Last week I launched a side-hustle business with voice cloning AI, but things are not going well. Learn why most business ideas fail and develop techniques to improve your idea validation process.   

#tech #business #startups 

💬 Chat with Me on Discord

https://discord.gg/fireship

🔗 Resources

The Art of the Side Hustle https://youtu.be/A4_TFHzqAAg
AI startup ideas https://youtu.be/Aa83vRghue4
My Voice Cloning Service https://vocalize.cloud
Twitter report of business launch https://twitter.com/fireship_dev/status/1659930105127505920

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🎨 My Editor Settings

- Atom One Dark 
- vscode-icons
- Fira Code Font

🔖 Topics Covered

- Advice for solo businesses run by programmers
- Building in public
- Community building and viral marketing techniques
- Top reasons businesses fail
- Tips for launching a tech startup
- How to validate business ideas
- Running a software development side-hustle
- Charles Bukowski Motivation
2024-02-04T13:23:37.948Z
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2-general-nova
2024-01-09.29447
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deprecated
This isn't the video I wanted to make today.
I thought it was going to be about how I bought a catamaran, quit YouTube, and started sailing around the world.
Unfortunately though, reality has deviated from my projections.
Despite getting 3,121 free tier sign ups and selling 1,000,000 100,000 tokens with $0 in infrastructure cost, thanks to the high risk free tier and a gross profit of $75.90, my side hustle is still failing.
And if we can't turn the ship around soon, I'm going to have to take it behind the barn.
I'd expect anyone in this unit to do the same for me.
In today's video, we'll look at everything that's gone wrong so far, but but more importantly, look at a variety of strategies that you can use to validate ideas and not things up.
First of all though, why is my side hustle failing?
I made a 75.9 dollar profit in the 1st day, which extrapolates to $27,000 in annual cash flow.
In addition, the business runs on autopilot, and I haven't had to touch the code since it went live.
That's great, and I'll likely keep it running indefinitely from here as a zombie project, but here's why I'm not very optimistic.
My conversion rate was only 0.3%.
That means I need to get 300 free users to sign up just to get one paid user who's only paying $6.90.
I'm able to be profitable in the short term because I have this YouTube channel that's like a gravy train with biscuit wheels, but I've already used up that ace in the hole.
I've only had 2 additional sales after the initial launch.
If I wanna keep pursuing this business, I need to either invest a lot of my own time into organic marketing or pay a friendly company like Google or Meta an absurd amount of money to appear on their platform.
It depends on the industry, but it can cost 100 of dollars just to get one conversion.
If you have a product that has a very high lifetime value, it can definitely be worth it to pay for advertising because if you can pay for ads while still being profitable, then there's really no reason not to.
In my case, though, my product only costs $6.90, which would put me deep in the red with paid ads.
But the one thing that's more valuable Money is your time, and I don't wanna spend my time standing on the corner twirling a sign for the side hustle.
Behind almost every successful small business is an extremely passionate and driven founder.
If you're going to try, go all the way.
Otherwise, don't even start.
This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, maybe even your mind.
It could not eating for 3 or 4 days.
It could mean freezing on a park bench.
It could mean jail.
It could mean derision.
It could mean mockery, isolation.
Isolation is the gift.
All the others They're just a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it.
And you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds, and it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
If you're going Shry, go all the way.
There's no other feeling like that.
You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.
You will ride life straight to perfect after.
It's the only good fight there is.
If that Bukowski poem doesn't describe how you feel about your project, then it might not be worth your time.
If I'm being totally honest with myself, I'd much Rather spend my time making content on Fire Ship than I would trying to build up this half assed voice cloning tool.
That being said, what could I have done differently to make this project more successful?
Well, First of all, I only spent 2 days building it, it's not responsive, and has a terrible landing page.
Any meaningful minimum viable project will take a lot longer this to develop, even when using a highly optimized tech stack like the it or suck it stack.
Instead of using IBM Carbon as the design system, I'd spend more time creating a unique custom design and have a much more powerful call to action on the home page.
And I should do a better job describing what the product is in just a few words.
In addition, you wanna use some kind of analytics to understand how your users are behaving because they're likely using your app in ways you never expected.
Like, Firebase itself was originally Supposed to be a chat widget kind of like intercom, but they found that developers were putting all kinds of random stuff in it, so they decided to pivot to a real time database.
Then a few Few years later it's acquired by Google, making them rich beyond their wildest dreams.
The founders made their own luck just like Tarantino.
To really optimize things, you should look at analytics, then do some AB testing with a small subset of users before you invest in a huge launch.
And that's especially important if you pay for ads then you really need to optimize that conversion rate, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
The big question is how do you even come up with an idea for a side hustle, and then more importantly, validate it?
Good ideas are easy to come by.
The problem is that there's a 100,000,000,000 people in the world if you include the outer lands beyond the ice wall, and somebody out there is likely already a millionaire with your idea.
The fact That someone is already executing your idea is actually a great way to get some early validation.
Big companies like Meta do this all the time by stealing features from smaller applications.
In fact, It's a good sign that someone's already doing your idea.
You just need to figure out what they're doing wrong or narrow down your target to find a segment of the market where you could doing things better.
In fact, that's been my approach to this YouTube channel.
When I started, there were already millions of JavaScript tutorials.
You might even call it an over saturated market, but I saw an opportunity to create shorter, faster content that I thought developers like me would like.
Just look at a company like Figma.
They built a design product that was really only slightly different than things offered by Adobe at the time, but they addressed the most common pain points and made a product that people love.
A few years later, Adobe acquires them for $20,000,000,000 just so they could make the product suck again.
Now once you have the general idea of what you want to build, another way to validate it is you build in public, and by that I mean get on social media and tell the world what you're building before you even build it.
What you'll find is that there's a lot of other indie makers doing the same thing that will support you and provide feedback.
Oh, and by the way, make sure to also follow me on Twitter because I'll be posting extra video content there soon.
That's great and all, but what you really need to do is validate the idea with your core audience.
One product everybody hates but still pays a $100 a year for is Microsoft Word.
What you can do is find real people or micro influencers on social media who use this product, but understand its pain points.
Follow these people, like their posts, and engage with them on social media.
Once you've gained their trust, you can then reach out with a direct message that's like, hey, I saw you hate Microsoft Word.
I'm developing this new product that solves x and y pain points.
Do you want to be the first one to check it out when it's ready?
This is highly surgical direct marketing, but it's also highly effective.
And people use it on me for their tech products, and it works.
Because, honestly, it's a win win.
If you're creating something that can make my life better, I'd like to know about it, but I'm by not going to click on one of your ads.
If you get a lot of people excited, that means you're probably on to something, but the reality is that rejection is very common, and you might get rejected a bunch of times even if you Have a good idea.
So another way to validate your idea is to get a bunch of people to sign up for it before you even build it.
You'll see startups do this all the time with wait list.
What they'll do is focus on marketing first, put together a bunch of promises, and then build up an email list that they can engage with in the future.
Do not underestimate the power of an email list.
Nobody's going to sign up for an email list unless they truly want what you're selling.
On top of that, once you have an email list, you can use it to invite people to a Discord rover, and from there, you're directly engaging with your target customers.
You can even give them early access in exchange for feedback about what works and what doesn't.
It's way easier to validate ideas when you have a bunch of collaborators who see the value in your ideas.
Then as you start actually delivering on your idea, this community will help promote the project because as you created something that adds value to people's lives.
It's a win win for everybody.
Sam Altman of Y Combinator and OpenAI said the single most important thing in a startup is to create a product So good that people will tell their friends about it, but you won't know if you have a good product until you actually build it.
Usually, when I have an idea, I have one core feature, but then a bunch of optional supporting features that I want to add on to it.
Avoid the temptation to ship a whole bunch of features all at once, instead focus on the core problem to get an MVP out there quickly and some real users who can validate the idea.
Software development almost never goes according to plan.
The end result ends up looking different than the initial vision because it's really hard to predict what the end user actually wants.
Build something lean and focused, get a user, and then build up an empire from there.
You can also launch on websites like Product Hunt You further validate if people are actually interested in what you're offering.
From a technical standpoint, it's usually a good idea to build apps that have as little friction as possible.
Like with Firebase, I might start with anonymous authentication, so the user doesn't have to enter an email to start using the main features.
Then at some later point after they've enjoyed using the app, they can upgrade to a full account.
If If I had a nickel for every time I decided not to use an app just because it had a sign in form, I would have a shitload of nickels.
But the bottom line is to try to keep your app minimal, free, and frictionless, list, especially in the early game.
Don't even worry about making money, just focus aggressively on making people's lives better.
In the mid game, after you have a customer base, you can start adding all extra features that your customers want, and charge money for them accordingly.
And then finally in the late game, you can lobby the government for regulations to crush all the smaller competition.
Now the final thing I want to say is that even if your side hustle fails like most of them do, you'll have gained a lot by grinding through this process.
You'll have some new contacts in your rolodex.
You'll have a small community of people pulling for you.
You'll have a cool project on your portfolio that can help you get a regular developer job.
You'll have a bunch of reusable code that you can use for your next failed project.
You'll have a more lean bank account, and finally, you'll have the pride in knowing that you took a risk and tried something that many people dream about, but most are too afraid to ever try.
Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.

