When you learn how to code, you unlock the ability to build side-businesses that have the potential to make you rich. The 6-step guide provides realistic tips and tricks for launching a solo company as a software engineer. 

#programming #business #tech

💬 Chat with Me on Discord

https://discord.gg/fireship

🔗 Resources

Wanna use my voice? Generate it at https://vocalize.cloud
Check out my AI Cartoon with @Daxflame https://youtu.be/Vg7iez2HMks
Thanks to @codeSTACKr for the "Music Video"
Building Apps with AI https://youtu.be/iO1mwxPNP5A


🔥 Get More Content - Upgrade to PRO

Upgrade at https://fireship.io/pro
Use code YT25 for 25% off PRO access 

🎨 My Editor Settings

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

🔖 Topics Covered

- How to create a side business as a developer
- Top indie makers 
- How do programmers make money on the side?
- Tips for becoming a solopreneur
- Implementing payments into an app
- Startup ideas with AI in 2023
2024-02-04T05:05:36.739Z
nova-2
2-general-nova
2024-01-09.29447
30089e05-99d1-4376-b32e-c263170674af
e33221bc-3e62-4010-a2d3-69aa6d253ffb
73bbf9e25f23a4e809155cbee3ada6c96621cf0cfbb389ec18e2519ccee75334
67875a7f-c9c4-48a0-aa55-5bdb8a91c34a
deprecated
The dude you're looking at here runs a one man business developing Chrome plug ins that makes over $20,000,000 a year.
That's 4 times more than the average NFL quarterback.
Man, it's unfair.
Fair.
It's my quarterback.
One of the best things about learning to code is that it gives you the ability to build money printing machines that regular people can't.
In my world, the ultimate freedom in life is to be a solopreneur with a business that runs itself on autopilot.
No deadlines, no bosses, no Bugattis, just pure freedom.
But that's easier said than done.
You won't get there with a 4 hour work week, and for most of us it takes a lot of hard work and some luck.
I've built a ton of side hustles over the And almost all of them have failed miserably, but a few of them have been moderately successful, and that's given me enough wealth to move out of my mom's basement.
In today's video, I'm going to show you exactly how I built and deployed my own real AI software as a service application with only 2 days of programming work.
But first, we need to talk about the mindset of a side hustler.
Danny Postma recently created a project called Headshot Pro that now has over 12,000 customers.
A lot of people might just say he got lucky by jumping on the recent AI hype train, and those people would be absolutely right.
But the thing is, he made his own luck.
He first developed the skills to build Then identified the problem of corporate photos being a huge waste of money.
Then finally, when AI got good enough to replace photographers, he was able to seize the moment.
Here's another anecdote.
Movie director Quentin Tarantino wrote a screenplay where Selma Hayek pours tequila down her leg, then some guy drinks it off of her toes.
Then guess who he cast in that role?
Himself.
That's what making your own luck is all about.
The problem is that most of us won't get this lucky very often, and that's why you need to be prepared To fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.
The only person that can actually tell you whether or not you're going to fail is the customer, and that means you wanna try to get real users giving you feedback as soon It's possible.
The last thing you wanna do is spend 2 years building a project in secret only to release it and find out nobody actually wants it.
Now that you're in the right mindset, It's time to come up with an idea of something to build.
The other day, I came across this trendy new Manosphere channel telling men how to live the GigaChad lifestyle.
But weirdly, I was the one narrating bed.
For the body, make sure you exercise so that you can keep your mental and physical health in check.
And I don't ever recall doing that.
That's because it's illegally using my cloned voice.
I'm not the one behind this channel, and I could tell the FBI to find this guy and put him in jail, but I actually like the idea of people replicating my voice for mass distribution.
I like big.
Bundles and I cannot lie.
You other JS devs can't deny that when a site loads in with all 5 inch in a 3 gs interface, you get And that's how I came up with the idea for vocalize dot cloud, a platform that allows you to use my voice legally, and not just my voice, but all kinds of different celebrities.
So far, I've Reached out to Morgan Freeman, Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Jackson, and many others.
None have gotten back to me yet, but I did get a From A list Hollywood actor, Dax Flame.
You might know him from 21 Jump Street or his YouTube channel.
We actually collaborated to produce an AI cartoon recently that combines Meta's new character animator along with Midjourney and the voice cloning technology that I'm going to show you today.
I was given executive prompter credits on that project Along with my 1st Oscar nomination for Approveder of the Year.
You can watch the full short film on his channel.
In any case, there's one big problem with my side hustle idea.
I have no idea if anybody Another thing you should know, ideas are cheap, execution is everything.
By execution, I'm not talking about the technology itself, but rather the business model Because you could build the most awesome app in the world, but if you don't have a good marketing plan, nobody's ever going to use it.
If you're rich, you can pay for advertisements or pay influencers to shill for you.
But assuming you're poor, you'll likely have to do some form of organic marketing usually through social media like Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, or whatever.
It's no different than fishing.
You wanna first figure out where Fish are, then put out some bait like an advertisement or a call to action.
Then once a user signs up, you'll want to club them to death and then grill them for dinner.
And by that, I mean provide them with an awesome service that they'll be Happy to pay for.
Now that you know not to write any code until you have a marketing plan, let's talk about choosing the optimal tech stack.
It doesn't matter if you use WordPress, React, Angular or build some kind of freak show on Kubernetes, nobody cares except the tech bros on Twitter.
The only thing that matters is that it works.
Peter Levels, another It's critical to find technologies that optimize your productivity and stick to them unless you have a really good reason to move somewhere else.
For me personally, that tech stack is SvelteKit and Firebase, also Known as the it stack.
I also use the carbon design system from IBM.
It helped me get the UI built very quickly, but in most of my projects, I use Tailwind and build something a little more custom a scratch.
Ideally, you should have a great design to go along with your app with a great landing page that immediately explains why anyone would want to pay for your The design should be functional, beautiful, and unique in that order.
A great place to find inspiration is mobbin.com, which curates designs from the top web and mobile apps.
With any technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech Technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech stack in particular makes me feel so productive.
On the front end, most developers choose React, track.
But the reason I choose Svelte is pretty simple.
I just like writing Svelte code more so than React.
One thing that's extremely demoralizing is working with tools you don't It's not that I hate React or anything, I just like Svelte more.
I even wrote my own library called Svelte Fire.
It integrates Svelte stores with Fire data.
In the code, it allows me to read data from my back end database by simply putting a dollar sign in front of the reference for that data.
This is quite literally all the code it takes it can be expensive in certain situations, but here's how it simplifies things in my application.
When a user submits this form to get a voice clone sample, it will write this text to the Firestore database.
But on the back end, a lot of things need to happen.
1st, we need to reach out to the 11 Labs API, which is the service that handles voice cloning.
From there, we have an audio file that we need to save in a storage bucket somewhere in the cloud.
We then need to generate a secure download URL that makes the file accessible only to that one user.
Then back in the front end, we need to show the user a loading state and update the UI when the job is done.
Why the hell am I doing this?
When the initial document is saved Firestore, it triggers a background function that does all the work securely in the background.
We don't need to expose any HTTP endpoints to the front end.
What's really awesome is that the Firebase SDK on the front end will keep the database in sync in real time.
Like, initially, the document has a status of processing, then goes to a status of complete once we have a download URL.
In the Svelte code, this allows us to use an if statement with the real time store that produces code that really can't get any more simple when it comes to full stack Logic.
In addition, we can secure this code by ensuring that the authenticated user only has access to its own data with just a single line of code in the security rules.
Now, the next huge component of any application is the database.
Firestore is a document database that's fast and easy to use, but is not always suitable for highly complex data relationships.
In my case, I just have users, and users can generate many audio clips.
It's a very simple relationship that's perfect for Firestore, but choosing the wrong database can be a disaster.
In general, relational databases like MySQL and Postgres are the safest bet for the majority of applications, but that doesn't mean they're immune to their own The YouTube channel Codem has a great eye opening story about how they hit the limitations of limitless scale with Prisma and PlanetScale.
The bottom line is to do your a search and be careful when choosing a database, but that brings us to our final topic.
Dollar dollar bills, y'all.
How do you actually get that money?
You're some kind of psychopath, you'll wanna use a payment API.
And in my projects, I've always gone with Stripe, but there are many other providers out there.
In my application, I give you 100 free tokens to started.
In my opinion, it's always a good idea to have some kind of free trial to allow users to try out the app.
In this case, you can use my app for free, but once you run out of tokens, you'll need to buy more.
To handle we have an authenticated Firebase Cloud function that generates a checkout session on Stripe, which redirects the user to a hosted checkout page so we don't have to code up any of the UI manually.
Now once the user makes a payment, Stripe will send a webhook to our server, which again is another Firebase Cloud function.
The webhook will contain data about the payment, so we can look up the user in Firebase and then update Firestore with the tokens they purchased.
In addition, I'm also using another service called SendGrid in this function.
You send a transactional email to the customer With their order confirmation, but how much should I be charging the customer for these tokens?
Well, I'm going to use a technique they teach in business school called the Vercel strategy.
In my case, 11 Labs charges 18¢ per 1,000 characters generated with their voice cloning service.
So what I'm going to do is just jack up the price to 69¢ per 1,000 characters.
Will teach you how to build an app just like this.
It should be ready by the end of June, and here's a big discount on pro memberships if you wanna be the first to And that, my friends, is how you market a side hustle within a video about side hustles.
Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.

