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Making the first £1

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Sam Kennedy

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I guess this thread can become a great example of why not to violate the commandment of control. I received an email from Stripe saying I have 14 days to stop using their platform, because the service I'm offering violates their terms of service. Their terms of service are partly determined by their banking partners, which they have no control over. So it's resulted in a cascade which means I can no longer pursue this.

I'm now working on creating some industrial automation software, it's a completely different venture from my first, however it obeys the 5 commandments of the fast lane:

Need - I actually need to create this software myself, it will save hours of time once it's created, I've also asked other PLC engineers on reddit and got a positive response
Entry - Programming knowledge required, PLC programming knowledge required, access to PLC programming software required (expensive)
Control - There are no dependencies, everything I create I have full control over
Scale - It's software so it can be distributed at a large scale easily. Also magnitude has to be considered here, this can take a 4+ hour project and have it finished within an hour. Also, PLC software and equipment is very expensive, the markup is huge, and factories expect to pay a lot.
Time - I will have to maintain the software, offer patches, updates etc. However it isn't bound to my time, it could still bring in money even if I'm not actively working on it.

I'm in the middle of working on it now, it's getting complicated, hopefully I can post some sort of demo of a very early version within the week.
 
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Sam Kennedy

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Today I have the very first working version of my program. I timed how long it took to use:
21 minutes to draw a diagram on paper
14.5 minutes to enter the diagram into the program
8 minutes to get the generated program uploaded to a PLC

Drawing the diagram and uploading the program are things which need to be done anyway, it's the middle part that's important, that took me almost two hours for the same project, it has now been cut down to less than fifteen minutes! I'll get some screen recording software and show the resulting system running in a simulation.

Today I need to:
-Program the feature to automatically start the program running instead of having to add it by hand
-Learn how to create a GUI in python
-Create the option of editing and deleting states and transitions in the program
 

Spicymemer45

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Today I have the very first working version of my program. I timed how long it took to use:
21 minutes to draw a diagram on paper
14.5 minutes to enter the diagram into the program
8 minutes to get the generated program uploaded to a PLC

Drawing the diagram and uploading the program are things which need to be done anyway, it's the middle part that's important, that took me almost two hours for the same project, it has now been cut down to less than fifteen minutes! I'll get some screen recording software and show the resulting system running in a simulation.

Today I need to:
-Program the feature to automatically start the program running instead of having to add it by hand
-Learn how to create a GUI in python
-Create the option of editing and deleting states and transitions in the program

Sam your execution is so precise I'd invest real money into your, a$$ (comma's are important) if you have a paypal let me know. Otherwise I wish you luck my friend! Keep the grind going.​
 
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Sam Kennedy

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Sam your execution is so precise I'd invest real money into your, a$$ (comma's are important) if you have a paypal let me know. Otherwise I wish you luck my friend! Keep the grind going.​
Haha that comma does make an important distinction! :rofl: I've read your execution thread, it's impressive how fast you hustle, six days to land your first sale, then two more the next day! Are you going door to door? If so massive props to you for determination. I knocked doors for two years and don't have it in me to do it ever again. The best advice I can give you is that even though it gets repetitive, try not to become robotic with your pitch. Also best times are evenings after 5pm and weekends, people tend to be home from work then. (One time I knocked doors for two hours from 10am - 12pm and not a single person was in).

So an update from yesterday:
I experimented a lot with creating a GUI using python. It's a bit of a learning curve, and to be honest the resulting interface is ugly. I'm going to finish it anyway because it's still more user friendly than a command line tool. However, I'm looking into creating an online tool and then charging users for access.

Today I'm going to finish creating the GUI, then start looking for a good web library for visualising graphs and nodes, and then start learning how to use the django framework, then I may have to leave it at that because the house sale completed today and I'm having to organise deliveries and order blinds and all sorts of fun stuff. Also I put off washing dishes for three days, and literally every pan, piece of cutlery, plate and bowl we own needs washed.
 
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Sam Kennedy

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I have the GUI functioning, and better than I was expecting (You don't lose your place when adding a new state or transition, I was expecting the view to snap back to the top left, but it didn't!)

I'm excited now, this will have cut down the time by a fair amount!
 
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Sam Kennedy

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The gui actually slowed things down initially to 18 minutes, I made some tweaks and got that time down to 12 minutes. Compared to the 1.5 - 2 hours it's a massive improvement. I'm going to start looking into turning this into a web service now.
 
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Ika

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You are really putting in the daily hours, great job!
I can't put my finger on one specific post in this thread that is extraordinary good - the overall process is good. Post by post.
Congratulations on doing the work, keep on going.

I'm really interested to where you are heading!
 

