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Tell HN: Making a living from my side project – Part 1 – I'm Scared

3 points by MattBearman 11y ago

About six weeks ago I decided to try to turn by side project BugMuncher into my full time job. I posted a Tell HN at the time (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152465) and got some amazing responses, as well as some requests to document my progress - I was unsure at first, but I've now decided write a completely transparent blog series about it. I've just published the first instalment, which deals very honestly with the huge amount of fear I currently feel - https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-to-profitable-start-up-part-1.html - I'd love to get some feedback. Thanks, Matt

minimaxir 11y ago
A personal announcement of a blog is not a Tell HN. It would be better if you submitted the blog post directly.
- MattBearman 11y ago
  Yeah, I wasn't sure about posting this way, and wouldn't normally, but as this is really a follow up to my previous Tell HN it seemed appropriate. I would have posted the whole content on HN, but it wouldn't really work with in the confines of Hacker News formatting. Mods please delete / turn into a link if it's not ok.
tpiha 11y ago
It was amazing to read this Matt, honestly. It was like I was reading something I would write 6 months or 1 year down the road. I just finished my project Synkee and now I'm trying to build up courage to post it on HN. :) And my numbers look almost exactly the same. Thumbs up, I will definitely follow your progress, maybe even become a customer down the road. I wish you luck and success my friend!
- MattBearman 11y ago
  Thanks! Synkee looks cool, it's something I could have done with when I was still freelancing, as some clients were stuck with FTP only servers!
  - tpiha 11y ago
    Thank you! Yeah, that's exactly what I was aiming for, it's really a nightmare to work with bare FTP.
benologist 11y ago
You've calculated how long it will take to break even on your salary alone via becoming a successful blogger... and it's an optimistic 18 month crawl in which helping other entrepreneurs is some sort of priority alongside programming and kitten blog posts. Some thoughts: 1) if traffic's not coming to you for your product the vast majority of it won't care for your product, your best case scenario on product-irrelevant blog posts is awful traffic and most won't even deliver that 2) don't worry about other entrepreneurs', they can find blog posts in lots of places and they're nowhere near as important as your company 3) Buffer and Groove each have the luxury of over a $million in investments to pay people to write content that falls off HN, Reddit etc like it never existed while other people focus on building their businesses, you're on your own so you're doing one or the other really You have a finished product that some people are paying for, why isn't $3000 MRR your goal for this year? That is surely possible somehow.
- MattBearman 11y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. You are correct, I have been discovering through my content marketing efforts that literally none of my signups come from initially landing on a blog post. Yet that strange part is since I've been content marketing, signups have noticeably increased in proportion to page views. $3000 MRR is my goal for ASAP :) I've said 9 months as it seems reasonable, but more because this is virgin territory for me, I have no idea what kind of MoM growth is possible for BugMuncher, I'll be re-evaluating as time goes on.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - benologist 11y ago
    You're only 6 - 40 new business customers away from that number, I think it's less daunting that way - just reach out to companies and invite them to use your service, you'll hit it in no time and quickly get good at selling it.

3 points by MattBearman 11y ago

minimaxir 11y ago

A personal announcement of a blog is not a Tell HN. It would be better if you submitted the blog post directly.

MattBearman 11y ago
Yeah, I wasn't sure about posting this way, and wouldn't normally, but as this is really a follow up to my previous Tell HN it seemed appropriate. I would have posted the whole content on HN, but it wouldn't really work with in the confines of Hacker News formatting. Mods please delete / turn into a link if it's not ok.

tpiha 11y ago

It was amazing to read this Matt, honestly. It was like I was reading something I would write 6 months or 1 year down the road. I just finished my project Synkee and now I'm trying to build up courage to post it on HN. :) And my numbers look almost exactly the same. Thumbs up, I will definitely follow your progress, maybe even become a customer down the road. I wish you luck and success my friend!

MattBearman 11y ago
Thanks! Synkee looks cool, it's something I could have done with when I was still freelancing, as some clients were stuck with FTP only servers!
- tpiha 11y ago
  Thank you! Yeah, that's exactly what I was aiming for, it's really a nightmare to work with bare FTP.

benologist 11y ago

You've calculated how long it will take to break even on your salary alone via becoming a successful blogger... and it's an optimistic 18 month crawl in which helping other entrepreneurs is some sort of priority alongside programming and kitten blog posts. Some thoughts: 1) if traffic's not coming to you for your product the vast majority of it won't care for your product, your best case scenario on product-irrelevant blog posts is awful traffic and most won't even deliver that 2) don't worry about other entrepreneurs', they can find blog posts in lots of places and they're nowhere near as important as your company 3) Buffer and Groove each have the luxury of over a $million in investments to pay people to write content that falls off HN, Reddit etc like it never existed while other people focus on building their businesses, you're on your own so you're doing one or the other really You have a finished product that some people are paying for, why isn't $3000 MRR your goal for this year? That is surely possible somehow.

MattBearman 11y ago
Thanks for the feedback. You are correct, I have been discovering through my content marketing efforts that literally none of my signups come from initially landing on a blog post. Yet that strange part is since I've been content marketing, signups have noticeably increased in proportion to page views. $3000 MRR is my goal for ASAP :) I've said 9 months as it seems reasonable, but more because this is virgin territory for me, I have no idea what kind of MoM growth is possible for BugMuncher, I'll be re-evaluating as time goes on.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- benologist 11y ago
  You're only 6 - 40 new business customers away from that number, I think it's less daunting that way - just reach out to companies and invite them to use your service, you'll hit it in no time and quickly get good at selling it.