Speaker 0: The dude you're looking at here runs a one man business developing Chrome plug ins that makes over $20,000,000 a year. That's 4 times more than the average NFL quarterback. Man, it's unfair. Fair. It's my quarterback.

One of the best things about learning to code is that it gives you the ability to build money printing machines that regular people can't. In my world, the ultimate freedom in life is to be a solopreneur with a business that runs itself on autopilot. No deadlines, no bosses, no Bugattis, just pure freedom. But that's easier said than done. You won't get there with a 4 hour work week, and for most of us it takes a lot of hard work and some luck.

I've built a ton of side hustles over the And almost all of them have failed miserably, but a few of them have been moderately successful, and that's given me enough wealth to move out of my mom's basement. In today's video, I'm going to show you exactly how I built and deployed my own real AI software as a service application with only 2 days of programming work. But first, we need to talk about the mindset of a side hustler. Danny Postma recently created a project called Headshot Pro that now has over 12,000 customers. A lot of people might just say he got lucky by jumping on the recent AI hype train, and those people would be absolutely right.

But the thing is, he made his own luck. He first developed the skills to build Then identified the problem of corporate photos being a huge waste of money. Then finally, when AI got good enough to replace photographers, he was able to seize the moment. Here's another anecdote. Movie director Quentin Tarantino wrote a screenplay where Selma Hayek pours tequila down her leg, then some guy drinks it off of her toes.

Then guess who he cast in that role? Himself. That's what making your own luck is all about. The problem is that most of us won't get this lucky very often, and that's why you need to be prepared To fail early, fail often, but always fail forward. The only person that can actually tell you whether or not you're going to fail is the customer, and that means you wanna try to get real users giving you feedback as soon It's possible.

