentioned above, I pull from my own experiences and I should be able to see if users will actually pay for my idea or not. If I know for sure they will want this product, then I run it through the previous 4 points.I do not survey them.
 

fastattack03

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I have a SaaS idea that I want to build but I don't have the programming skills. I am interested in learning the basics though just so I can communicate better with the programmer I'm going to hire.

Can you give advice on how I can learn the 80/20 here? The 20% that produce 80% of the results?

I am not asking for shortcuts. Not that kind of guy.
 

Gale4rc

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I have a SaaS idea that I want to build but I don't have the programming skills. I am interested in learning the basics though just so I can communicate better with the programmer I'm going to hire.

Can you give advice on how I can learn the 80/20 here? The 20% that produce 80% of the results?

I am not asking for shortcuts. Not that kind of guy.

Just learn HTML/CSS so you can edit your own landing pages and make small edits that you need to make. It's pretty simple stuff.

I would also suggest partnering with a developer so you hold each other accountable. I've never had a problem finding one to work for equity, just surround yourself with them online + offline.
 
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fastattack03

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So for this project, you have a developer partner with shared equity?
 

eliquid

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I agree with the below.

I started a SaaS based on a problem that I needed solved personally ( like Slack did ). It's a good six-figure business right now with hardly anyone knowing who we are in our industry still.

My biggest asset is my partner in the business.

I honestly wouldn't even know where to start.

There comes to a point where all the saas podcasts and growth podcasts start repeating basically the same information over and over so you can stop listening to them but still need to stay up to date with all the latest information because there are still golden nuggets of information being passed around that you need to know.

To find those nuggets I use growthhacker.com and inbound.org today

To get here, it was more of learning whatever was needed at the time. E.g. I really want to get higher conversions on our landing page, well the best way to do that is to be really bad a$$ at copy. So that's what I'm learning now.

But I don't even think you need to know everything that I do, I honestly believe all you need is an idea and commitment. I think most people fail at both. They start with an idea they don't fully believe in and they don't go all in because of a lot of reasons, one of them being because they doubt their idea which they didn't believe in, in the first place.

Quick side rant about the idea:
I really hate this BS that everyone talks about of interviewing people and trying to find a problem. That is complete horse shit. Yes it works but you're a lot better off pulling from something you know and building something for someone like yourself who is a part of a much bigger market. When you do this you can think for your user because you are your user. When you build something you don't know, you have to question every step and there's a million chances to get it wrong.

In fact when I interviewed my target market before I built my product, they all told me they dont need my service. It was only through my domain experience I knew they were full of shit.

A few examples:
  • Mj's limo business came from him being a part of a limo service!!
  • Napster was created, the guy created airtime which failed, went back to an industry he knew and created spotify which is now HUGE.
  • Slack (fastest most recent billion dollar company) was built for their own team because they needed a better internal tool to use for communication. Solving their own need.
  • Facebook wasn't looking for a problem, he built something he himself thought was cool... same with instagram/snapchat/etc
And MOST of the products you use today were built using the same methodology but people seem to ignore that. Instead people are looking for a get-rich quick idea disguised as interview some random dude in a random industry.

Is it possible to be successful doing this interview BS? Yes, it's just a lot harder and you're setting yourself up to fail. You have a set of unique experiences and a perspective that will give you an idea to build something that people like you will love. Build that, not something random.
 
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Gale4rc

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My biggest asset is my partner in the business.

Agreed with everything you said, especially this. This forum is has a lot of attention on being a solo founder but, I couldn't of made it this far without my co-founder.

PS - Most incubators such as ycombinator won't even let you in/consider you without a co-founder (unless very rare circumstances).
 

MJ DeMarco

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Hope you don't mind I retitled your thread and tagged Notable.

Congrats on the accomplishment, self-sufficiency is one of the best feelings in the world!
 

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