Speaker 0: This isn't the video I wanted to make today. I thought it was going to be about how I bought a catamaran, quit YouTube, and started sailing around the world. Unfortunately though, reality has deviated from my projections. Despite getting 3,121 free tier sign ups and selling 1,000,000 100,000 tokens with $0 in infrastructure cost, thanks to the high risk free tier and a gross profit of $75.90, my side hustle is still failing. And if we can't turn the ship around soon, I'm going to have to take it behind the barn.

I'd expect anyone in this unit to do the same for me. In today's video, we'll look at everything that's gone wrong so far, but but more importantly, look at a variety of strategies that you can use to validate ideas and not things up. First of all though, why is my side hustle failing? I made a 75.9 dollar profit in the 1st day, which extrapolates to $27,000 in annual cash flow. In addition, the business runs on autopilot, and I haven't had to touch the code since it went live.

That's great, and I'll likely keep it running indefinitely from here as a zombie project, but here's why I'm not very optimistic. My conversion rate was only 0.3%. That means I need to get 300 free users to sign up just to get one paid user who's only paying $6.90. I'm able to be profitable in the short term because I have this YouTube channel that's like a gravy train with biscuit wheels, but I've already used up that ace in the hole. I've only had 2 additional sales after the initial launch.

If I wanna keep pursuing this business, I need to either invest a lot of my own time into organic marketing or pay a friendly company like Google or Meta an absurd amount of money to appear on their platform. It depends on the industry, but it can cost 100 of dollars just to get one conversion. If you have a product that has a very high lifetime value, it can definitely be worth it to pay for advertising because if you can pay for ads while still being profitable, then there's really no reason not to. In my case, though, my product only costs $6.90, which would put me deep in the red with paid ads. But the one thing that's more valuable Money is your time, and I don't wanna spend my time standing on the corner twirling a sign for the side hustle.

Behind almost every successful small business is an extremely passionate and driven founder. If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, maybe even your mind. It could not eating for 3 or 4 days.

It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift.

All the others They're just a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds, and it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going Shry, go all the way. There's no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.

You will ride life straight to perfect after. It's the only good fight there is. If that Bukowski poem doesn't describe how you feel about your project, then it might not be worth your time. If I'm being totally honest with myself, I'd much Rather spend my time making content on Fire Ship than I would trying to build up this half assed voice cloning tool. That being said, what could I have done differently to make this project more successful?

Well, First of all, I only spent 2 days building it, it's not responsive, and has a terrible landing page. Any meaningful minimum viable project will take a lot longer this to develop, even when using a highly optimized tech stack like the it or suck it stack. Instead of using IBM Carbon as the design system, I'd spend more time creating a unique custom design and have a much more powerful call to action on the home page. And I should do a better job describing what the product is in just a few words. In addition, you wanna use some kind of analytics to understand how your users are behaving because they're likely using your app in ways you never expected.

Like, Firebase itself was originally Supposed to be a chat widget kind of like intercom, but they found that developers were putting all kinds of random stuff in it, so they decided to pivot to a real time database. Then a few Few years later it's acquired by Google, making them rich beyond their wildest dreams. The founders made their own luck just like Tarantino. To really optimize things, you should look at analytics, then do some AB testing with a small subset of users before you invest in a huge launch. And that's especially important if you pay for ads then you really need to optimize that conversion rate, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

The big question is how do you even come up with an idea for a side hustle, and then more importantly, validate it? Good ideas are easy to come by. The problem is that there's a 100,000,000,000 people in the world if you include the outer lands beyond the ice wall, and somebody out there is likely already a millionaire with your idea. The fact That someone is already executing your idea is actually a great way to get some early validation. Big companies like Meta do this all the time by stealing features from smaller applications.

In fact, It's a good sign that someone's already doing your idea. You just need to figure out what they're doing wrong or narrow down your target to find a segment of the market where you could doing things better. In fact, that's been my approach to this YouTube channel. When I started, there were already millions of JavaScript tutorials. You might even call it an over saturated market, but I saw an opportunity to create shorter, faster content that I thought developers like me would like.

Just look at a company like Figma. They built a design product that was really only slightly different than things offered by Adobe at the time, but they addressed the most common pain points and made a product that people love. A few years later, Adobe acquires them for $20,000,000,000 just so they could make the product suck again. Now once you have the general idea of what you want to build, another way to validate it is you build in public, and by that I mean get on social media and tell the world what you're building before you even build it. What you'll find is that there's a lot of other indie makers doing the same thing that will support you and provide feedback.

Oh, and by the way, make sure to also follow me on Twitter because I'll be posting extra video content there soon. That's great and all, but what you really need to do is validate the idea with your core audience. One product everybody hates but still pays a $100 a year for is Microsoft Word. What you can do is find real people or micro influencers on social media who use this product, but understand its pain points. Follow these people, like their posts, and engage with them on social media.

Once you've gained their trust, you can then reach out with a direct message that's like, hey, I saw you hate Microsoft Word. I'm developing this new product that solves x and y pain points. Do you want to be the first one to check it out when it's ready? This is highly surgical direct marketing, but it's also highly effective. And people use it on me for their tech products, and it works.

Because, honestly, it's a win win. If you're creating something that can make my life better, I'd like to know about it, but I'm by not going to click on one of your ads. If you get a lot of people excited, that means you're probably on to something, but the reality is that rejection is very common, and you might get rejected a bunch of times even if you Have a good idea. So another way to validate your idea is to get a bunch of people to sign up for it before you even build it. You'll see startups do this all the time with wait list.

What they'll do is focus on marketing first, put together a bunch of promises, and then build up an email list that they can engage with in the future. Do not underestimate the power of an email list. Nobody's going to sign up for an email list unless they truly want what you're selling. On top of that, once you have an email list, you can use it to invite people to a Discord rover, and from there, you're directly engaging with your target customers. You can even give them early access in exchange for feedback about what works and what doesn't.

It's way easier to validate ideas when you have a bunch of collaborators who see the value in your ideas. Then as you start actually delivering on your idea, this community will help promote the project because as you created something that adds value to people's lives. It's a win win for everybody. Sam Altman of Y Combinator and OpenAI said the single most important thing in a startup is to create a product So good that people will tell their friends about it, but you won't know if you have a good product until you actually build it. Usually, when I have an idea, I have one core feature, but then a bunch of optional supporting features that I want to add on to it.

Avoid the temptation to ship a whole bunch of features all at once, instead focus on the core problem to get an MVP out there quickly and some real users who can validate the idea. Software development almost never goes according to plan. The end result ends up looking different than the initial vision because it's really hard to predict what the end user actually wants. Build something lean and focused, get a user, and then build up an empire from there. You can also launch on websites like Product Hunt You further validate if people are actually interested in what you're offering.

From a technical standpoint, it's usually a good idea to build apps that have as little friction as possible. Like with Firebase, I might start with anonymous authentication, so the user doesn't have to enter an email to start using the main features. Then at some later point after they've enjoyed using the app, they can upgrade to a full account. If If I had a nickel for every time I decided not to use an app just because it had a sign in form, I would have a shitload of nickels. But the bottom line is to try to keep your app minimal, free, and frictionless, list, especially in the early game.

Don't even worry about making money, just focus aggressively on making people's lives better. In the mid game, after you have a customer base, you can start adding all extra features that your customers want, and charge money for them accordingly. And then finally in the late game, you can lobby the government for regulations to crush all the smaller competition. Now the final thing I want to say is that even if your side hustle fails like most of them do, you'll have gained a lot by grinding through this process. You'll have some new contacts in your rolodex.