The last thing you wanna do is spend 2 years building a project in secret only to release it and find out nobody actually wants it. Now that you're in the right mindset, It's time to come up with an idea of something to build. The other day, I came across this trendy new Manosphere channel telling men how to live the GigaChad lifestyle. But weirdly, I was the one narrating bed. For the body, make sure you exercise so that you can keep your mental and physical health in check.

And I don't ever recall doing that. That's because it's illegally using my cloned voice. I'm not the one behind this channel, and I could tell the FBI to find this guy and put him in jail, but I actually like the idea of people replicating my voice for mass distribution. I like big. Bundles and I cannot lie.

You other JS devs can't deny that when a site loads in with all 5 inch in a 3 gs interface, you get And that's how I came up with the idea for vocalize dot cloud, a platform that allows you to use my voice legally, and not just my voice, but all kinds of different celebrities. So far, I've Reached out to Morgan Freeman, Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Jackson, and many others. None have gotten back to me yet, but I did get a From A list Hollywood actor, Dax Flame. You might know him from 21 Jump Street or his YouTube channel. We actually collaborated to produce an AI cartoon recently that combines Meta's new character animator along with Midjourney and the voice cloning technology that I'm going to show you today.

I was given executive prompter credits on that project Along with my 1st Oscar nomination for Approveder of the Year. You can watch the full short film on his channel. In any case, there's one big problem with my side hustle idea. I have no idea if anybody Another thing you should know, ideas are cheap, execution is everything. By execution, I'm not talking about the technology itself, but rather the business model Because you could build the most awesome app in the world, but if you don't have a good marketing plan, nobody's ever going to use it.

If you're rich, you can pay for advertisements or pay influencers to shill for you. But assuming you're poor, you'll likely have to do some form of organic marketing usually through social media like Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, or whatever. It's no different than fishing. You wanna first figure out where Fish are, then put out some bait like an advertisement or a call to action. Then once a user signs up, you'll want to club them to death and then grill them for dinner.

And by that, I mean provide them with an awesome service that they'll be Happy to pay for. Now that you know not to write any code until you have a marketing plan, let's talk about choosing the optimal tech stack. It doesn't matter if you use WordPress, React, Angular or build some kind of freak show on Kubernetes, nobody cares except the tech bros on Twitter. The only thing that matters is that it works. Peter Levels, another It's critical to find technologies that optimize your productivity and stick to them unless you have a really good reason to move somewhere else.

For me personally, that tech stack is SvelteKit and Firebase, also Known as the it stack. I also use the carbon design system from IBM. It helped me get the UI built very quickly, but in most of my projects, I use Tailwind and build something a little more custom a scratch. Ideally, you should have a great design to go along with your app with a great landing page that immediately explains why anyone would want to pay for your The design should be functional, beautiful, and unique in that order. A great place to find inspiration is mobbin.com, which curates designs from the top web and mobile apps.

With any technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech Technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech stack in particular makes me feel so productive. On the front end, most developers choose React, track. But the reason I choose Svelte is pretty simple. I just like writing Svelte code more so than React. One thing that's extremely demoralizing is working with tools you don't It's not that I hate React or anything, I just like Svelte more.

I even wrote my own library called Svelte Fire. It integrates Svelte stores with Fire data. In the code, it allows me to read data from my back end database by simply putting a dollar sign in front of the reference for that data. This is quite literally all the code it takes it can be expensive in certain situations, but here's how it simplifies things in my application. When a user submits this form to get a voice clone sample, it will write this text to the Firestore database.

But on the back end, a lot of things need to happen. 1st, we need to reach out to the 11 Labs API, which is the service that handles voice cloning. From there, we have an audio file that we need to save in a storage bucket somewhere in the cloud. We then need to generate a secure download URL that makes the file accessible only to that one user. Then back in the front end, we need to show the user a loading state and update the UI when the job is done.

Why the hell am I doing this? When the initial document is saved Firestore, it triggers a background function that does all the work securely in the background. We don't need to expose any HTTP endpoints to the front end. What's really awesome is that the Firebase SDK on the front end will keep the database in sync in real time. Like, initially, the document has a status of processing, then goes to a status of complete once we have a download URL.

In the Svelte code, this allows us to use an if statement with the real time store that produces code that really can't get any more simple when it comes to full stack Logic. In addition, we can secure this code by ensuring that the authenticated user only has access to its own data with just a single line of code in the security rules. Now, the next huge component of any application is the database. Firestore is a document database that's fast and easy to use, but is not always suitable for highly complex data relationships. In my case, I just have users, and users can generate many audio clips.

It's a very simple relationship that's perfect for Firestore, but choosing the wrong database can be a disaster. In general, relational databases like MySQL and Postgres are the safest bet for the majority of applications, but that doesn't mean they're immune to their own The YouTube channel Codem has a great eye opening story about how they hit the limitations of limitless scale with Prisma and PlanetScale. The bottom line is to do your a search and be careful when choosing a database, but that brings us to our final topic. Dollar dollar bills, y'all. How do you actually get that money?

You're some kind of psychopath, you'll wanna use a payment API. And in my projects, I've always gone with Stripe, but there are many other providers out there. In my application, I give you 100 free tokens to started. In my opinion, it's always a good idea to have some kind of free trial to allow users to try out the app. In this case, you can use my app for free, but once you run out of tokens, you'll need to buy more.

To handle we have an authenticated Firebase Cloud function that generates a checkout session on Stripe, which redirects the user to a hosted checkout page so we don't have to code up any of the UI manually. Now once the user makes a payment, Stripe will send a webhook to our server, which again is another Firebase Cloud function. The webhook will contain data about the payment, so we can look up the user in Firebase and then update Firestore with the tokens they purchased. In addition, I'm also using another service called SendGrid in this function. You send a transactional email to the customer With their order confirmation, but how much should I be charging the customer for these tokens?

