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Hello HN friends! Today is a special day. My solo side project has hit 100K in sales, which is absolutely insane. When I started this thing, I never thought th

Hello HN friends! Today is a special day. My solo side project has hit 100K in sales, which is absolutely insane. When I started this thing, I never thought this would happen. Monetizing an open-source project is very difficult, so I decided to share my personal journey and lessons learned. This is a visual timeline showing all the lessons learned from $0 to $100k in one year. I hope this can be helpful and inspire your own journey :) Let me know if you have any questions! I'm here to answer every single one of them.

Taylor_OD 6y ago
Congrats! They is quite the milestone. No questions. Just a congrats and thank you for sharing your story.
- zenorocha 6y ago
  Thank you so much Taylor!
rmsaksida 6y ago
Congrats!
imwillofficial 6y ago
So special request. Would you consider making a theme for the Nova text editor by Panic? It’s my go to lately!
- zenorocha 6y ago
  The open source version is here https://draculatheme.com/nova https://draculatheme.com/nova In the next couple of weeks, I should add the premium version on Dracula PRO ;)
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    Awesome, thanks!
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    Btw, purchased! Special request number 2, can you make a ZSH theme that doesn't require Oh-my-zsh? I hate using so much bloat when all I want is a cool terminal.
robm50 6y ago
Good job, sir.
ed_voc 6y ago
Congrats on the success. Did you get many repeat customers? I see the licence is limited to 3 machines instead of the user. Did this have the effect of getting customers to buy additional licences? It would be interesting to know if people are willing to pay again so they can use software on multiple devices or if it is more likely to put people off buying the software.
grumple 6y ago
Congrats dude! I'm impressed by this project and that you got people to pay for it. Any why shouldn't they? It takes time and skills to do design work like this.
kylegalbraith 6y ago
Just wanted to say congrats on the success and that I really enjoyed the post. The timeline outline of it all was a lot easier to read and follow than similar posts I have read around these types of things.
- zenorocha 6y ago
  I'm glad to hear that. Thanks!
rwieruch 6y ago
Congrats! \o/ NB: Really refreshing how you created this timeline! You should make a (Gatsby) theme out of it :)
- zenorocha 6y ago
  Good idea!
jqquah 6y ago
Congrats man Really enjoyed reading the journey, it was long but wow.
- zenorocha 6y ago
  I'm glad this was helpful!
rexreed 6y ago
This is great visibility! But it leaves one big thing out. You didn't launch with no one paying attention. You already had a fan base - people you could reach out to. I know you had to build your email list from scratch, but at least you know who was going to be in that list, and those people already knew and had a relationship with you. You should go back farther in time to when you had no following, no people who cared, and no one who knew your name. As you said below, it's a 7 year overnight success. For those who want to replicate your success (not your product), what advice do you have for those who want to build a following so that later they can capture that following into something that will be beneficial?
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
  That's a very good point that people often fail to consider! I'm far from expert in this, but I'll reply with what my wife would say. She's in a completely unrelated, non-technical field and has a pretty good online following. In short: post things people are interested in, follow up with the ones who respond or ask questions and be genuinely interested in the people who follow you. Don't be fake. The theory is simple, putting it into practice for your particular field is the hard part :-)
snow_mac 6y ago
What was your website traffic before you launched your product? How did people find you?
dvt 6y ago
Huge congrats! Been following Dracula for a while :)
- zenorocha 6y ago
  Thanks! Let me know if you need anything ;)
ct0 6y ago
Congrats! Im just hoping that you can include Rstudio in your list of apps. Thanks!
HenryBemis 6y ago
Thank you for sharing!! This can act as an insiration and a guide to many who are thinking about making a similar step, but don't.
An0mammall 6y ago
Congrats man, that's amazing ♡
- zenorocha 6y ago
  Thank you so much :D
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
debo_ 6y ago
This is very cool. Do you have any insight into how many people are spending their own money to buy this theme vs. spending out of a budget their employer might give them? I could see a product like this being a no-brainer purchase for folks who might have, say, $500+ in productivity/gadgetry spend as a perk. I wonder if you could market directly to folks like that.
- zenorocha 6y ago
  Unfortunately I have zero insight about how many people spent their own money vs used their company budget to buy this. I should definitely do a better job by creating a template and allowing people to use that to convince their bosses. This site is a good example of that: product-toolkit.com Your post gave an interesting idea - a gallery of products that people can buy to spend their budgets in case they don't have ideas lol