Sam Kennedy

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Yesterday was a busy day!
In the morning I started from scratch creating a website which does the same thing as my python app. I set a goal to have made something by lunch time. It seemed impossible, web design and JavaScript are not my strongest skills. I didn't know which library to use, I was getting a ton of errors. I learned an interesting thing about my brain (maybe others can relate to this?).

When thinking about everything that needed done, I started thinking of the effort that was required, and based on previous experience I thought it would take 6-8 hours. By 11:30am (two hours from when I started) I had made far more progress than I expected. It seems to me that my brain confuses effort and time. If something is difficult and requires only 3 minutes of intense thinking, when looking back you might think it was more like 15-20 minutes.

So another lesson: whenever you get that "urgh" feeling, when you realise there is so much to do and it will take a while, just focus on the one task that needs doing now. You will be surprised how quickly you get through tasks compared to what you thought it would take.
 
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silentownage001

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I have to admit a bit of fear hit me last night when I made the site go live. What I've created is now out there for people to use and abuse. It handles real money, if anything goes wrong I'm responsible for it.

I felt the same way when I started marketing. I thought I was going to get ripped apart, but so far (still early days) I haven't. Much of the fear is just in our heads.

I've also gone through the last 30 days of posts on the freelance subreddit, and contacted people directly who have questions about payment options, I'll see if that brings about any results. From being there I've learned that Upwork, which is one of the biggest freelancing websites REALLY sucks. I knew it was bad, but reading some of the experiences people have had there, I'm surprised the website is still allowed to operate. This is a real story: Freelancer finishes work, client pays, client requests refund and bails. Upwork contacts freelancer and says their account is now in negative balance (due to the transaction fees) and wants them to pay. So lets get this straight, you need to pay for getting ripped off? I think I've found a much larger pain point, I just need to figure out a clever solution.

I've used Upwork as a client. Overall my experience was fine. My dev did a good job in the end, but took much longer than he said it would take and I was paying him hourly. I believe it was done on purpose.
 

Sam Kennedy

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Today I finished off the front end of the service, and then got the back end working as well. I started at 8am and finished just after 4pm, got the time to create the system down to ten minutes!
 
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Sam Kennedy

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Added more features to the program, worked on it for ~8 hours. Demonstrated it and got an estimated valuation. I can't post numbers (I signed a profit sharing & confidentiality agreement today).

I'm likely to exceed my goal of £1.
 
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Sam Kennedy

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I thought I would bump this, a lot has happened since I posted almost two years ago, time flies!

So shortly after that last post, I was asked if I could solve a particular problem involving PLC diagnostics. I actually thought I wouldn't be able to get very far, but I did what I could. I ended up automating something that takes experienced people several hours to diagnose, and made it possible for somebody who has no technical expertise be able to diagnose in a fraction of the time, without any need for specialist hardware or software.

I created a proof of concept SaaS and from there was able to form a three way partnership between myself, the company I worked for at the time and another company. I then spent a year in industry as part of my university degree, from that experience I went back and completely re-wrote the service. What used to take 6 hours for the server to process could now be done in less than 30 seconds. We then went through the process of forming a company, getting the necessary insurances and further refining the service.

This week we are finally ready to begin selling to customers. Today we got our first feedback from an experienced engineer, his reaction was more or less: "I want to start using this NOW".

I'm really excited, almost two years of work and we could have our first customers within the next few weeks!

I'm sorry I can't explain in detail exactly what it is I've developed, all I can say is that there is nothing out there that does what it does, and it solves a very important problem.
 

Tubs

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I thought I would bump this, a lot has happened since I posted almost two years ago, time flies!

So shortly after that last post, I was asked if I could solve a particular problem involving PLC diagnostics. I actually thought I wouldn't be able to get very far, but I did what I could. I ended up automating something that takes experienced people several hours to diagnose, and made it possible for somebody who has no technical expertise be able to diagnose in a fraction of the time, without any need for specialist hardware or software.

I created a proof of concept SaaS and from there was able to form a three way partnership between myself, the company I worked for at the time and another company. I then spent a year in industry as part of my university degree, from that experience I went back and completely re-wrote the service. What used to take 6 hours for the server to process could now be done in less than 30 seconds. We then went through the process of forming a company, getting the necessary insurances and further refining the service.

This week we are finally ready to begin selling to customers. Today we got our first feedback from an experienced engineer, his reaction was more or less: "I want to start using this NOW".

I'm really excited, almost two years of work and we could have our first customers within the next few weeks!

I'm sorry I can't explain in detail exactly what it is I've developed, all I can say is that there is nothing out there that does what it does, and it solves a very important problem.

Just read through the whole thread, great action taking! Glad to see you've stuck to your guns even after a few failures. I have no doubt you'll make it.
 

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