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From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

casjam.com

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Re: From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

#2
"Both of his products, while seemingly very different, actually serve much of the same audience."

Exactly. That line is very important. In reality, he had an idea for a product and an existing market he had direct access to. That "less than a week" bit should really include the time it took to build the audience in the first place, which is probably a lot more than a week. A somewhat disingenuous claim.

Re: From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

#3
omg u r teh next steven job?

What really is the point of this article? Can someone wake me up when we are ready to let go of this passive income bullshit, worshipping the 'entrepreneur' as someone who can pull money out of their ass crack by finding and statistically needling their way into some exploitative niche and start focussing on things which have real social purpose and meaning and value to their creators and users?

Re: From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

#4
post #2

"Both of his products, while seemingly very different, actually serve much of the same audience." Exactly. That line is very important. In reality, he had an idea for a product and an existing market he had direct access to . That "less than a week" bit should really include the time it took to build the audience in the first place, which is probably a lot more than a week. A somewhat disingenuous claim.

like 99% of all the headlines that proclaim to do/learn something in a relatively short time period there is always something that is not counted.

Learn to write apps in 10 minutes! here the source code for an hello world, to learn anything else it will only take the rest of your life.

Re: From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

#5
post #3

omg u r teh next steven job? What really is the point of this article? Can someone wake me up when we are ready to let go of this passive income bullshit, worshipping the 'entrepreneur' as someone who can pull money out of their ass crack by finding and statistically needling their way into some exploitative niche and start focussing on things which have real social purpose and meaning and value to their creators and…

There are quite a few points of contention to be made with your comment:

First off, to group "24/7 on-call Wordpress support" with passive income is... well, a very, very long stretch.

on things which have real social purpose and meaning and value to their creators or users

"Someone I can turn to when my website blows up because of this new plugin I added" most assuredly provides meaning and value to WP Curve's customers. Also, I'm not sure who's exploiting who in that relationship.

But you're right, Dan should shut down WP Curve and the customers who are paying him real money to solve real problems and focus on more meaningful things.. like maybe building a social discovery app.

Re: From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

#6
post #2

"Both of his products, while seemingly very different, actually serve much of the same audience." Exactly. That line is very important. In reality, he had an idea for a product and an existing market he had direct access to . That "less than a week" bit should really include the time it took to build the audience in the first place, which is probably a lot more than a week. A somewhat disingenuous claim.

like 99% of all the headlines that proclaim to do/learn something in a relatively short time period there is always something that is not counted. Learn to write apps in 10 minutes! here the source code for an hello world, to learn anything else it will only take the rest of your life.

It's true that the kernal of the idea may have originated earlier, and developed over a longer period of time (which is kind of what Dan explained during the interview). But the point I was getting at with this title was that it was less than 1 week from the day Dan decided to pursue this idea and actually start this company that he had 10 paying customers.

Most founders have an idea, decide it's something they would like to pursue, then spend many weeks/months working to validate it, build MVP, attract customers. You can't deny that WP Curve started and gained initial traction exceptionally faster than most.

Re: From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

#7
post #3

omg u r teh next steven job? What really is the point of this article? Can someone wake me up when we are ready to let go of this passive income bullshit, worshipping the 'entrepreneur' as someone who can pull money out of their ass crack by finding and statistically needling their way into some exploitative niche and start focussing on things which have real social purpose and meaning and value to their creators and…

I suggest you actually listen to the interview. Nobody talked about this being a "passive income" business. In fact, early in the interview, Dan talked about how he doesn't believe any business can be truly automated, and that answer actually made me re-think the question I had asked.

"statistically needling their way into some exploitative niche" ...wow. Providing real support to website owners who need it (and are willing to pay for it) is exploitation?

In reality, WP Curve provides an alternative to hiring a web developer by the hour to provide support when needed. It's actually a much more efficient model for all parties (client and developer).

Re: From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

#8
Good idea for a service. Recently I told someone that a business can be built based solely on broken wordpress installations and this validates that it is indeed a big problem out there. Naturally the only reason I thought this was due to the emails I get related to this, and I never want to waste my time getting involved with wordpress. Now I have a site to recommend.

Re: From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

#9
post #8

Good idea for a service. Recently I told someone that a business can be built based solely on broken wordpress installations and this validates that it is indeed a big problem out there. Naturally the only reason I thought this was due to the emails I get related to this, and I never want to waste my time getting involved with wordpress. Now I have a site to recommend.

Ya, one of the great aspects / hidden benefit of a service like this is how it makes the lives of web developers easier because they have a reliable service they can refer clients to when they don't want to handle those pesky small maintenance tasks anymore.

Re: From Idea to 10 Paying Customers in Less Than a Week

#10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

like 99% of all the headlines that proclaim to do/learn something in a relatively short time period there is always something that is not counted. Learn to write apps in 10 minutes! here the source code for an hello world, to learn anything else it will only take the rest of your life.

It's true that the kernal of the idea may have originated earlier, and developed over a longer period of time (which is kind of what Dan explained during the interview). But the point I was getting at with this title was that it was less than 1 week from the day Dan decided to pursue this idea and actually start this company that he had 10 paying customers. Most founders have an idea, decide it's something they would…

> Most founders have an idea, decide it's something they would like to pursue, then spend many weeks/months working to validate it, build MVP, attract customers. You can't deny that WP Curve started and gained initial traction exceptionally faster than most.

I disagree. Most founders with an audience can generally get 10 paying customers fairly quickly. And, frankly, I think 10 days isn't at all fast, especially these days.

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