Selling My First Digital Product

This month, I launched my first ever digital product "Side Projects Making $$$+". I decided after compiling a years worth of all of Hacker News side project stories from 2022, that I had to go the whole hog and organise all six available years from 2017-2022.

It was such an effort and I felt represented real business value, packed with interesting stories of what it took a project to be successful - so I decided to make it available for sale. If you're interested in hearing how it went - including posting it to Product Hunt, read the full story on my blog and check it out on Gumroad below.

Since then, I've started highlighting some of most interesting stories I found with a view to compile them into a book. My thinking is that devs would prefer to have it packaged in this easy to read format. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

One thing looking over all these projects has taught me is there is so many different ways for developers to make a living online. One I've been interested in for some time is that of a productised service. In this weeks issue, you'll find an interview with founder Brett Williams who recently reached $1.5M ARR with his productised design service Design Joy. Brett's story is particularly special since he does all this as a company of one.

There's plenty of other great stories and code for you to spend time with in todays issue. I'm considering sending them out on a fortnightly basis again - let me know your thoughts by replying to this email.

Until next time, keep on shipping!

Ian

Side Projects Making $$$+

A complete collection of notion databases detailing every side project making real money posted to Hacker News "side project" threads from 2017-2022.

Stories

How I built a MacOS app and made $5000+ in a week

Alyssa describes how after getting frustrated with her mac, she built Later whilst learning Swift at the same time. Over the course of a week, it made over $5000.

I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

A lesson in why you shouldn't build before you've proven a business idea is viable.

With $15 in Sales, My First Digital Product is My Most Successful Ever

I discuss how I released my first ever digital product over the course of a weekend. At the point of writing it had only been available for 2 days and was already my most successful product ever with a grand total of 3 sales, yielding a massive $15!

How I grew a simple solitaire game to $10k MRR

Holger Sinbaek describes how a mobile game which originally made $30 on launch day now makes $10k/mo as a web app.

A $120k MRR one-person business - Brett Williams, Designjoy

Brett Williams is the founder everyone is talking about after experiencing massive growth with his solo productised service Designjoy. Here he talks with Dan and James from on the No More Mondays Podcast.

Tools

Take automated screenshots of websites

Shot Scraper is a Python CLI by Simon Willison for taking automated screenshots of websites

Developer's Guide to Video Production: Fundamentals of Video

Lee Robinson describes how to start creating videos for developers, including the fundamentals of video production and equipment needed for filming..

Bullet Train Rails SaaS Template

Bullet Train is a Ruby on Rails template that helps you develop your SaaS quickly. It's recently launched an open source offering.

Is it Coding Week or Marketing Week?

Jon from Bannerbear advocates that you should split your time 50/50 on coding and marketing for your startup. Is this week coding week or marketing week?

Mantine

A React component and hooks library with native dark theme support and a focus on usability, accessibility and developer experience.

A Favourite Tweet