This article is from WeChat official account:InfoQ (ID: infoqchina), author: Michael Lynch, translator: Sambodhi, planning: Liu Yan, the original title: “after the resignation from Google, as a third-year independent developers, from 30,000 years into my did Annual income of 400,000”, title picture from: pexels
I quit my job at Google and started my own software company for 3 years. This is my highest income year so far, with an annual income of $63,000, which is a 7-fold increase from 2019.
Today is the 3rd anniversary of my quitting my job at Google and starting my own software business. At the end of the first and second year, I made a summary, so it is time to share my progress.
This year, everything goes well
In the first two years of my own work, my total income was less than US$10,000 (about 65,000 yuan, with an average annual income of 30,000 yuan) , my goal in the third year is to earn $20,000 in income.
Half of the year passed, it looks like my goal is going to fall. My business makes a total of $300 a month, and none of my new ideas work.
A new product in May miraculously reversed the situation. As of the end of last year, I had an income of $63,000, which far exceeded my goal.
Well, my net incomeIt’s still a negative number, but I have a good reason this time!
Currently, I am selling physical products, so my income lags behind my expenses by two or three months. The profit of each sale is 30%~50%, so the final data will keep up.
Introduction by item
TinyPilot
TinyPilot is a cheap device I developed for remote management of the server.
In the past few years, all of my software development was done on home servers. It works very well, unless I messed up the network configuration or want to install a new operating system. My server is not connected to a monitor or keyboard, so I have to put it on my desk, plug all the cables from the workstation to the server, and replace them when I’m done.
I learned that the Raspberry Pi (Raspberry Pi) can pretend to be a USB keyboard, and I also understand that it can capture video. What if a web application combines these two functions and turns the Raspberry Pi into a miniature remote management device?
After months of tinkering, I have a working prototype.
The prototype of TinyPilot I made is through the open source KVM of IP devices.
I question whether there is a market for this thing? Why would anyone buy this kind of equipment from me? It is nothing more than a collection of widely available hardware components. Maybe one or two customers will come to buy each week, so if each set of equipment can make 80 US dollars, it is worth my time to pack and ship the order.
So I published a blog post about this: “TinyPilot: Build a KVM over IP device for less than one hundred dollars” (TinyPilot: Build a KVM Over IP for Under $100).
Soon, I realized that this business is different from any business I have done before. Within 4 hours after this blog post was published, customers bought all 9 kits from my inventory, and they continued to buy, even with delayed delivery.
In less than a week, this blog post generated $8,800 in sales. It hit the front page of Hacker News and became one of the most popular “Show HN” posts of all time.
TinyPilot’s response on Hacker News and Reddit.
After the initial peak, sales declined, but TinyPilot has continued to grow since then. I don’t have any experience in selling physical products, so I quickly learned how to manage inventory, how to execute orders systematically, and how to work with suppliers to make circuit boards and 3D printed enclosures.
TinyPilot ended the year with nearly $54,000 in revenue. My net income is still negative, but this is because my costs are upfront. TinyPilot’s expenditure in 2020 includes inventory lasting until February 2021.
*: I wrote most of the code, but I hired a developer to help me manage the sales page.
on the Hacker News headerEdition
On the front page of Hacker News is my blog writing course.
In May, I gave an informal speech to the peer mentor group, the topic was “How to be a successful software blog” (How to be a Sort of Successful Software Blogger). I tried to explain my successful writing skills on websites such as Hacker News and Reddit. The process of sharing this is very interesting, but I don’t know how to deal with these materials.
In this year, I have seen more and more developers teach what they know on paid courses. TinyPilot showed me how powerful it is to connect my blog to my business. If people like my blog, they might be interested in buying a course of my writing.
Recording a lesson is more difficult than I thought. I originally planned to work for 30-40 hours, but it turned out to be nearly 200 hours.
The course is launched in January 2021, so the numbers below do not include post-launch orders. So far, sales have not been good, but it is still too early to know the long-term gains. Anyway, I am proud of this textbook, and some of my students have told me that these courses are of great help to their writing.
mtlynch.io (blog)
In terms of blogging, my biggest change this year is to think more strategically about the topic of the article. Before 2020, my writing attitude was: “This topic is in my mind now, so I have to write it out and see what happens.” Sometimes blog posts can find readers, but more often, But it can’t.
This year, before I start writing any new article, I will ask myself two questions:
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How many readers are interested in this topic? Is there a way to impress them?
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This small plan has greatly changed the amount of reading.
In 2019, my article had an average of 5,000 readers in week 1. In 2020, this number jumped to 25,000. Among the 9 new blog posts I published, except for one, the rest of the blog posts were on the front page of Hacker News, and 4 of them appeared in the first position.
I deleted all partnerships from this blog at the end of 2020.
Failed project
In the past year, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that pursuing the right ideas means rejecting the wrong ideas. After 6 to 8 weeks, if a business fails to generate meaningful income, I will turn to other customers, or turn to a brand new project.
