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I browsed the Envato / CodeCanyon popular products section looking for a product that enough people were buying and I felt confident about being able to build a

I browsed the Envato / CodeCanyon popular products section looking for a product that enough people were buying and I felt confident about being able to build an improved version of. This was around 2015, I landed on a JavaScript image cropper and uploader. I built my own and have been working on it ever since.

jdthedisciple 4y ago
and how have you been doing?
- rikschennink 4y ago
  First tried to release my product on Envato but the market turned out to be a race to the bottom and it wasn’t sustainable, couldn't get past $3K per month without drowning in support tickets. Moved to sell the product on my own website under my own terms and by now I’m at $20K+ per month revenue, which is pretty crazy.
  - mxuribe 4y ago
    That sounds really amazing! Would you be willing to share how you marketed your product - once you moved to selling from your own website? Certainly a big challenge is trying out an idea, but the next challenge is scaling adoption to make some worthwhile money. (By "scaling", i'm not referring to hypergrowth, web company scale....just, you know, maybe a side hustle or even making a modest full-time livelihood.)
    - rikschennink 4y ago
      Built a good product page with good keywords. I’ve also done some affiliate marketing which helped a lot with generating relevant traffic. I try to write a lot of articles on web dev topics on my blog. Additionally I built an open source file upload library (FilePond) which kind of acts as a stepping stone to the image editing solution. Easier to attract developers with a good free product. :) Finally I’ve moved into offering free services that utilize the editor I built, I try to launch these on easy to remember domain names. They act as a demo of what the editor can do and they feature i tiny “powered by” link at the top.
      - mxuribe 4y ago
        Well, you certainly have a great and comprehensive plan. And it sure is working for you. Thanks very much for sharing; all great ideas and tactics!!
emadda 4y ago
It looks neat. - Why Gumroad instead of Stripe/Paddle? - How do you enforce licenses? Once they have the JS they can just stop paying?
- rikschennink 4y ago
  Thanks! - Back when I started I didn’t have a backend for customer accounts so it was useful that Gumroad handled that. Can upload a file and then allow access to active subscribers. Paddle didn’t, Stripe doesn’t handle EU VAT nonsense. - I don’t. Pirates gonna Pirate. Customers have access to the last version released within their subscription period, license is perpetual.

jdthedisciple 4y ago

and how have you been doing?

rikschennink 4y ago
First tried to release my product on Envato but the market turned out to be a race to the bottom and it wasn’t sustainable, couldn't get past $3K per month without drowning in support tickets. Moved to sell the product on my own website under my own terms and by now I’m at $20K+ per month revenue, which is pretty crazy.
- mxuribe 4y ago
  That sounds really amazing! Would you be willing to share how you marketed your product - once you moved to selling from your own website? Certainly a big challenge is trying out an idea, but the next challenge is scaling adoption to make some worthwhile money. (By "scaling", i'm not referring to hypergrowth, web company scale....just, you know, maybe a side hustle or even making a modest full-time livelihood.)
  - rikschennink 4y ago
    Built a good product page with good keywords. I’ve also done some affiliate marketing which helped a lot with generating relevant traffic. I try to write a lot of articles on web dev topics on my blog. Additionally I built an open source file upload library (FilePond) which kind of acts as a stepping stone to the image editing solution. Easier to attract developers with a good free product. :) Finally I’ve moved into offering free services that utilize the editor I built, I try to launch these on easy to remember domain names. They act as a demo of what the editor can do and they feature i tiny “powered by” link at the top.
    - mxuribe 4y ago
      Well, you certainly have a great and comprehensive plan. And it sure is working for you. Thanks very much for sharing; all great ideas and tactics!!

emadda 4y ago

It looks neat. - Why Gumroad instead of Stripe/Paddle? - How do you enforce licenses? Once they have the JS they can just stop paying?

rikschennink 4y ago
Thanks! - Back when I started I didn’t have a backend for customer accounts so it was useful that Gumroad handled that. Can upload a file and then allow access to active subscribers. Paddle didn’t, Stripe doesn’t handle EU VAT nonsense. - I don’t. Pirates gonna Pirate. Customers have access to the last version released within their subscription period, license is perpetual.