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I run Buttondown (buttondown.email) full-time now, but until this past year it was a side project for me alongside my day job as an IC (later EM). It took...ar
by jmduke 4y ago
I run Buttondown (buttondown.email) full-time now, but until this past year it was a side project for me alongside my day job as an IC (later EM).
It took...around two and a half years, I think, to hit $2k/mo MRR. It was definitely not the stereotypical "launch → iterate a bit → boom, PMF" story that you often hear, which was fine because it was 'just' a side project and I didn't have to worry about running out of money or time.
- dstick 4y agoLooks nice! Congrats :)
- quickthrower2 4y agoI never hear that story. But I hear the 2 year one alot. The advantage of getting older is time is at warp speed so 2 years is nothing ha ha!
- martin_a 4y ago> The advantage of getting older is time is at warp speed so 2 years is nothing ha ha! To be honest: Realising that time is going by so fast really scared me this week. Being mid-30s I really need to get my shit together, soon... :-D
- hammyhavoc 4y agoSpoiler: nobody ever gets their shit together
- jmduke 4y agoThere's a quote from Sarah Manguso's _300 Arguments_ that I love: > With great and solemn portent, my teacher announced she would tell us something that her teacher had told her, and that her teacher’s teacher had told him, and so on, back to Yeats: The thing to remember is that no one ever finds out that you don’t know what you’re doing.
- sharemywin 4y agoThat's was the most profound lesson I've heard in a long time. it touches on some many things.
- sammyo 4y agoWell unless you tell them, don't do that;-) ..sigh and don't ask me how I know.
- gorjusborg 4y agobut try anyway
- martin_a 4y agoNot sure that really helps. :-D
- hammyhavoc 4y agoI'll give you a small anecdote. A few months ago, my uncle died. To the outside world, he was very well put together, eloquent, and admired by all who knew him. Worked on physics books as a proofreader for a major publisher his whole life and was celebrated for his work. He was a recluse, but very sociable and an excellent go-between for any socially difficult situation, a real keeper of the peace. When I went to clear his home, I discovered that his personal space was the opposite of all the above. Dirty, messy, not well organized. Of all the people I ever expected that from, it wasn't him, but he did an excellent job of appearing to have his shit together. I shared this with a few others who had late family members that had done very well in their respective field, and the sentiment was the same: nobody ever really seems to get their shit together, they just get better at presenting the parts of themselves that matter. He was a very happy soul.
- yamtaddle 4y agoComing up on 40. A quarter feels about as long as two weeks did when I was 10, I reckon. If this keeps going, each year will feel like a day by the time I'm 60 or so. [EDIT] Incidentally, I reject the "routine & boredom are what do it" thing. High school felt like it took forever and was far more regimented and regular and boring than my life is now.
- quickthrower2 4y agoI think it is the brain’s compression algorithm that does it.
- shreedx 4y agoLooks amazing, good job man :) I'm actually way more motivated by seeing a post like this where you specifically say it took effort and time to build something meaningful, than seeing "10k$ MRR in a week, no-code" crap that we get bombarded with lately. Keep up the good work!
- tmountain 4y agoReally nice!
- paulgb 4y agoButtondown is great! It seems that being indie allows you to just ship a good product that does what it says on the box, instead of trying to squeeze every last bit of juice out by building a bloated product that is a jack of all trades but master of none.