My project, PDFShift, received it's first payment today, after long weeks of hard work and thoughts about pulling marketing ideas after the other. And this post is about this ; the true growth of startups.
Sure thing, this title is awesome and ... surprising? at the same time!
But this is also a reality face-off, and it's the reason for my post here.
The thing is, we are getting more and more posts like "I made $10k in just ONE week, AMA", "How we bootstrapped our way to $40k MRR in just three months!" and the likes.
Don't get me wrong, this is fantastic! and the team behind these services are talented to pull such an exploit.
But. That's. Not. Common.™
This is porn for (aspiring) entrepreneur, but for most of us, the reality is way harder than that.
Once you finally ship your project (congratulation!), you are just getting started (yeah ... sorry). You need to get the word out, you need to market your product, talk to your customers, find a niche, exploit it, rinse and repeat. You also need to update your product, iterate, fix it and improve it.
This takes time, often months, and it's easy to be discouraged when you hustle for your baby, months after months, and nothing comes out.
But the worse part is, you are being constantly hit by sensational posts like the ones I mentioned, and you start to feel like your product is maybe not that great, maybe even not good at all.
This can be discouraging, heck! this IS discouraging! Why would they get $10k in just one week, when you work your a$$ off for months and get nothing?
Thing is, your market is probably not the same, and react differently. Maybe your approach is different, and take more time to convert a customer. Maybe, and this is hard, but maybe your product is not aligned with your target market, or this target market is too small.
Taking a project off the ground is hard, and it takes time - a lot of time! It requires perseverance, commitment, and focus.
If you can keep your head clear, and commit to your project, you'll have a higher chance to succeed, and maybe one day, you'll also do an "I run a $XXXM ARR company, ask me anything!"
Stay focused!
lol. i read this as 0 to 9k in 20 days :-) Good article though. thanks for sharing 👍
IH is starting to meme itself :D
I have to read the title a couple of times to make sure it was just $9
Seeing the number of upvotes you got, I'm guessing you are not the only one to read that! ahahahah :)
Thanks! See? We are used to these ;)
Thanks for the perspective! It's a good reminder to not gauge our success only by comparing ourselves to others.
As one person recently put it "Comparison is the thief of joy".
If I didn't know that someone else had gone from idea to $1 Bajillion in 3 days I wouldn't feel so bad that it's taken myself 3 months just to get my first trial users... ha!
Still, that being said, it's worth a celebration any time someone goes from $0 to $1. Nicely done 👏👏👏
Thank you ! :)
Congrats Cyril on your first customer of PDFShift. Your post rings true. What those "had instant success" posts don't often detail is the months or years before their launch where they built a relevant career or audience that allowed their product launch to be an "overnight success". It's like an iceberg. We're only just seeing the tip above the surface of what's going on.
P.S. So cool that you're the guy behind Voila Norbert! I used to be a software engineer at SalesLoft. Were we ever on your radar? We had a similar product. Cheers again to your success with PDFShift.
P.P.S. Your other active side projects are really interesting to me. I might want to use Sponsored.tech to promote my paid training course.
I loved your comment! It's exactly right on point! Thank you!
At the time we sold Norbert, SalesLoft started to have traction, so yeah, we heard of it, but right after the sale we stopped looking for alternative so I'm sorry but I didn't paid much attention after that.
Sponsored.tech is my other baby project, but is harder to get traction. There is also a few things missing that is key to what I plan to do so I can't only publish it. But I work on it from time to time, so hopefully someday it will be released! :)
Thank you for your comment!
No worries at all. Sounds like you sold it pretty quickly.
What's harder about getting traction with it? What's missing?
It's more related to the market. Not many people view newsletter as a way to promote their business, so it's harder to break through.
But I have a few ideas up my sleeve that should help me out a bit, just need to implement them (and well... I'm busy with PDFShift right now ;))
so true man. i agree with you 100%.
Thanks!! :)
Neat home page.
Congratulations on your first dollars from this project.
Pricing page can be improved here : (conversions field)
1.000 conversions => 1,000 conversions
(Or I missed something.)
Thank you @o1lab ! I've updated the description per your recommendation.
Hah, that's what I'm going through right now! Really good post! Can I get your opinion about my product on private? I don't want to spam the comments :D
It's midnight here so I'll hit the bed, but feel free to reach out and I'll reply to you in the morning :)
You can also share your experience here, this will lead to other sharing their opinion too! It can be valuable for you :)
Really aspiring @cnicodeme . I also made 65 bucks this week after 20 days for https://ipgeolocation.io. I can corelate the joy of getting first paying customer. Its just start.
Thanks @ejaz_ahmed and congratulation for your win too!!
@cnicodeme congrats!
Do share this milestone on earlystagenews.com
Done, thank you :)
have you launched pdfshift on product hunt?
No, not yet, but I plan to do it.
I'm just waiting to have a few things ready (the website is not responsive yet!) and then, I'll have the help of a hunter to publish it!
I love the website UI, minimalist and beautiful at the same time
Thank you @maxencec ! I appreciate it!
Hey Man, Congrats to your Success. Looking forward to the day where I can say I made my first sale today.
Thank you @IJ ! I hope for you you'll get your first payment soon!! Good luck!
EVERY business starts with its first payment. Most don't get that far.
For what it's worth - I think you're giving away way too much for free...! Reduce that conversion number to 20 or 50... why give away all of your hard work?! $9 for 1000 sounds way too low too!
Also - be careful - the "Free forever" slogan is big and bold, and it conflicts with the fact there's a pricing tab at the top! "Free for low use" ... "Free for up to 50 conversions / month" etc etc...
You're ahead of the pack Cyril - best of luck to you.
This comment was absolutely great! Thank you for that @copemanm !
I really loved the first line, so true :)
The pricing was made to align with competitors, that's why it's like this, but I will probably change it in the future, trying alternatives and see what works best.
For the "Free forever", you are right, it is tickling me as it not really true, and I don't like to lie, but haven't took the time to reflect on that. I'll change it!
Thank you!
Pleasesd to help Cyril... Go take some action.
Why do I always feel so proud of people to even see $9MRR? It's like watching your kids grow up I guess. Even those first steps are beautiful and precious.
Yeah I agree with you! Everytime I see one of these "I got my first payment", I'm excited for them :)
congrats Cyril! loved the article
Thank you! :) Happy you loved it!