You'll have a small community of people pulling for you. You'll have a cool project on your portfolio that can help you get a regular developer job. You'll have a bunch of reusable code that you can use for your next failed project. You'll have a more lean bank account, and finally, you'll have the pride in knowing that you took a risk and tried something that many people dream about, but most are too afraid to ever try. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
This isn't the video I wanted to make today. I thought it was going to be about how I bought a catamaran, quit YouTube, and started sailing around the world. Unfortunately though, reality has deviated from my projections. Despite getting 3,121 free tier sign ups and selling 1,000,000 100,000 tokens with $0 in infrastructure cost, thanks to the high risk free tier and a gross profit of $75.90, my side hustle is still failing.
youtube
And if we can't turn the ship around soon, I'm going to have to take it behind the barn. I'd expect anyone in this unit to do the same for me.
In today's video, we'll look at everything that's gone wrong so far, but but more importantly, look at a variety of strategies that you can use to validate ideas and not things up. First of all though, why is my side hustle failing? I made a 75.9 dollar profit in the 1st day, which extrapolates to $27,000 in annual cash flow. In addition, the business runs on autopilot, and I haven't had to touch the code since it went live. That's great, and I'll likely keep it running indefinitely from here as a zombie project, but here's why I'm not very optimistic.
earnings
economics
sales
revenue
finance
My conversion rate was only 0.3%. That means I need to get 300 free users to sign up just to get one paid user who's only paying $6.90. I'm able to be profitable in the short term because I have this YouTube channel that's like a gravy train with biscuit wheels, but I've already used up that ace in the hole. I've only had 2 additional sales after the initial launch. If I wanna keep pursuing this business, I need to either invest a lot of my own time into organic marketing or pay a friendly company like Google or Meta an absurd amount of money to appear on their platform. It depends on the industry, but it can cost 100 of dollars just to get one conversion. If you have a product that has a very high lifetime value, it can definitely be worth it to pay for advertising because if you can pay for ads while still being profitable, then there's really no reason not to. In my case, though, my product only costs $6.90, which would put me deep in the red with paid ads. But the one thing that's more valuable Money is your time, and I don't wanna spend my time standing on the corner twirling a sign for the side hustle. Behind almost every successful small business is an extremely passionate and driven founder.
marketing
sales
business
advertising
commerce
youtube
revenue
customers
customer support
purchasing
If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, maybe even your mind. It could not eating for 3 or 4 days. It could mean freezing on a park bench.
It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others They're just a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds, and it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
prison
If you're going Shry, go all the way.
There's no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect after. It's the only good fight there is. If that Bukowski poem doesn't describe how you feel about your project, then it might not be worth your time. If I'm being totally honest with myself, I'd much Rather spend my time making content on Fire Ship than I would trying to build up this half assed voice cloning tool.
poetry
fiction
gods
That being said, what could I have done differently to make this project more successful? Well, First of all, I only spent 2 days building it, it's not responsive, and has a terrible landing page.
Any meaningful minimum viable project will take a lot longer this to develop, even when using a highly optimized tech stack like the it or suck it stack. Instead of using IBM Carbon as the design system, I'd spend more time creating a unique custom design and have a much more powerful call to action on the home page. And I should do a better job describing what the product is in just a few words. In addition, you wanna use some kind of analytics to understand how your users are behaving because they're likely using your app in ways you never expected. Like, Firebase itself was originally Supposed to be a chat widget kind of like intercom, but they found that developers were putting all kinds of random stuff in it, so they decided to pivot to a real time database.
home improvement
graphic design
computer science
Then a few Few years later it's acquired by Google, making them rich beyond their wildest dreams. The founders made their own luck just like Tarantino. To really optimize things, you should look at analytics, then do some AB testing with a small subset of users before you invest in a huge launch. And that's especially important if you pay for ads then you really need to optimize that conversion rate, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. The big question is how do you even come up with an idea for a side hustle, and then more importantly, validate it? Good ideas are easy to come by. The problem is that there's a 100,000,000,000 people in the world if you include the outer lands beyond the ice wall, and somebody out there is likely already a millionaire with your idea. The fact That someone is already executing your idea is actually a great way to get some early validation. Big companies like Meta do this all the time by stealing features from smaller applications. In fact, It's a good sign that someone's already doing your idea. You just need to figure out what they're doing wrong or narrow down your target to find a segment of the market where you could doing things better. In fact, that's been my approach to this YouTube channel. When I started, there were already millions of JavaScript tutorials. You might even call it an over saturated market, but I saw an opportunity to create shorter, faster content that I thought developers like me would like. Just look at a company like Figma.
youtube
google
artificial intelligence
advertising
machine learning
video gaming
investing
patents
marketing
intellectual property
streaming
They built a design product that was really only slightly different than things offered by Adobe at the time, but they addressed the most common pain points and made a product that people love.
A few years later, Adobe acquires them for $20,000,000,000 just so they could make the product suck again. Now once you have the general idea of what you want to build, another way to validate it is you build in public, and by that I mean get on social media and tell the world what you're building before you even build it.
intellectual property
What you'll find is that there's a lot of other indie makers doing the same thing that will support you and provide feedback. Oh, and by the way, make sure to also follow me on Twitter because I'll be posting extra video content there soon. That's great and all, but what you really need to do is validate the idea with your core audience. One product everybody hates but still pays a $100 a year for is Microsoft Word.
What you can do is find real people or micro influencers on social media who use this product, but understand its pain points. Follow these people, like their posts, and engage with them on social media. Once you've gained their trust, you can then reach out with a direct message that's like, hey, I saw you hate Microsoft Word. I'm developing this new product that solves x and y pain points. Do you want to be the first one to check it out when it's ready? This is highly surgical direct marketing, but it's also highly effective. And people use it on me for their tech products, and it works. Because, honestly, it's a win win. If you're creating something that can make my life better, I'd like to know about it, but I'm by not going to click on one of your ads. If you get a lot of people excited, that means you're probably on to something, but the reality is that rejection is very common, and you might get rejected a bunch of times even if you Have a good idea.
social media
advertising
marketing
surgery
microsoft
So another way to validate your idea is to get a bunch of people to sign up for it before you even build it. You'll see startups do this all the time with wait list.
What they'll do is focus on marketing first, put together a bunch of promises, and then build up an email list that they can engage with in the future. Do not underestimate the power of an email list. Nobody's going to sign up for an email list unless they truly want what you're selling. On top of that, once you have an email list, you can use it to invite people to a Discord rover, and from there, you're directly engaging with your target customers. You can even give them early access in exchange for feedback about what works and what doesn't. It's way easier to validate ideas when you have a bunch of collaborators who see the value in your ideas. Then as you start actually delivering on your idea, this community will help promote the project because as you created something that adds value to people's lives. It's a win win for everybody. Sam Altman of Y Combinator and OpenAI said the single most important thing in a startup is to create a product So good that people will tell their friends about it, but you won't know if you have a good product until you actually build it.