Well, I'm going to use a technique they teach in business school called the Vercel strategy. In my case, 11 Labs charges 18¢ per 1,000 characters generated with their voice cloning service. So what I'm going to do is just jack up the price to 69¢ per 1,000 characters. Will teach you how to build an app just like this. It should be ready by the end of June, and here's a big discount on pro memberships if you wanna be the first to And that, my friends, is how you market a side hustle within a video about side hustles.

Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
The dude you're looking at here runs a one man business developing Chrome plug ins that makes over $20,000,000 a year. That's 4 times more than the average NFL quarterback.
Man, it's unfair. Fair. It's my quarterback. One of the best things about learning to code is that it gives you the ability to build money printing machines that regular people can't. In my world, the ultimate freedom in life is to be a solopreneur with a business that runs itself on autopilot. No deadlines, no bosses, no Bugattis, just pure freedom. But that's easier said than done. You won't get there with a 4 hour work week, and for most of us it takes a lot of hard work and some luck.
totalitarianism
logic
I've built a ton of side hustles over the And almost all of them have failed miserably, but a few of them have been moderately successful, and that's given me enough wealth to move out of my mom's basement. In today's video, I'm going to show you exactly how I built and deployed my own real AI software as a service application with only 2 days of programming work. But first, we need to talk about the mindset of a side hustler. Danny Postma recently created a project called Headshot Pro that now has over 12,000 customers. A lot of people might just say he got lucky by jumping on the recent AI hype train, and those people would be absolutely right.
software
software development
robotics
artificial intelligence
marketing
But the thing is, he made his own luck. He first developed the skills to build Then identified the problem of corporate photos being a huge waste of money. Then finally, when AI got good enough to replace photographers, he was able to seize the moment. Here's another anecdote. Movie director Quentin Tarantino wrote a screenplay where Selma Hayek pours tequila down her leg, then some guy drinks it off of her toes. Then guess who he cast in that role? Himself. That's what making your own luck is all about. The problem is that most of us won't get this lucky very often, and that's why you need to be prepared To fail early, fail often, but always fail forward. The only person that can actually tell you whether or not you're going to fail is the customer, and that means you wanna try to get real users giving you feedback as soon It's possible. The last thing you wanna do is spend 2 years building a project in secret only to release it and find out nobody actually wants it.
film
acting
customer support
customers
fiction
gambling
Now that you're in the right mindset, It's time to come up with an idea of something to build. The other day, I came across this trendy new Manosphere channel telling men how to live the GigaChad lifestyle. But weirdly, I was the one narrating bed. For the body, make sure you exercise so that you can keep your mental and physical health in check.
And I don't ever recall doing that. That's because it's illegally using my cloned voice. I'm not the one behind this channel, and I could tell the FBI to find this guy and put him in jail, but I actually like the idea of people replicating my voice for mass distribution.
audio
I like big. Bundles and I cannot lie. You other JS devs can't deny that when a site loads in with all 5 inch in a 3 gs interface, you get And that's how I came up with the idea for vocalize dot cloud, a platform that allows you to use my voice legally, and not just my voice, but all kinds of different celebrities.
So far, I've Reached out to Morgan Freeman, Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Jackson, and many others. None have gotten back to me yet, but I did get a From A list Hollywood actor, Dax Flame. You might know him from 21 Jump Street or his YouTube channel. We actually collaborated to produce an AI cartoon recently that combines Meta's new character animator along with Midjourney and the voice cloning technology that I'm going to show you today. I was given executive prompter credits on that project Along with my 1st Oscar nomination for Approveder of the Year. You can watch the full short film on his channel. In any case, there's one big problem with my side hustle idea. I have no idea if anybody Another thing you should know, ideas are cheap, execution is everything.
celebrity
acting
film
By execution, I'm not talking about the technology itself, but rather the business model Because you could build the most awesome app in the world, but if you don't have a good marketing plan, nobody's ever going to use it. If you're rich, you can pay for advertisements or pay influencers to shill for you. But assuming you're poor, you'll likely have to do some form of organic marketing usually through social media like Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, or whatever. It's no different than fishing. You wanna first figure out where Fish are, then put out some bait like an advertisement or a call to action. Then once a user signs up, you'll want to club them to death and then grill them for dinner. And by that, I mean provide them with an awesome service that they'll be Happy to pay for. Now that you know not to write any code until you have a marketing plan, let's talk about choosing the optimal tech stack.
fishing
marketing
fish
restaurants
customers
customer support
boats
technology
advertising
industry
It doesn't matter if you use WordPress, React, Angular or build some kind of freak show on Kubernetes, nobody cares except the tech bros on Twitter.