Taylor_OD 6y ago

Congrats! They is quite the milestone. No questions. Just a congrats and thank you for sharing your story.

zenorocha 6y ago
Thank you so much Taylor!

rmsaksida 6y ago

Congrats!

imwillofficial 6y ago

So special request. Would you consider making a theme for the Nova text editor by Panic? It’s my go to lately!

zenorocha 6y ago
The open source version is here https://draculatheme.com/nova https://draculatheme.com/nova In the next couple of weeks, I should add the premium version on Dracula PRO ;)
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  Awesome, thanks!
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  Btw, purchased! Special request number 2, can you make a ZSH theme that doesn't require Oh-my-zsh? I hate using so much bloat when all I want is a cool terminal.

robm50 6y ago

Good job, sir.

ed_voc 6y ago

Congrats on the success. Did you get many repeat customers? I see the licence is limited to 3 machines instead of the user. Did this have the effect of getting customers to buy additional licences? It would be interesting to know if people are willing to pay again so they can use software on multiple devices or if it is more likely to put people off buying the software.

grumple 6y ago

Congrats dude! I'm impressed by this project and that you got people to pay for it. Any why shouldn't they? It takes time and skills to do design work like this.

kylegalbraith 6y ago

Just wanted to say congrats on the success and that I really enjoyed the post. The timeline outline of it all was a lot easier to read and follow than similar posts I have read around these types of things.

zenorocha 6y ago
I'm glad to hear that. Thanks!

rwieruch 6y ago

Congrats! \o/ NB: Really refreshing how you created this timeline! You should make a (Gatsby) theme out of it :)

zenorocha 6y ago
Good idea!

jqquah 6y ago

Congrats man Really enjoyed reading the journey, it was long but wow.

zenorocha 6y ago
I'm glad this was helpful!

rexreed 6y ago

This is great visibility! But it leaves one big thing out. You didn't launch with no one paying attention. You already had a fan base - people you could reach out to. I know you had to build your email list from scratch, but at least you know who was going to be in that list, and those people already knew and had a relationship with you. You should go back farther in time to when you had no following, no people who cared, and no one who knew your name. As you said below, it's a 7 year overnight success. For those who want to replicate your success (not your product), what advice do you have for those who want to build a following so that later they can capture that following into something that will be beneficial?

HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
That's a very good point that people often fail to consider! I'm far from expert in this, but I'll reply with what my wife would say. She's in a completely unrelated, non-technical field and has a pretty good online following. In short: post things people are interested in, follow up with the ones who respond or ask questions and be genuinely interested in the people who follow you. Don't be fake. The theory is simple, putting it into practice for your particular field is the hard part :-)

snow_mac 6y ago

What was your website traffic before you launched your product? How did people find you?

dvt 6y ago

Huge congrats! Been following Dracula for a while :)

zenorocha 6y ago
Thanks! Let me know if you need anything ;)

ct0 6y ago

Congrats! Im just hoping that you can include Rstudio in your list of apps. Thanks!

HenryBemis 6y ago

Thank you for sharing!! This can act as an insiration and a guide to many who are thinking about making a similar step, but don't.

An0mammall 6y ago

Congrats man, that's amazing ♡

zenorocha 6y ago
Thank you so much :D

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

debo_ 6y ago

This is very cool. Do you have any insight into how many people are spending their own money to buy this theme vs. spending out of a budget their employer might give them? I could see a product like this being a no-brainer purchase for folks who might have, say, $500+ in productivity/gadgetry spend as a perk. I wonder if you could market directly to folks like that.

zenorocha 6y ago
Unfortunately I have zero insight about how many people spent their own money vs used their company budget to buy this. I should definitely do a better job by creating a template and allowing people to use that to convince their bosses. This site is a good example of that: product-toolkit.com Your post gave an interesting idea - a gallery of products that people can buy to spend their budgets in case they don't have ideas lol