Is It Keto
Is It Keto tells readers which foods are suitable for a keto diet.
Starting in 2018, I started developing the Is It Keto website. This is a simple website that tells you whether certain foods are suitable for a keto diet.
I gave up this website in 2019, but after some of my new business ideas failed, I started again in April 2020. Although the Is It Keto website is profitable, it is almost negligible. Each visitor brings in less than $0.01 in revenue, so a substantial increase in visitors and/or revenue is required.
I tried to automate the writing of articles to achieve greater development. For the Is It Keto website, every article is 100% original, customized by me or the writers I hired. When reviewing what I already have, I noticedConsistent patterns, I can abstract them into a template, and then add the correct food names, photos and nutritional information, so that I can quickly create new web pages.
Create Is It Keto website articles in the template, using a programmatic approach.
In the beginning, templating content seemed to add hundreds of articles per week, but it turned out that scaling up so quickly without sacrificing quality is a challenge. In 2 months, I only managed to add 118 articles. The more templates I added, the faster the speed, but the added content did not attract enough users, it’s not worth it.
Another idea came from my friend Justin Vincent. He was shocked when he heard that my website has 70,000 to 100,000 page views per month, but the income is so low. He suggested that I create a paid sister product and use Is It Keto to attract qualified potential customers.
I tested the login pages of some keto diet communities and apps, but only 0.1% of visitors signed up for more information. The TinyPilot project started taking off at this time, so I put Is It Keto in a secondary position.
*I gave up my meal plan in January 2020.
WanderJest
WanderJest helps comedy fans find live comedy shows nearby.
WanderJest is a “short-lived” project I started in early 2020. I describe it as “an application similar to Bandsintown, but it is used to find comedy.” (Annotation: Bandsintown is an award-winning Android concert information and live concert discovery app.)
I like comedy, but I have missed countless opportunities to watch comedians perform near me. Either I didn’t join the correct mailing list, I didn’t follow the right social media account, or I didn’t check Ticketmaster at the right time. WanderJest wants to solve this problem by bringing together as many sources of program listings as possible.
I plan to make money through alliance deals with movie theaters, but no one uses my discount code. Later, as soon as the new crown epidemic broke out, I shut down the website.
Portfolio Rebalancer
Portfolio Rebalancer (Portfolio Rebalancer) helps passive investors manage their investments.
My investment portfolio is a combination of different types of stocks and bonds, and each asset type has a target ratio. As the price fluctuates, my investment balance will also change, so I must constantly adjust my position to return to my target ratio. Every year, I repeat this several times, tediously typing numbers into the spreadsheet until everything looks correct.
What if a web application can do this automatically? I made a quick prototype and shared it on reddit, my blog and Google Ads. In the first month, the tool attracted 1,000 visitors. Unfortunately, only one person signed up for the free trial and they have never upgraded the paid plan. At first I didn’t believe in this idea, so I changed my mind a month later.
Lessons and Lessons
The product and market fit is magic
Looking for “product and market fit”(product/market fit, PMF) means creating a product that is compatible with enough Connect with customers, so that your business is full of vitality. When the founders talked about achieving product-market fit, they described the search for true love in an equally breathtaking tone. I now know why.
In the first two and a half years of my work alone, I would spend hundreds of hours to implement an idea, but only saw a few dollars in extra income. At first glance, TinyPilot is a product that fits the market. I knew it as soon as I published a blog post.
For TinyPilot, I feelIt is the product that drives the business, and I let it happen. For a few months, I made serious mistakes in managing the business, but it has been developing.
When I improve the product, the effect is immediate and substantial. In November, I released a new high-end model TinyPilot. In the first month, 55 units were sold, generating an additional income of US$14,000. Compared to my 0.1% registration rate on Is It Keto and Portfolio Rebalancer, this is a good result.
Successful business creation does not need to be around the clock
I still clearly remember a show I watched at the UCB Comedy Theater at the end of 2017, but I don’t remember any jokes in the show. I just remember worrying about the paging opportunity in my pocket all the time, forcing me to go home quickly.
My team at Google has an “on call” rotation system, which means that every 2 months, you have to bring a pager wherever you go for two weeks. If the pager rings, you must “put your fingers on the keyboard” within 30 minutes.
After leaving Google, I am not sure about my future plans, but one thing is certain: I don’t use pagers anymore. And neither do I—I don’t think downtime will cause any major problems.
In two years or so, the idea began to emerge in my mind: that is this thing hindering my progress. Other founders are creating services that promise continuous availability, and why should I succeed with less investment?
Fortunately, Jason Cohen, the extraordinary guiding founder told me to continue doing what I am doing now. Well, he didn’t tell me exactly, but he felt that he was speaking to me directly. In his excellent 32-minute speech “Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business” (Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business), he strongly opposed the founder Create a “real-time” business. He explained that if you are a small self-financing business, it is not worth asking customers to wake you up in the middle of the night.