email
customer support
marketing
advertising
customers
technology
Usually, when I have an idea, I have one core feature, but then a bunch of optional supporting features that I want to add on to it.
Avoid the temptation to ship a whole bunch of features all at once, instead focus on the core problem to get an MVP out there quickly and some real users who can validate the idea. Software development almost never goes according to plan. The end result ends up looking different than the initial vision because it's really hard to predict what the end user actually wants. Build something lean and focused, get a user, and then build up an empire from there. You can also launch on websites like Product Hunt You further validate if people are actually interested in what you're offering. From a technical standpoint, it's usually a good idea to build apps that have as little friction as possible.
software development
software
artificial intelligence
Like with Firebase, I might start with anonymous authentication, so the user doesn't have to enter an email to start using the main features. Then at some later point after they've enjoyed using the app, they can upgrade to a full account. If If I had a nickel for every time I decided not to use an app just because it had a sign in form, I would have a shitload of nickels.
But the bottom line is to try to keep your app minimal, free, and frictionless, list, especially in the early game. Don't even worry about making money, just focus aggressively on making people's lives better. In the mid game, after you have a customer base, you can start adding all extra features that your customers want, and charge money for them accordingly. And then finally in the late game, you can lobby the government for regulations to crush all the smaller competition. Now the final thing I want to say is that even if your side hustle fails like most of them do, you'll have gained a lot by grinding through this process.
games
customers
gambling
marketing
customer support
You'll have some new contacts in your rolodex. You'll have a small community of people pulling for you. You'll have a cool project on your portfolio that can help you get a regular developer job. You'll have a bunch of reusable code that you can use for your next failed project. You'll have a more lean bank account, and finally, you'll have the pride in knowing that you took a risk and tried something that many people dream about, but most are too afraid to ever try. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
This isn't the video I wanted to make today. I thought it was going to be about how I bought a catamaran, quit YouTube, and started sailing around the world. Unfortunately though, reality has deviated from my projections. Despite getting 3,121 free tier sign ups and selling 1,000,000 100,000 tokens with $0 in infrastructure cost, thanks to the high risk free tier and a gross profit of $75.90, my side hustle is still failing. And if we can't turn the ship around soon, I'm going to have to take it behind the barn. I'd expect anyone in this unit to do the same for me. In today's video, we'll look at everything that's gone wrong so far, but but more importantly, look at a variety of strategies that you can use to validate ideas and not things up. First of all though, why is my side hustle failing? I made a 75.9 dollar profit in the 1st day, which extrapolates to $27,000 in annual cash flow. In addition, the business runs on autopilot, and I haven't had to touch the code since it went live. That's great, and I'll likely keep it running indefinitely from here as a zombie project, but here's why I'm not very optimistic. My conversion rate was only 0.3%. That means I need to get 300 free users to sign up just to get one paid user who's only paying $6.90. I'm able to be profitable in the short term because I have this YouTube channel that's like a gravy train with biscuit wheels, but I've already used up that ace in the hole. I've only had 2 additional sales after the initial launch. If I wanna keep pursuing this business, I need to either invest a lot of my own time into organic marketing or pay a friendly company like Google or Meta an absurd amount of money to appear on their platform. It depends on the industry, but it can cost 100 of dollars just to get one conversion. If you have a product that has a very high lifetime value, it can definitely be worth it to pay for advertising because if you can pay for ads while still being profitable, then there's really no reason not to. In my case, though, my product only costs $6.90, which would put me deep in the red with paid ads. But the one thing that's more valuable Money is your time, and I don't wanna spend my time standing on the corner twirling a sign for the side hustle. Behind almost every successful small business is an extremely passionate and driven founder. If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, maybe even your mind. It could not eating for 3 or 4 days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others They're just a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds, and it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going Shry, go all the way. There's no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect after. It's the only good fight there is. If that Bukowski poem doesn't describe how you feel about your project, then it might not be worth your time. If I'm being totally honest with myself, I'd much Rather spend my time making content on Fire Ship than I would trying to build up this half assed voice cloning tool. That being said, what could I have done differently to make this project more successful? Well, First of all, I only spent 2 days building it, it's not responsive, and has a terrible landing page. Any meaningful minimum viable project will take a lot longer this to develop, even when using a highly optimized tech stack like the it or suck it stack. Instead of using IBM Carbon as the design system, I'd spend more time creating a unique custom design and have a much more powerful call to action on the home page. And I should do a better job describing what the product is in just a few words. In addition, you wanna use some kind of analytics to understand how your users are behaving because they're likely using your app in ways you never expected. Like, Firebase itself was originally Supposed to be a chat widget kind of like intercom, but they found that developers were putting all kinds of random stuff in it, so they decided to pivot to a real time database. Then a few Few years later it's acquired by Google, making them rich beyond their wildest dreams. The founders made their own luck just like Tarantino. To really optimize things, you should look at analytics, then do some AB testing with a small subset of users before you invest in a huge launch. And that's especially important if you pay for ads then you really need to optimize that conversion rate, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. The big question is how do you even come up with an idea for a side hustle, and then more importantly, validate it? Good ideas are easy to come by. The problem is that there's a 100,000,000,000 people in the world if you include the outer lands beyond the ice wall, and somebody out there is likely already a millionaire with your idea. The fact That someone is already executing your idea is actually a great way to get some early validation. Big companies like Meta do this all the time by stealing features from smaller applications. In fact, It's a good sign that someone's already doing your idea. You just need to figure out what they're doing wrong or narrow down your target to find a segment of the market where you could doing things better. In fact, that's been my approach to this YouTube channel. When I started, there were already millions of JavaScript tutorials. You might even call it an over saturated market, but I saw an opportunity to create shorter, faster content that I thought developers like me would like. Just look at a company like Figma. They built a design product that was really only slightly different than things offered by Adobe at the time, but they addressed the most common pain points and made a product that people love. A few years later, Adobe acquires them for $20,000,000,000 just so they could make the product suck again. Now once you have the general idea of what you want to build, another way to validate it is you build in public, and by that I mean get on social media and tell the world what you're building before you even build it. What you'll find is that there's a lot of other indie makers doing the same thing that will support you and provide feedback. Oh, and by the way, make sure to also follow me on Twitter because I'll be posting extra video content there soon. That's great and all, but what you really need to do is validate the idea with your core audience. One product everybody hates but still pays a $100 a year for is Microsoft Word. What you can do is find real people or micro influencers on social media who use this product, but understand its pain points. Follow these people, like their posts, and engage with them on social media. Once you've gained their trust, you can then reach out with a direct message that's like, hey, I saw you hate Microsoft Word. I'm developing this new product that solves x and y pain points. Do you want to be the first one to check it out when it's ready? This is highly surgical direct marketing, but it's also highly effective. And people use it on me for their tech products, and it works. Because, honestly, it's a win win. If you're