The only thing that matters is that it works. Peter Levels, another It's critical to find technologies that optimize your productivity and stick to them unless you have a really good reason to move somewhere else. For me personally, that tech stack is SvelteKit and Firebase, also Known as the it stack. I also use the carbon design system from IBM. It helped me get the UI built very quickly, but in most of my projects, I use Tailwind and build something a little more custom a scratch. Ideally, you should have a great design to go along with your app with a great landing page that immediately explains why anyone would want to pay for your The design should be functional, beautiful, and unique in that order. A great place to find inspiration is mobbin.com, which curates designs from the top web and mobile apps. With any technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech Technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech stack in particular makes me feel so productive.
computers
technology
computer science
infrastructure
graphic design
networking
architecture
aerospace
crafts
On the front end, most developers choose React, track. But the reason I choose Svelte is pretty simple. I just like writing Svelte code more so than React. One thing that's extremely demoralizing is working with tools you don't It's not that I hate React or anything, I just like Svelte more. I even wrote my own library called Svelte Fire.
It integrates Svelte stores with Fire data. In the code, it allows me to read data from my back end database by simply putting a dollar sign in front of the reference for that data. This is quite literally all the code it takes it can be expensive in certain situations, but here's how it simplifies things in my application.
databases
When a user submits this form to get a voice clone sample, it will write this text to the Firestore database. But on the back end, a lot of things need to happen.
1st, we need to reach out to the 11 Labs API, which is the service that handles voice cloning. From there, we have an audio file that we need to save in a storage bucket somewhere in the cloud. We then need to generate a secure download URL that makes the file accessible only to that one user.
podcasts
Then back in the front end, we need to show the user a loading state and update the UI when the job is done. Why the hell am I doing this? When the initial document is saved Firestore, it triggers a background function that does all the work securely in the background. We don't need to expose any HTTP endpoints to the front end. What's really awesome is that the Firebase SDK on the front end will keep the database in sync in real time.
Like, initially, the document has a status of processing, then goes to a status of complete once we have a download URL. In the Svelte code, this allows us to use an if statement with the real time store that produces code that really can't get any more simple when it comes to full stack Logic. In addition, we can secure this code by ensuring that the authenticated user only has access to its own data with just a single line of code in the security rules. Now, the next huge component of any application is the database. Firestore is a document database that's fast and easy to use, but is not always suitable for highly complex data relationships. In my case, I just have users, and users can generate many audio clips. It's a very simple relationship that's perfect for Firestore, but choosing the wrong database can be a disaster. In general, relational databases like MySQL and Postgres are the safest bet for the majority of applications, but that doesn't mean they're immune to their own The YouTube channel Codem has a great eye opening story about how they hit the limitations of limitless scale with Prisma and PlanetScale. The bottom line is to do your a search and be careful when choosing a database, but that brings us to our final topic. Dollar dollar bills, y'all. How do you actually get that money? You're some kind of psychopath, you'll wanna use a payment API. And in my projects, I've always gone with Stripe, but there are many other providers out there. In my application, I give you 100 free tokens to started. In my opinion, it's always a good idea to have some kind of free trial to allow users to try out the app.
databases
purchasing
billing
programming
streaming
cryptocurrency
data management
security
finance
banking
youtube
customer support
In this case, you can use my app for free, but once you run out of tokens, you'll need to buy more. To handle we have an authenticated Firebase Cloud function that generates a checkout session on Stripe, which redirects the user to a hosted checkout page so we don't have to code up any of the UI manually. Now once the user makes a payment, Stripe will send a webhook to our server, which again is another Firebase Cloud function. The webhook will contain data about the payment, so we can look up the user in Firebase and then update Firestore with the tokens they purchased.
In addition, I'm also using another service called SendGrid in this function. You send a transactional email to the customer With their order confirmation, but how much should I be charging the customer for these tokens? Well, I'm going to use a technique they teach in business school called the Vercel strategy.
billing
email
In my case, 11 Labs charges 18¢ per 1,000 characters generated with their voice cloning service. So what I'm going to do is just jack up the price to 69¢ per 1,000 characters. Will teach you how to build an app just like this.
It should be ready by the end of June, and here's a big discount on pro memberships if you wanna be the first to And that, my friends, is how you market a side hustle within a video about side hustles. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
marketing
customers
sales