Video URL: https://youtu.be/otbnC2zE2rw
I’m glad I didn’t give in to fear. TinyPilot is far from “real-time”. Customers run my software on their own hardware so that I can shut down every server and code base without affecting anyone’s workflow.
Success is more stressful than failure
Although TinyPilot does not require continuous availability, I often forget it.
I couldn’t sleep for two days since I posted it to great fanfare. I sent all 9 sets of equipment to my customers, and then I was worried about what would happen next. What if everyone receives their equipment, but none of them can use it? What if my client wants TinyPilot to do something completely different? What if something goes wrong with everyone’s server?
I packed the first 9 TinyPilot orders
Fortunately, the initial customers liked their TinyPilots, so I finally felt relieved. But every few weeks, something new happens, which worries me for several days. For example, the post office lost a batch of key parts; a positive evaluation prompted a surge in orders and exhausted my inventory; I got a customs form wrongGrid, worried that he would go to jail in the exit prison, and was prepared for it.
In fact, the pressure I feel is self-conflicting. Who cares if I am out of stock for a few days? Due to poor planning and delayed orders, I feel very anxious, afraid of disappointing customers, but no one ever complains. In fact, when I apologize to a customer that the goods will arrive late, the customer will only say that they are moved, and I will take the time to tell them.
In order to reduce stress and separate work and personal life, I am doing better and better, but this is a continuous process.
Score last year’s goals
At the beginning of last year, I set 3 high-level goals.
1. Earn US$20,000 in income from my various businesses
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Result: $63,000 in revenue.
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Achievement: A+
It seemed bleak at first, but I far exceeded my goal. I think this is a great achievement, because my income in 2019 was only US$7,200, an increase of nearly 7 times.
2. Publish 10 blog posts
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Result: 9 blog posts published.
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Score: A-
I originally planned to publish 10 articles, but in order to start my writing course, I did not complete the 10th article. Despite this, my results on the blog this year have made me very satisfied. I wrote several articles, which made me feel proud and resonated with my readers.
3. Learn a new technology
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Result: I learned more JavaScript knowledge.
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Score: B-
I wanted to find an excuse to learn Rust, but I couldn’t find a suitable one.
Instead, I gained breadth and depth in JavaScript. I already know Vue, but this year, I learned Gridsome, a static website generator based on Vue. I used it to build my TinyPilot sales website and rewrote the Is It Keto website.
I also learned how to use pure JavaScript more effectively. TinyPilot’s web application is written in pure JavaScript, there are no steps to build or compile. Surprisingly, avoiding the use of modern JavaScript frameworks can save a lot of complexity.
Year 4 goals
Increase TinyPilot’s annual revenue to $600,000
Well, although it sounds a bit crazy, from the goal of 20,000/year to 600,000/year, I think it is achievable.
TinyPilot made $43,000 in January 2021. Therefore, at an average monthly growth rate of 3%, it can make $600,000 a year.
Publish 6 blog posts, publish a book
Since I started working for myself, I have always imagined that I could publish a book. This year, I finally did it.
This book will teach software engineers some practical ways to improve their writing skills. The tentative book is titled “Refactoring English: Effective Writing for Software Developers” (Refactoring English: Effective Writing for Software Developers).
TinyPilot automated management
At TinyPilot, my girlfriend and I work part-time, responsible for inventory management and packing orders. We like to work together, but this is a very fragile system with a very small scale. If one of us is not available for a few days, there will soon be a large backlog.
I want to systemize and outsource our processes so that we can take a two-week vacation without everything stagnating.
Concluding remarks
Before I quit my job, I kept reading books and listening to podcasts about startups. The most interesting part was the endless possibilities.
When you run your own business, you can do anything. As long as there is 1 month of available time and 10,000 dollars in funding, there are millions of ways to develop your business. You can add new features, try new marketing strategies, or hire new salespeople. You can create a brand new technology that no one in your industry has seen before.
Throughout my career, I have always been on a predetermined career ladder. To make progress, I must prove that I meet arbitrary standards that are only slightly similar to my daily work. If the manager asks me to add a new feature, I can’t say: “No, I think we need a better marketing strategy, so I’m going to do this.” But for my own business, I often say this . (However, at present, the manager and employees are both myself.)
When I finally see that one of my businesses has achieved financial success and has more revenue, it means more possibilities, just as fun as I hope. Although it’s stressful, it’s fun.
I feel extremely lucky once again to be able to work for myself, and I hope to do it forever.
Author introduction:
Michael Lynch, independent developer. Unit testing enthusiasts. TinyPilot KVM developer. Worked at Google and Microsoft.
Original link:
https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-3/
This article was originally published on the author’s personal blog, and authorized by the original author, Michael Lynch, was translated and shared on the InfoQ Chinese website.
thisThe text comes from WeChat official account: InfoQ (ID: infoqchina) , author: Michael Lynch