creating something that can make my life better, I'd like to know about it, but I'm by not going to click on one of your ads. If you get a lot of people excited, that means you're probably on to something, but the reality is that rejection is very common, and you might get rejected a bunch of times even if you Have a good idea. So another way to validate your idea is to get a bunch of people to sign up for it before you even build it. You'll see startups do this all the time with wait list. What they'll do is focus on marketing first, put together a bunch of promises, and then build up an email list that they can engage with in the future. Do not underestimate the power of an email list. Nobody's going to sign up for an email list unless they truly want what you're selling. On top of that, once you have an email list, you can use it to invite people to a Discord rover, and from there, you're directly engaging with your target customers. You can even give them early access in exchange for feedback about what works and what doesn't. It's way easier to validate ideas when you have a bunch of collaborators who see the value in your ideas. Then as you start actually delivering on your idea, this community will help promote the project because as you created something that adds value to people's lives. It's a win win for everybody. Sam Altman of Y Combinator and OpenAI said the single most important thing in a startup is to create a product So good that people will tell their friends about it, but you won't know if you have a good product until you actually build it. Usually, when I have an idea, I have one core feature, but then a bunch of optional supporting features that I want to add on to it. Avoid the temptation to ship a whole bunch of features all at once, instead focus on the core problem to get an MVP out there quickly and some real users who can validate the idea. Software development almost never goes according to plan. The end result ends up looking different than the initial vision because it's really hard to predict what the end user actually wants. Build something lean and focused, get a user, and then build up an empire from there. You can also launch on websites like Product Hunt You further validate if people are actually interested in what you're offering. From a technical standpoint, it's usually a good idea to build apps that have as little friction as possible. Like with Firebase, I might start with anonymous authentication, so the user doesn't have to enter an email to start using the main features. Then at some later point after they've enjoyed using the app, they can upgrade to a full account. If If I had a nickel for every time I decided not to use an app just because it had a sign in form, I would have a shitload of nickels. But the bottom line is to try to keep your app minimal, free, and frictionless, list, especially in the early game. Don't even worry about making money, just focus aggressively on making people's lives better. In the mid game, after you have a customer base, you can start adding all extra features that your customers want, and charge money for them accordingly. And then finally in the late game, you can lobby the government for regulations to crush all the smaller competition. Now the final thing I want to say is that even if your side hustle fails like most of them do, you'll have gained a lot by grinding through this process. You'll have some new contacts in your rolodex. You'll have a small community of people pulling for you. You'll have a cool project on your portfolio that can help you get a regular developer job. You'll have a bunch of reusable code that you can use for your next failed project. You'll have a more lean bank account, and finally, you'll have the pride in knowing that you took a risk and tried something that many people dream about, but most are too afraid to ever try. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
This
this
isn't
isn't
the
the
video
video
I
i
wanted
wanted
to
to
make
make
today.
today
I
i
thought
thought
it
it
was
was
going
going
to
to
be
be
about
about
how
how
I
i
bought
bought
a
a
catamaran,
catamaran
quit
quit
YouTube,
youtube
and
and
started
started
sailing
sailing
around
around
the
the
world.
world
Unfortunately
unfortunately
though,
though
reality
reality
has
has
deviated
deviated
from
from
my
my
projections.
projections
Despite
despite
getting
getting
3,121
3,121
free
free
tier
tier
sign
sign
ups
ups
and
and
selling
selling
1,000,000
1,000,000
100,000
100,000
tokens
tokens
with
with
$0
$0
in
in
infrastructure
infrastructure
cost,
cost
thanks
thanks
to
to
the
the
high
high
risk
risk
free
free
tier
tier
and
and
a
a
gross
gross
profit
profit
of
of
$75.90,
$75.90
my
my
side
side
hustle
hustle
is
is
still
still
failing.
failing
And
and
if
if
we
we
can't
can't
turn
turn
the
the
ship
ship
around
around
soon,
soon
I'm
i'm
going
going
to
to
have
have
to
to
take
take
it
it
behind
behind
the
the
barn.
barn
I'd
i'd
expect
expect
anyone
anyone
in
in
this
this
unit
unit
to
to
do
do
the
the
same
same
for
for
me.
me
In
in
today's
today's
video,
video
we'll
we'll
look
look
at
at
everything
everything
that's
that's
gone
gone
wrong
wrong
so
so
far,
far
but
but
but
but
more
more
importantly,
importantly
look
look
at
at
a
a
variety
variety
of
of
strategies
strategies
that
that
you
you
can
can
use
use
to
to
validate
validate
ideas
ideas
and
and
not
not
things
things
up.
up
First
first
of
of
all
all
though,
though
why
why
is
is
my
my
side
side
hustle
hustle
failing?
failing
I
i
made
made
a
a
75.9
75.9
dollar
dollar
profit
profit
in
in
the
the
1st
1st
day,
day
which
which
extrapolates
extrapolates
to
to
$27,000
$27,000
in
in
annual
annual
cash
cash
flow.
flow
In
in
addition,
addition
the
the
business
business
runs
runs
on
on
autopilot,
autopilot
and
and
I
i
haven't
haven't
had
had
to
to
touch
touch
the
the
code
code
since
since
it
it
went
went
live.
live
That's
that's
great,
great
and
and
I'll
i'll
likely
likely
keep
keep
it
it
running
running
indefinitely
indefinitely
from
from
here
here
as
as
a
a
zombie
zombie
project,
project
but
but
here's
here's
why
why
I'm
i'm
not
not
very
very
optimistic.
optimistic
My
my
conversion
conversion
rate
rate
was
was
only
only
0.3%.
0.3%
That
that
means
means
I
i
need
need
to
to
get
get
300
300
free
free
users
users
to
to
sign
sign
up
up
just
just
to
to
get
get
one
one
paid
paid
user
user
who's
who's
only
only
paying
paying
$6.90.
$6.90
I'm
i'm
able
able
to
to
be
be
profitable
profitable
in
in
the
the
short
short
term
term
because
because
I
i
have
have
this
this
YouTube
youtube
channel
channel
that's
that's
like
like
a
a
gravy
gravy
train
train
with
with
biscuit
biscuit
wheels,
wheels
but
but
I've
i've
already
already
used
used
up
up
that
that
ace
ace
in
in
the
the
hole.
hole
I've
i've
only
only
had
had
2
2
additional
additional
sales
sales
after
after
the
the
initial
initial
launch.
launch
If
if
I
i
wanna
wanna
keep
keep
pursuing
pursuing
this
this
business,
business
I
i
need
need
to
to
either
either
invest
invest
a
a
lot
lot
of
of
my
my
own
own
time
time
into
into
organic
organic
marketing
marketing
or
or
pay
pay
a
a
friendly
friendly
company
company
like
like
Google
google
or
or
Meta
meta
an
an
absurd
absurd
amount
amount
of
of
money
money
to
to
appear
appear
on
on
their
their
platform.
platform
It
it
depends
depends
on
on
the
the
industry,
industry
but
but
it
it
can
can
cost
cost
100
100
of
of
dollars
dollars
just
just
to
to
get
get
one
one
conversion.
conversion
If
if
you
you
have
have
a
a
product
product
that
that
has
has
a
a
very
very
high
high
lifetime
lifetime
value,
value
it
it
can
can
definitely
definitely
be
be
worth
worth
it
it
to
to
pay
pay
for
for
advertising
advertising
because
because
if
if
you
you
can
can
pay
pay
for
for
ads
ads
while
while
still
still
being
being
profitable,
profitable
then
then
there's
there's
really
really
no
no
reason
reason
not
not
to.
to
In
in
my
my
case,
case
though,
though
my
my
product
product
only
only
costs
costs
$6.90,
$6.90
which
which
would
would
put
put
me
me
deep
deep
in
in
the
the
red
red
with
with
paid
paid
ads.
ads
But
but
the
the
one
one
thing
thing
that's
that's
more
more
valuable
valuable
Money
money
is
is
your
your
time,
time
and
and
I
i
don't
don't
wanna
wanna
spend
spend
my
my
time
time
standing
standing
on
on
the
the
corner
corner
twirling
twirling
a
a
sign
sign
for
for
the
the
side
side
hustle.
hustle
Behind
behind
almost
almost
every
every
successful
successful
small
small
business
business
is
is
an
an
extremely
extremely
passionate
passionate
and
and
driven
driven
founder.
founder
If
if
you're
you're
going
going
to
to
try,
try
go
go
all
all
the
the
way.
way
Otherwise,
otherwise
don't
don't
even
even
start.
start
This
this
could
could
mean
mean
losing
losing
girlfriends,
girlfriends
wives,
wives
relatives,
relatives
maybe
maybe
even
even
your
your
mind.
mind
It
it
could
could
not
not
eating
eating
for
for
3
3
or
or
4
4
days.
days
It
it
could
could
mean
mean
freezing
freezing
on
on
a
a
park
park
bench.
bench
It
it
could
could
mean
mean
jail.
jail
It
it
could
could
mean
mean
derision.
derision
It
it
could
could
mean
mean
mockery,
mockery
isolation.
isolation
Isolation
isolation
is
is
the
the
gift.
gift
All
all
the
the
others
others
They're
they're
just
just
a
a
test
test
of
of
your
your
endurance,
endurance
of
of
how
how
much
much
you
you
really
really
want
want
to
to
do
do
it.
it
And
and
you'll
you'll
do
do
it,
it
despite
despite
rejection
rejection
and
and
the
the
worst
worst
odds,
odds
and
and
it
it
will
will
be
be
better
better
than
than
anything
anything
else
else
you
you
can
can
imagine.
imagine
If
if
you're
you're
going
going
Shry,
shry