The dude you're looking at here runs a one man business developing Chrome plug ins that makes over $20,000,000 a year. That's 4 times more than the average NFL quarterback. Man, it's unfair. Fair. It's my quarterback. One of the best things about learning to code is that it gives you the ability to build money printing machines that regular people can't. In my world, the ultimate freedom in life is to be a solopreneur with a business that runs itself on autopilot. No deadlines, no bosses, no Bugattis, just pure freedom. But that's easier said than done. You won't get there with a 4 hour work week, and for most of us it takes a lot of hard work and some luck. I've built a ton of side hustles over the And almost all of them have failed miserably, but a few of them have been moderately successful, and that's given me enough wealth to move out of my mom's basement. In today's video, I'm going to show you exactly how I built and deployed my own real AI software as a service application with only 2 days of programming work. But first, we need to talk about the mindset of a side hustler. Danny Postma recently created a project called Headshot Pro that now has over 12,000 customers. A lot of people might just say he got lucky by jumping on the recent AI hype train, and those people would be absolutely right. But the thing is, he made his own luck. He first developed the skills to build Then identified the problem of corporate photos being a huge waste of money. Then finally, when AI got good enough to replace photographers, he was able to seize the moment. Here's another anecdote. Movie director Quentin Tarantino wrote a screenplay where Selma Hayek pours tequila down her leg, then some guy drinks it off of her toes. Then guess who he cast in that role? Himself. That's what making your own luck is all about. The problem is that most of us won't get this lucky very often, and that's why you need to be prepared To fail early, fail often, but always fail forward. The only person that can actually tell you whether or not you're going to fail is the customer, and that means you wanna try to get real users giving you feedback as soon It's possible. The last thing you wanna do is spend 2 years building a project in secret only to release it and find out nobody actually wants it. Now that you're in the right mindset, It's time to come up with an idea of something to build. The other day, I came across this trendy new Manosphere channel telling men how to live the GigaChad lifestyle. But weirdly, I was the one narrating bed. For the body, make sure you exercise so that you can keep your mental and physical health in check. And I don't ever recall doing that. That's because it's illegally using my cloned voice. I'm not the one behind this channel, and I could tell the FBI to find this guy and put him in jail, but I actually like the idea of people replicating my voice for mass distribution. I like big. Bundles and I cannot lie. You other JS devs can't deny that when a site loads in with all 5 inch in a 3 gs interface, you get And that's how I came up with the idea for vocalize dot cloud, a platform that allows you to use my voice legally, and not just my voice, but all kinds of different celebrities. So far, I've Reached out to Morgan Freeman, Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Jackson, and many others. None have gotten back to me yet, but I did get a From A list Hollywood actor, Dax Flame. You might know him from 21 Jump Street or his YouTube channel. We actually collaborated to produce an AI cartoon recently that combines Meta's new character animator along with Midjourney and the voice cloning technology that I'm going to show you today. I was given executive prompter credits on that project Along with my 1st Oscar nomination for Approveder of the Year. You can watch the full short film on his channel. In any case, there's one big problem with my side hustle idea. I have no idea if anybody Another thing you should know, ideas are cheap, execution is everything. By execution, I'm not talking about the technology itself, but rather the business model Because you could build the most awesome app in the world, but if you don't have a good marketing plan, nobody's ever going to use it. If you're rich, you can pay for advertisements or pay influencers to shill for you. But assuming you're poor, you'll likely have to do some form of organic marketing usually through social media like Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, or whatever. It's no different than fishing. You wanna first figure out where Fish are, then put out some bait like an advertisement or a call to action. Then once a user signs up, you'll want to club them to death and then grill them for dinner. And by that, I mean provide them with an awesome service that they'll be Happy to pay for. Now that you know not to write any code until you have a marketing plan, let's talk about choosing the optimal tech stack. It doesn't matter if you use WordPress, React, Angular or build some kind of freak show on Kubernetes, nobody cares except the tech bros on Twitter. The only thing that matters is that it works. Peter Levels, another It's critical to find technologies that optimize your productivity and stick to them unless you have a really good reason to move somewhere else. For me personally, that tech stack is SvelteKit and Firebase, also Known as the it stack. I also use the carbon design system from IBM. It helped me get the UI built very quickly, but in most of my projects, I use Tailwind and build something a little more custom a scratch. Ideally, you should have a great design to go along with your app with a great landing page that immediately explains why anyone would want to pay for your The design should be functional, beautiful, and unique in that order. A great place to find inspiration is mobbin.com, which curates designs from the top web and mobile apps. With any technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech Technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech stack in particular makes me feel so productive. On the front end, most developers choose React, track. But the reason I choose Svelte is pretty simple. I just like writing Svelte code more so than React. One thing that's extremely demoralizing is working with tools you don't It's not that I hate React or anything, I just like Svelte more. I even wrote my own library called Svelte Fire. It integrates Svelte stores with Fire data. In the code, it allows me to read data from my back end database by simply putting a dollar sign in front of the reference for that data. This is quite literally all the code it takes it can be expensive in certain situations, but here's how it simplifies things in my application. When a user submits this form to get a voice clone sample, it will write this text to the Firestore database. But on the back end, a lot of things need to happen. 