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A solo journey to $100k in sales

draculatheme.com

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Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#101

Post by jqquah »

zenorocha wrote: post #2

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 y…

Congrats man

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

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#103

Post by Vinnl »

> I never had time to work on my open source projects, but now that I was monetizing, I was able to spend more time doing something I love.

That's pretty cool, but also only is true because he appears to love creating marketing pages, blogging, writing a book, creating themes for applications he doesn't use himself, etc.

I'm happy that he (/you, I see you're reading along Zeno - thanks for sharing), but it's not exactly what I'd have in mind for my "working on open source" daydream :)

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#104

Post by throwawayffffas »

scruple wrote: post #45
Swizec wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$99 for a great config file is buying time. A good config can take years to hone. Easily adds up to 50 hours over 10 years. How much are your 50 hours worth? What about cutting that 10 year lead time down to 1h? LastPass on the other hand is a tool you use because the world sucks. And their UX is pretty bad. And switching away is an annoying chore. You feel trapped and extorted into paying. I configured my own editor…

I use BitWarden because the world sucks. I use LastPass because my employer compels me to.

I am writing my own password manager because the world sucks. I use passpack because I am not done.

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#105

Post by TameAntelope »

DrBazza wrote: post #65
laurent92 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2001, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar thought “Let’s sell an equivalent to the dozen of free open-source bugtrackers, but for a price.” Today Atlassian is worth about $60bn, they owned about 75%.

And it's ripe for a lightweight alternative that gets customers that want the fast, basic set of bug tracking features. Jira is horrific.

I find the most common source of Jira-hate is a combined refusal to leave many of its features on the table by management and general ignorance about how little Jira actually imposes on you by the gangpressed users.

Most of that bloat you have to deal with? Blame your bosses, not Atlassian.

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#106

Post by rexreed »

zenorocha wrote: post #2

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 y…

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?

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#107

Post by snow_mac »

zenorocha wrote: post #2

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 y…

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

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#108

Post by dvt »

zenorocha wrote: post #2

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 y…

Huge congrats! Been following Dracula for a while :)

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#109

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

rexreed wrote: post #106
zenorocha wrote: post #2

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 y…

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 c…

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 :-)

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