go
go
all
all
the
the
way.
way
There's
there's
no
no
other
other
feeling
feeling
like
like
that.
that
You
you
will
will
be
be
alone
alone
with
with
the
the
gods,
gods
and
and
the
the
nights
nights
will
will
flame
flame
with
with
fire.
fire
You
you
will
will
ride
ride
life
life
straight
straight
to
to
perfect
perfect
after.
after
It's
it's
the
the
only
only
good
good
fight
fight
there
there
is.
is
If
if
that
that
Bukowski
bukowski
poem
poem
doesn't
doesn't
describe
describe
how
how
you
you
feel
feel
about
about
your
your
project,
project
then
then
it
it
might
might
not
not
be
be
worth
worth
your
your
time.
time
If
if
I'm
i'm
being
being
totally
totally
honest
honest
with
with
myself,
myself
I'd
i'd
much
much
Rather
rather
spend
spend
my
my
time
time
making
making
content
content
on
on
Fire
fire
Ship
ship
than
than
I
i
would
would
trying
trying
to
to
build
build
up
up
this
this
half
half
assed
assed
voice
voice
cloning
cloning
tool.
tool
That
that
being
being
said,
said
what
what
could
could
I
i
have
have
done
done
differently
differently
to
to
make
make
this
this
project
project
more
more
successful?
successful
Well,
well
First
first
of
of
all,
all
I
i
only
only
spent
spent
2
2
days
days
building
building
it,
it
it's
it's
not
not
responsive,
responsive
and
and
has
has
a
a
terrible
terrible
landing
landing
page.
page
Any
any
meaningful
meaningful
minimum
minimum
viable
viable
project
project
will
will
take
take
a
a
lot
lot
longer
longer
this
this
to
to
develop,
develop
even
even
when
when
using
using
a
a
highly
highly
optimized
optimized
tech
tech
stack
stack
like
like
the
the
it
it
or
or
suck
suck
it
it
stack.
stack
Instead
instead
of
of
using
using
IBM
ibm
Carbon
carbon
as
as
the
the
design
design
system,
system
I'd
i'd
spend
spend
more
more
time
time
creating
creating
a
a
unique
unique
custom
custom
design
design
and
and
have
have
a
a
much
much
more
more
powerful
powerful
call
call
to
to
action
action
on
on
the
the
home
home
page.
page
And
and
I
i
should
should
do
do
a
a
better
better
job
job
describing
describing
what
what
the
the
product
product
is
is
in
in
just
just
a
a
few
few
words.
words
In
in
addition,
addition
you
you
wanna
wanna
use
use
some
some
kind
kind
of
of
analytics
analytics
to
to
understand
understand
how
how
your
your
users
users
are
are
behaving
behaving
because
because
they're
they're
likely
likely
using
using
your
your
app
app
in
in
ways
ways
you
you
never
never
expected.
expected
Like,
like
Firebase
firebase
itself
itself
was
was
originally
originally
Supposed
supposed
to
to
be
be
a
a
chat
chat
widget
widget
kind
kind
of
of
like
like
intercom,
intercom
but
but
they
they
found
found
that
that
developers
developers
were
were
putting
putting
all
all
kinds
kinds
of
of
random
random
stuff
stuff
in
in
it,
it
so
so
they
they
decided
decided
to
to
pivot
pivot
to
to
a
a
real
real
time
time
database.
database
Then
then
a
a
few
few
Few
few
years
years
later
later
it's
it's
acquired
acquired
by
by
Google,
google
making
making
them
them
rich
rich
beyond
beyond
their
their
wildest
wildest
dreams.
dreams
The
the
founders
founders
made
made
their
their
own
own
luck
luck
just
just
like
like
Tarantino.
tarantino
To
to
really
really
optimize
optimize
things,
things
you
you
should
should
look
look
at
at
analytics,
analytics
then
then
do
do
some
some
AB
ab
testing
testing
with
with
a
a
small
small
subset
subset
of
of
users
users
before
before
you
you
invest
invest
in
in
a
a
huge
huge
launch.
launch
And
and
that's
that's
especially
especially
important
important
if
if
you
you
pay
pay
for
for
ads
ads
then
then
you
you
really
really
need
need
to
to
optimize
optimize
that
that
conversion
conversion
rate,
rate
but
but
we're
we're
getting
getting
ahead
ahead
of
of
ourselves.
ourselves
The
the
big
big
question
question
is
is
how
how
do
do
you
you
even
even
come
come
up
up
with
with
an
an
idea
idea
for
for
a
a
side
side
hustle,
hustle
and
and
then
then
more
more
importantly,
importantly
validate
validate
it?
it
Good
good
ideas
ideas
are
are
easy
easy
to
to
come
come
by.
by
The
the
problem
problem
is
is
that
that
there's
there's
a
a
100,000,000,000
100,000,000,000
people
people
in
in
the
the
world
world
if
if
you
you
include
include
the
the
outer
outer
lands
lands
beyond
beyond
the
the
ice
ice
wall,
wall
and
and
somebody
somebody
out
out
there
there
is
is
likely
likely
already
already
a
a
millionaire
millionaire
with
with
your
your
idea.
idea
The
the
fact
fact
That
that
someone
someone
is
is
already
already
executing
executing
your
your
idea
idea
is
is
actually
actually
a
a
great
great
way
way
to
to
get
get
some
some
early
early
validation.
validation
Big
big
companies
companies
like
like
Meta
meta
do
do
this
this
all
all
the
the
time
time
by
by
stealing
stealing
features
features
from
from
smaller
smaller
applications.
applications
In
in
fact,
fact
It's
it's
a
a
good
good
sign
sign
that
that
someone's
someone's
already
already
doing
doing
your
your
idea.
idea
You
you
just
just
need
need
to
to
figure
figure
out
out
what
what
they're
they're
doing
doing
wrong
wrong
or
or
narrow
narrow
down
down
your
your
target
target
to
to
find
find
a
a
segment
segment
of
of
the
the
market
market
where
where
you
you
could
could
doing
doing
things
things
better.
better
In
in
fact,
fact
that's
that's
been
been
my
my
approach
approach
to
to
this
this
YouTube
youtube
channel.
channel
When
when
I
i
started,
started
there
there
were
were
already
already
millions
millions
of
of
JavaScript
javascript
tutorials.
tutorials
You
you
might
might
even
even
call
call
it
it
an
an
over
over
saturated
saturated
market,
market
but
but
I
i
saw
saw
an
an
opportunity
opportunity
to
to
create
create
shorter,
shorter
faster
faster
content
content
that
that
I
i
thought
thought
developers
developers
like
like
me
me
would
would
like.
like
Just
just
look
look
at
at
a
a
company
company
like
like
Figma.
figma
They
they
built
built
a
a
design
design
product
product
that
that
was
was
really
really
only
only
slightly
slightly
different
different
than
than
things
things
offered
offered
by
by
Adobe
adobe
at
at
the
the
time,
time
but
but
they
they
addressed
addressed
the
the
most
most
common
common
pain
pain
points
points
and
and
made
made
a
a
product
product
that
that
people
people
love.
love
A
a
few
few
years
years
later,
later
Adobe
adobe
acquires
acquires
them
them
for
for
$20,000,000,000
$20,000,000,000
just
just
so
so
they
they
could
could
make
make
the
the
product
product
suck
suck
again.
again
Now
now
once
once
you
you
have
have
the
the
general
general
idea
idea
of
of
what
what
you
you
want
want
to
to
build,
build
another
another
way
way
to
to
validate
validate
it
it
is
is
you
you
build
build
in
in
public,
public
and
and
by
by
that
that
I
i
mean
mean
get
get
on
on
social
social
media
media
and
and
tell
tell
the
the
world
world
what
what
you're
you're
building
building
before
before
you
you
even
even
build
build
it.
it
What
what
you'll
you'll
find
find
is
is
that
that
there's
there's
a
a
lot
lot
of
of
other
other
indie
indie
makers
makers
doing
doing
the
the
same
same
thing
thing
that
that
will
will
support
support
you
you
and
and
provide
provide
feedback.
feedback
Oh,
oh
and
and
by
by
the
the
way,
way
make
make
sure
sure
to
to
also
also
follow
follow
me
me
on
on
Twitter
twitter
because
because
I'll
i'll
be
be
posting
posting
extra
extra
video
video
content
content
there
there
soon.
soon
That's
that's
great
great
and
and
all,
all
but
but
what
what
you
you
really
really
need
need
to
to
do
do
is
is
validate
validate
the
the
idea
idea
with
with
your
your
core
core
audience.
audience
One
one
product
product
everybody
everybody
hates
hates
but
but
still
still
pays
pays
a
a
$100
$100
a
a
year
year
for
for
is
is
Microsoft
microsoft
Word.
word
What
what
you
you
can
can
do
do
is
is
find
find
real
real
people
people
or
or
micro
micro
influencers
influencers
on
on
social
social
media
media
who
who
use
use
this
this
product,
product
but
but
understand
understand
its
its
pain
pain
points.
points
Follow
follow
these
these
people,
people
like
like
their
their
posts,
posts
and
and
engage
engage
with
with
them
them
on
on
social
social
media.
media
Once
once
you've
you've
gained
gained
their
their
trust,
trust
you
you
can
can
then
then
reach
reach
out
out
with
with
a
a
direct
direct
message
message
that's
that's
like,
like
hey,
hey
I
i
saw
saw
you
you
hate
hate
Microsoft
microsoft
Word.
word
I'm
i'm
developing
developing
this
this
new
new
product
product
that
that
solves
solves
x
x
and
and
y
y
pain
pain
points.
points
Do
do
you
you
want
want
to
to
be
be
the
the
first
first
one
one
to
to
check
check
it
it
out
out
when
when
it's
it's
ready?
ready
This
this
is
is
highly
highly
surgical
surgical
direct
direct
marketing,
marketing
but
but
it's
it's
also
also
highly
highly
effective.
effective
And
and
people
people
use
use
it
it
on
on
me
me
for
for
their
their
tech
tech
products,
products
and
and
it
it
works.
works
Because,
because
honestly,
honestly
it's
it's
a
a
win
win
win.
win
If
if
you're
you're
creating
creating
something
something
that
that
can
can
make
make
my
my
life
life
better,
better
I'd
i'd
like
like
to
to
know
know
about
about
it,
it
but
but
I'm
i'm
by
by
not
not
going
going
to
to
click
click
on
on
one
one
of
of
your
your
ads.
ads
If
if
you
you
get
get
a
a
lot
lot
of
of
people
people
excited,
excited
that
that
means
means
you're
you're
probably
probably
on
on
to
to
something,
something
but
but
the
the
reality
reality
is
is
that
that
rejection
rejection
is
is
very
very
common,
common
and
and
you
you
might
might
get
get
rejected
rejected
a
a
bunch
bunch
of
of
times
times
even
even
if
if
you
you
Have
have
a
a
good
good
idea.
idea
So
so
another
another
way
way
to
to
validate