1st, we need to reach out to the 11 Labs API, which is the service that handles voice cloning. From there, we have an audio file that we need to save in a storage bucket somewhere in the cloud. We then need to generate a secure download URL that makes the file accessible only to that one user. Then back in the front end, we need to show the user a loading state and update the UI when the job is done. Why the hell am I doing this? When the initial document is saved Firestore, it triggers a background function that does all the work securely in the background. We don't need to expose any HTTP endpoints to the front end. What's really awesome is that the Firebase SDK on the front end will keep the database in sync in real time. Like, initially, the document has a status of processing, then goes to a status of complete once we have a download URL. In the Svelte code, this allows us to use an if statement with the real time store that produces code that really can't get any more simple when it comes to full stack Logic. In addition, we can secure this code by ensuring that the authenticated user only has access to its own data with just a single line of code in the security rules. Now, the next huge component of any application is the database. Firestore is a document database that's fast and easy to use, but is not always suitable for highly complex data relationships. In my case, I just have users, and users can generate many audio clips. It's a very simple relationship that's perfect for Firestore, but choosing the wrong database can be a disaster. In general, relational databases like MySQL and Postgres are the safest bet for the majority of applications, but that doesn't mean they're immune to their own The YouTube channel Codem has a great eye opening story about how they hit the limitations of limitless scale with Prisma and PlanetScale. The bottom line is to do your a search and be careful when choosing a database, but that brings us to our final topic. Dollar dollar bills, y'all. How do you actually get that money? You're some kind of psychopath, you'll wanna use a payment API. And in my projects, I've always gone with Stripe, but there are many other providers out there. In my application, I give you 100 free tokens to started. In my opinion, it's always a good idea to have some kind of free trial to allow users to try out the app. In this case, you can use my app for free, but once you run out of tokens, you'll need to buy more. To handle we have an authenticated Firebase Cloud function that generates a checkout session on Stripe, which redirects the user to a hosted checkout page so we don't have to code up any of the UI manually. Now once the user makes a payment, Stripe will send a webhook to our server, which again is another Firebase Cloud function. The webhook will contain data about the payment, so we can look up the user in Firebase and then update Firestore with the tokens they purchased. In addition, I'm also using another service called SendGrid in this function. You send a transactional email to the customer With their order confirmation, but how much should I be charging the customer for these tokens? Well, I'm going to use a technique they teach in business school called the Vercel strategy. In my case, 11 Labs charges 18¢ per 1,000 characters generated with their voice cloning service. So what I'm going to do is just jack up the price to 69¢ per 1,000 characters. Will teach you how to build an app just like this. It should be ready by the end of June, and here's a big discount on pro memberships if you wanna be the first to And that, my friends, is how you market a side hustle within a video about side hustles. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
The
the
dude
dude
you're
you're
looking
looking
at
at
here
here
runs
runs
a
a
one
one
man
man
business
business
developing
developing
Chrome
chrome
plug
plug
ins
ins
that
that
makes
makes
over
over
$20,000,000
$20,000,000
a
a
year.
year
That's
that's
4
4
times
times
more
more
than
than
the
the
average
average
NFL
nfl
quarterback.
quarterback
Man,
man
it's
it's
unfair.
unfair
Fair.
fair
It's
it's
my
my
quarterback.
quarterback
One
one
of
of
the
the
best
best
things
things
about
about
learning
learning
to
to
code
code
is
is
that
that
it
it
gives
gives
you
you
the
the
ability
ability
to
to
build
build
money
money
printing
printing
machines
machines
that
that
regular
regular
people
people
can't.
can't
In
in
my
my
world,
world
the
the
ultimate
ultimate
freedom
freedom
in
in
life
life
is
is
to
to
be
be
a
a
solopreneur
solopreneur
with
with
a
a
business
business
that
that
runs
runs
itself
itself
on
on
autopilot.
autopilot
No
no
deadlines,
deadlines
no
no
bosses,
bosses
no
no
Bugattis,
bugattis
just
just
pure
pure
freedom.
freedom
But
but
that's
that's
easier
easier
said
said
than
than
done.
done
You
you
won't
won't
get
get
there
there
with
with
a
a
4
4
hour
hour
work
work
week,
week
and
and
for
for
most
most
of
of
us
us
it
it
takes
takes
a
a
lot
lot
of
of
hard
hard
work
work
and
and
some
some
luck.
luck
I've
i've
built
built
a
a
ton
ton
of
of
side
side
hustles
hustles
over
over
the
the
And
and
almost
almost
all
all
of
of
them
them
have
have
failed
failed
miserably,
miserably
but
but
a
a
few
few
of
of
them
them
have
have
been
been
moderately
moderately
successful,
successful
and
and
that's
that's
given
given
me
me
enough
enough
wealth
wealth
to
to
move
move
out
out
of
of
my
my
mom's
mom's
basement.
basement
In
in
today's
today's
video,
video
I'm
i'm
going
going
to
to
show
show
you
you
exactly
exactly
how
how
I
i
built
built
and
and
deployed
deployed
my
my
own
own
real
real
AI
ai
software
software
as
as
a
a
service
service
application
application
with
with
only
only
2
2
days
days
of
of
programming
programming
work.
work
But
but
first,
first
we
we
need
need
to
to
talk
talk
about
about
the
the
mindset
mindset
of
of
a
a
side
side
hustler.
hustler
Danny
danny
Postma
postma
recently
recently
created
created
a
a
project
project
called
called
Headshot
headshot
Pro
pro
that
that
now
now
has
has
over
over
12,000
12,000
customers.
customers
A
a
lot
lot
of
of
people
people
might
might
just
just
say
say
he
he
got
got
lucky
lucky
by
by
jumping
jumping
on
on
the
the
recent
recent
AI
ai
hype
hype
train,
train
and
and
those
those
people
people
would
would
be
be
absolutely
absolutely
right.
right
But
but
the
the
thing
thing
is,
is
he
he
made
made
his
his
own
own
luck.
luck
He
he
first
first
developed
developed
the
the
skills
skills
to
to
build
build
Then
then
identified
identified
the
the
problem
problem
of
of
corporate
corporate
photos
photos
being
being
a
a
huge
huge
waste
waste
of
of
money.
money
Then