validate
your
your
idea
idea
is
is
to
to
get
get
a
a
bunch
bunch
of
of
people
people
to
to
sign
sign
up
up
for
for
it
it
before
before
you
you
even
even
build
build
it.
it
You'll
you'll
see
see
startups
startups
do
do
this
this
all
all
the
the
time
time
with
with
wait
wait
list.
list
What
what
they'll
they'll
do
do
is
is
focus
focus
on
on
marketing
marketing
first,
first
put
put
together
together
a
a
bunch
bunch
of
of
promises,
promises
and
and
then
then
build
build
up
up
an
an
email
email
list
list
that
that
they
they
can
can
engage
engage
with
with
in
in
the
the
future.
future
Do
do
not
not
underestimate
underestimate
the
the
power
power
of
of
an
an
email
email
list.
list
Nobody's
nobody's
going
going
to
to
sign
sign
up
up
for
for
an
an
email
email
list
list
unless
unless
they
they
truly
truly
want
want
what
what
you're
you're
selling.
selling
On
on
top
top
of
of
that,
that
once
once
you
you
have
have
an
an
email
email
list,
list
you
you
can
can
use
use
it
it
to
to
invite
invite
people
people
to
to
a
a
Discord
discord
rover,
rover
and
and
from
from
there,
there
you're
you're
directly
directly
engaging
engaging
with
with
your
your
target
target
customers.
customers
You
you
can
can
even
even
give
give
them
them
early
early
access
access
in
in
exchange
exchange
for
for
feedback
feedback
about
about
what
what
works
works
and
and
what
what
doesn't.
doesn't
It's
it's
way
way
easier
easier
to
to
validate
validate
ideas
ideas
when
when
you
you
have
have
a
a
bunch
bunch
of
of
collaborators
collaborators
who
who
see
see
the
the
value
value
in
in
your
your
ideas.
ideas
Then
then
as
as
you
you
start
start
actually
actually
delivering
delivering
on
on
your
your
idea,
idea
this
this
community
community
will
will
help
help
promote
promote
the
the
project
project
because
because
as
as
you
you
created
created
something
something
that
that
adds
adds
value
value
to
to
people's
people's
lives.
lives
It's
it's
a
a
win
win
win
win
for
for
everybody.
everybody
Sam
sam
Altman
altman
of
of
Y
y
Combinator
combinator
and
and
OpenAI
openai
said
said
the
the
single
single
most
most
important
important
thing
thing
in
in
a
a
startup
startup
is
is
to
to
create
create
a
a
product
product
So
so
good
good
that
that
people
people
will
will
tell
tell
their
their
friends
friends
about
about
it,
it
but
but
you
you
won't
won't
know
know
if
if
you
you
have
have
a
a
good
good
product
product
until
until
you
you
actually
actually
build
build
it.
it
Usually,
usually
when
when
I
i
have
have
an
an
idea,
idea
I
i
have
have
one
one
core
core
feature,
feature
but
but
then
then
a
a
bunch
bunch
of
of
optional
optional
supporting
supporting
features
features
that
that
I
i
want
want
to
to
add
add
on
on
to
to
it.
it
Avoid
avoid
the
the
temptation
temptation
to
to
ship
ship
a
a
whole
whole
bunch
bunch
of
of
features
features
all
all
at
at
once,
once
instead
instead
focus
focus
on
on
the
the
core
core
problem
problem
to
to
get
get
an
an
MVP
mvp
out
out
there
there
quickly
quickly
and
and
some
some
real
real
users
users
who
who
can
can
validate
validate
the
the
idea.
idea
Software
software
development
development
almost
almost
never
never
goes
goes
according
according
to
to
plan.
plan
The
the
end
end
result
result
ends
ends
up
up
looking
looking
different
different
than
than
the
the
initial
initial
vision
vision
because
because
it's
it's
really
really
hard
hard
to
to
predict
predict
what
what
the
the
end
end
user
user
actually
actually
wants.
wants
Build
build
something
something
lean
lean
and
and
focused,
focused
get
get
a
a
user,
user
and
and
then
then
build
build
up
up
an
an
empire
empire
from
from
there.
there
You
you
can
can
also
also
launch
launch
on
on
websites
websites
like
like
Product
product
Hunt
hunt
You
you
further
further
validate
validate
if
if
people
people
are
are
actually
actually
interested
interested
in
in
what
what
you're
you're
offering.
offering
From
from
a
a
technical
technical
standpoint,
standpoint
it's
it's
usually
usually
a
a
good
good
idea
idea
to
to
build
build
apps
apps
that
that
have
have
as
as
little
little
friction
friction
as
as
possible.
possible
Like
like
with
with
Firebase,
firebase
I
i
might
might
start
start
with
with
anonymous
anonymous
authentication,
authentication
so
so
the
the
user
user
doesn't
doesn't
have
have
to
to
enter
enter
an
an
email
email
to
to
start
start
using
using
the
the
main
main
features.
features
Then
then
at
at
some
some
later
later
point
point
after
after
they've
they've
enjoyed
enjoyed
using
using
the
the
app,
app
they
they
can
can
upgrade
upgrade
to
to
a
a
full
full
account.
account
If
if
If
if
I
i
had
had
a
a
nickel
nickel
for
for
every
every
time
time
I
i
decided
decided
not
not
to
to
use
use
an
an
app
app
just
just
because
because
it
it
had
had
a
a
sign
sign
in
in
form,
form
I
i
would
would
have
have
a
a
shitload
shitload
of
of
nickels.
nickels
But
but
the
the
bottom
bottom
line
line
is
is
to
to
try
try
to
to
keep
keep
your
your
app
app
minimal,
minimal
free,
free
and
and
frictionless,
frictionless
list,
list
especially
especially
in
in
the
the
early
early
game.
game
Don't
don't
even
even
worry
worry
about
about
making
making
money,
money
just
just
focus
focus
aggressively
aggressively
on
on
making
making
people's
people's
lives
lives
better.
better
In
in
the
the
mid
mid
game,
game
after
after
you
you
have
have
a
a
customer
customer
base,
base
you
you
can
can
start
start
adding
adding
all
all
extra
extra
features
features
that
that
your
your
customers
customers
want,
want
and
and
charge
charge
money
money
for
for
them
them
accordingly.
accordingly
And
and
then
then
finally
finally
in
in
the
the
late
late
game,
game
you
you
can
can
lobby
lobby
the
the
government
government
for
for
regulations
regulations
to
to
crush
crush
all
all
the
the
smaller
smaller
competition.
competition
Now
now
the
the
final
final
thing
thing
I
i
want
want
to
to
say
say
is
is
that
that
even
even
if
if
your
your
side
side
hustle
hustle
fails
fails
like
like
most
most
of
of
them
them
do,
do
you'll
you'll
have
have
gained
gained
a
a
lot
lot
by
by
grinding
grinding
through
through
this
this
process.
process
You'll
you'll
have
have
some
some
new
new
contacts
contacts
in
in
your
your
rolodex.
rolodex
You'll
you'll
have
have
a
a
small
small
community
community
of
of
people
people
pulling
pulling
for
for
you.
you
You'll
you'll
have
have
a
a
cool
cool
project
project
on
on
your
your
portfolio
portfolio
that
that
can
can
help
help
you
you
get
get
a
a
regular
regular
developer
developer
job.
job
You'll
you'll
have
have
a
a
bunch
bunch
of
of
reusable
reusable
code
code
that
that
you
you
can
can
use
use
for
for
your
your
next
next
failed
failed
project.
project
You'll
you'll
have
have
a
a
more
more
lean
lean
bank
bank
account,
account
and
and
finally,
finally
you'll
you'll
have
have
the
the
pride
pride
in
in
knowing
knowing
that
that
you
you
took
took
a
a
risk
risk
and
and
tried
tried
something
something
that
that
many
many
people
people
dream
dream
about,
about
but
but
most
most
are
are
too
too
afraid
afraid
to
to
ever
ever
try.
try
Thanks
thanks
for
for
watching,
watching
and
and
I
i
will
will
see
see
you
you
in
in
the
the
next
next
one.
one
success
The speaker discusses their side hustle success and emphasizes the importance of validating their ideas before investing in a big project. They suggest using analytics and AB testing before investing in a big launch, optimizing conversion rates, narrowing target segments, and reaching out to micro influencers. They also advise against shipping too many features at once and building a minimal, frictionless, and lean bank account, emphasizing the importance of making one's own product and building a pipeline of potential projects.
Why did my side-hustle fail? How to validate business ideas
This isn't the video I wanted to make today. I thought it was going to be about how I bought a catamaran, quit YouTube, and started sailing around the world. Unfortunately though, reality has deviated from my projections. Despite getting 3,121 free tier sign ups and selling 1,000,000 100,000 tokens with $0 in infrastructure cost, thanks to the high risk free tier and a gross profit of $75.90, my side hustle is still failing. And if we can't turn the ship around soon, I'm going to have to take it behind the barn. I'd expect anyone in this unit to do the same for me. In today's video, we'll look at everything that's gone wrong so far, but but more importantly, look at a variety of strategies that you can use to validate ideas and not things up. First of all though, why is my side hustle failing? I made a 75.9 dollar profit in the 1st day, which extrapolates to $27,000 in annual cash flow. In addition, the business runs on autopilot, and I haven't had to touch the code since it went live. That's great, and I'll likely keep it running indefinitely from here as a zombie project, but here's why I'm not very optimistic. My conversion rate was only 0.3%. That means I need to get 300 free users to sign up just to get one paid user who's only paying $6.90. I'm able to be profitable in the short term because I have this YouTube channel that's like a gravy train with biscuit wheels, but I've already used up that ace in the hole. I've only had 2 additional sales after the initial launch. If I wanna keep pursuing this business, I need to either invest a lot of my own time into organic marketing or pay a friendly company like Google or Meta an absurd amount of money to appear on their platform. It depends on the industry, but it can cost 100 of dollars just to get one conversion. If you have a product that has a very high lifetime value, it can definitely be worth it to pay for advertising because if you can pay for ads while still being profitable, then there's really no reason not to. In my case, though, my product only costs $6.90, which would put me deep in the red with paid ads. But the one thing that's more valuable Money is your time, and I don't wanna spend my time standing on the corner twirling a sign for the side hustle. Behind almost every successful small business is an extremely passionate and driven founder. If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, maybe even your mind. It could not eating for 3 or 4 days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others They're just a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds, and it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going Shry, go all the way. There's no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect after. It's the only good fight there is. If that Bukowski poem doesn't describe how you feel about your project, then it might not be worth your time. If I'm being totally honest with myself, I'd much Rather spend my time making content on Fire Ship than I would trying to build up this half assed voice cloning tool. That being said, what could I have done differently to make this project more successful? Well, First of all, I only spent 2 days building it, it's not responsive, and has a terrible landing page. Any meaningful minimum viable project will take a lot longer this to develop, even when using a highly optimized tech stack like the it or suck it stack. Instead of using IBM Carbon as the design system, I'd spend more time creating a unique custom design and have a much more powerful call to action on the home page. And I should do a better job describing what the product is in just a few words. In addition, you wanna use some kind of analytics to understand how your users are behaving because they're likely using your app in ways you never expected. Like, Firebase itself was originally Supposed to be a chat widget kind of like intercom, but they found that developers were putting all kinds of random stuff in it, so they decided to pivot to a real time database. Then a few Few years later it's acquired by Google, making them rich beyond their wildest dreams. The founders made their own luck just like Tarantino. To really optimize things, you should look at analytics, then do some AB testing with a small subset of users before you invest in a huge launch. And that's especially important if you pay for ads then you really need to optimize that conversion rate, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. The big question is how do you even come up with an idea for a side hustle, and then more importantly, validate it? Good ideas are easy to come by. The problem is that there's a 100,000,000,000 people in the world if you include the outer lands beyond the ice wall, and somebody out there is likely already a millionaire with your idea. The fact That someone is already executing your idea is actually a great way to get some early validation. Big companies like Meta do this all the time by stealing features from smaller applications. In fact, It's a good sign that someone's already doing your idea. You just need to figure out what they're doing wrong or narrow down your target to find a segment of the market where you could doing things better. In fact, that's been my approach to this YouTube channel. When I started, there were already millions of JavaScript tutorials. You might even call it an over saturated market, but I saw an opportunity to create shorter, faster content that I thought developers like me would like. Just look at a company like Figma. They built a design product that was really only slightly different than things offered by Adobe at the time, but they addressed the most common pain points and made a product that people love. A few years later, Adobe acquires them for $20,000,000,000 just so they could make the product suck again. Now once you have the general idea of what you want to build, another way to validate it is you build in public, and by that I mean get on social media and tell the world what you're building before you even build it. What you'll find is that there's a lot of other indie makers doing the same thing that will support you and provide feedback. Oh, and by the way, make sure to also follow me on Twitter because I'll be posting extra video content there soon. That's great and all, but what you really need to do is validate the idea with your core audience. One product everybody hates but still pays a $100 a year for is Microsoft Word. What you can do is find real people or micro influencers on social media who use this product, but understand its pain points. Follow these people, like their posts, and engage with them on social media. Once you've gained their trust, you can then reach out with a direct message that's like, hey, I saw you hate Microsoft Word. I'm developing this new product that solves x and y pain points. Do you want to be the first one to check it out when it's ready? This is highly surgical direct marketing, but it's also highly effective. And people use it on me for their tech products, and it works. Because, honestly, it's a win win. If you're creating something that can make my life better, I'd like to know about it, but I'm by not going to click on one of your ads. If you get a lot of people excited, that means you're probably on to something, but the reality is that rejection is very common, and you might get rejected a bunch of times even if you Have a good idea. So another way to validate your idea is to get a bunch of people to sign up for it before you even build it. You'll see startups do this all the time with wait list. What they'll do is focus on marketing first, put together a bunch of promises, and then build up an email list that they can engage with in the future. Do not underestimate the power of an email list. Nobody's going to sign up for an email list unless they truly want what you're selling. On top of that, once you have an email list, you can use it to invite people to a Discord rover, and from there, you're directly engaging with your target customers. You can even give them early access in exchange for feedback about what works and what doesn't. It's way easier to validate ideas when you have a bunch of collaborators who see the value in your ideas. Then as you start actually delivering on your idea, this community will help promote the project because as you created something that adds value to people's lives. It's a win win for everybody. Sam Altman of Y Combinator and OpenAI said the single most important thing in a startup is to create a product So good that people will tell their friends about it, but you won't know if you have a good product until you actually build it. Usually, when I have an idea, I have one core feature, but then a bunch of optional supporting features that I want to add on to it. Avoid the temptation to ship a whole bunch of features all at once, instead focus on the core problem to get an MVP out there quickly and some real users who can validate the idea. Software development almost never goes according to plan. The end result ends up looking different than the initial vision because it's really hard to predict what the end user actually wants. Build something lean and focused, get a user, and then build up an empire from there. You can also launch on websites like Product Hunt You further validate if people are actually interested in what you're offering. From a technical standpoint, it's usually a good idea to build apps that have as little friction as possible. Like with Firebase, I might start with anonymous authentication, so the user doesn't have to enter an email to start using the main features. Then at some later point after they've enjoyed using the app, they can upgrade to a full account. If If I had a nickel for every time I decided not to use an app just because it had a sign in form, I would have a shitload of nickels. But the bottom line is to try to keep your app minimal, free, and frictionless, list, especially in the early game. Don't even worry about making money, just focus aggressively on making people's lives better. In the mid game, after you have a customer base, you can start adding all extra features that your customers want, and charge money for them accordingly. And then finally in the late game, you can lobby the government for regulations to crush all the smaller competition. Now the final thing I want to say is that even if your side hustle fails like most of them do, you'll have gained a lot by grinding through this process. You'll have some new contacts in your rolodex. You'll have a small community of people pulling for you. You'll have a cool project on your portfolio that can help you get a regular developer job. You'll have a bunch of reusable code that you can use for your next failed project. You'll have a more lean bank account, and finally, you'll have the pride in knowing that you took a risk and tried something that many people dream about, but most are too afraid to ever try. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
The speaker discusses their side hustle success and emphasizes the importance of validating their ideas before investing in a big project. They suggest using analytics and AB testing before investing in a big launch, optimizing conversion rates, narrowing target segments, and reaching out to micro influencers. They also advise against shipping too many features at once and building a minimal, frictionless, and lean bank account, emphasizing the importance of making one's own product and building a pipeline of potential projects.