then
finally,
finally
when
when
AI
ai
got
got
good
good
enough
enough
to
to
replace
replace
photographers,
photographers
he
he
was
was
able
able
to
to
seize
seize
the
the
moment.
moment
Here's
here's
another
another
anecdote.
anecdote
Movie
movie
director
director
Quentin
quentin
Tarantino
tarantino
wrote
wrote
a
a
screenplay
screenplay
where
where
Selma
selma
Hayek
hayek
pours
pours
tequila
tequila
down
down
her
her
leg,
leg
then
then
some
some
guy
guy
drinks
drinks
it
it
off
off
of
of
her
her
toes.
toes
Then
then
guess
guess
who
who
he
he
cast
cast
in
in
that
that
role?
role
Himself.
himself
That's
that's
what
what
making
making
your
your
own
own
luck
luck
is
is
all
all
about.
about
The
the
problem
problem
is
is
that
that
most
most
of
of
us
us
won't
won't
get
get
this
this
lucky
lucky
very
very
often,
often
and
and
that's
that's
why
why
you
you
need
need
to
to
be
be
prepared
prepared
To
to
fail
fail
early,
early
fail
fail
often,
often
but
but
always
always
fail
fail
forward.
forward
The
the
only
only
person
person
that
that
can
can
actually
actually
tell
tell
you
you
whether
whether
or
or
not
not
you're
you're
going
going
to
to
fail
fail
is
is
the
the
customer,
customer
and
and
that
that
means
means
you
you
wanna
wanna
try
try
to
to
get
get
real
real
users
users
giving
giving
you
you
feedback
feedback
as
as
soon
soon
It's
it's
possible.
possible
The
the
last
last
thing
thing
you
you
wanna
wanna
do
do
is
is
spend
spend
2
2
years
years
building
building
a
a
project
project
in
in
secret
secret
only
only
to
to
release
release
it
it
and
and
find
find
out
out
nobody
nobody
actually
actually
wants
wants
it.
it
Now
now
that
that
you're
you're
in
in
the
the
right
right
mindset,
mindset
It's
it's
time
time
to
to
come
come
up
up
with
with
an
an
idea
idea
of
of
something
something
to
to
build.
build
The
the
other
other
day,
day
I
i
came
came
across
across
this
this
trendy
trendy
new
new
Manosphere
manosphere
channel
channel
telling
telling
men
men
how
how
to
to
live
live
the
the
GigaChad
gigachad
lifestyle.
lifestyle
But
but
weirdly,
weirdly
I
i
was
was
the
the
one
one
narrating
narrating
bed.
bed
For
for
the
the
body,
body
make
make
sure
sure
you
you
exercise
exercise
so
so
that
that
you
you
can
can
keep
keep
your
your
mental
mental
and
and
physical
physical
health
health
in
in
check.
check
And
and
I
i
don't
don't
ever
ever
recall
recall
doing
doing
that.
that
That's
that's
because
because
it's
it's
illegally
illegally
using
using
my
my
cloned
cloned
voice.
voice
I'm
i'm
not
not
the
the
one
one
behind
behind
this
this
channel,
channel
and
and
I
i
could
could
tell
tell
the
the
FBI
fbi
to
to
find
find
this
this
guy
guy
and
and
put
put
him
him
in
in
jail,
jail
but
but
I
i
actually
actually
like
like
the
the
idea
idea
of
of
people
people
replicating
replicating
my
my
voice
voice
for
for
mass
mass
distribution.
distribution
I
i
like
like
big.
big
Bundles
bundles
and
and
I
i
cannot
cannot
lie.
lie
You
you
other
other
JS
js
devs
devs
can't
can't
deny
deny
that
that
when
when
a
a
site
site
loads
loads
in
in
with
with
all
all
5
5
inch
inch
in
in
a
a
3
3
gs
gs
interface,
interface
you
you
get
get
And
and
that's
that's
how
how
I
i
came
came
up
up
with
with
the
the
idea
idea
for
for
vocalize
vocalize
dot
dot
cloud,
cloud
a
a
platform
platform
that
that
allows
allows
you
you
to
to
use
use
my
my
voice
voice
legally,
legally
and
and
not
not
just
just
my
my
voice,
voice
but
but
all
all
kinds
kinds
of
of
different
different
celebrities.
celebrities
So
so
far,
far
I've
i've
Reached
reached
out
out
to
to
Morgan
morgan
Freeman,
freeman
Tom
tom
Cruise,
cruise
Scarlett
scarlett
Johansson,
johansson
Michael
michael
Jackson,
jackson
and
and
many
many
others.
others
None
none
have
have
gotten
gotten
back
back
to
to
me
me
yet,
yet
but
but
I
i
did
did
get
get
a
a
From
from
A
a
list
list
Hollywood
hollywood
actor,
actor
Dax
dax
Flame.
flame
You
you
might
might
know
know
him
him
from
from
21
21
Jump
jump
Street
street
or
or
his
his
YouTube
youtube
channel.
channel
We
we
actually
actually
collaborated
collaborated
to
to
produce
produce
an
an
AI
ai
cartoon
cartoon
recently
recently
that
that
combines
combines
Meta's
meta's
new
new
character
character
animator
animator
along
along
with
with
Midjourney
midjourney
and
and
the
the
voice
voice
cloning
cloning
technology
technology
that
that
I'm
i'm
going
going
to
to
show
show
you
you
today.
today
I
i
was
was
given
given
executive
executive
prompter
prompter
credits
credits
on
on
that
that
project
project
Along
along
with
with
my
my
1st
1st
Oscar
oscar
nomination
nomination
for
for
Approveder
approveder
of
of
the
the
Year.
year
You
you
can
can
watch
watch
the
the
full
full
short
short
film
film
on
on
his
his
channel.
channel
In
in
any
any
case,
case
there's
there's
one
one
big
big
problem
problem
with
with
my
my
side
side
hustle
hustle
idea.
idea
I
i
have
have
no
no
idea
idea
if
if
anybody
anybody
Another
another
thing
thing
you
you
should
should
know,
know
ideas
ideas
are
are
cheap,
cheap
execution
execution
is
is
everything.
everything
By
by
execution,
execution
I'm
i'm
not
not
talking
talking
about
about
the
the
technology
technology
itself,
itself
but
but
rather
rather
the
the
business
business
model
model
Because
because
you
you
could
could
build
build
the
the
most
most
awesome
awesome
app
app
in
in
the
the
world,
world
but
but
if
if
you
you
don't
don't
have
have
a
a
good
good
marketing
marketing
plan,
plan
nobody's
nobody's
ever
ever
going
going
to
to
use
use
it.
it
If
if
you're
you're
rich,
rich
you
you
can
can
pay
pay
for
for
advertisements
advertisements
or
or
pay
pay
influencers
influencers
to
to
shill
shill
for
for
you.
you
But
but
assuming
assuming
you're
you're
poor,
poor
you'll
you'll
likely
likely
have
have
to
to
do
do
some
some
form
form
of
of
organic
organic
marketing
marketing
usually
usually
through
through
social
social
media
media
like
like
Twitter,
twitter
YouTube,
youtube
TikTok,
tiktok
or
or
whatever.
whatever
It's
it's
no
no
different
different
than
than
fishing.
fishing
You
you
wanna
wanna
first
first
figure
figure
out
out
where
where
Fish
fish
are,
are
then
then
put
put
out
out
some
some
bait
bait
like
like
an
an
advertisement
advertisement
or
or
a
a
call
call
to
to
action.
action
Then
then
once
once
a
a
user
user
signs
signs
up,
up
you'll
you'll
want
want
to
to
club
club
them
them
to
to
death
death
and
and
then
then
grill
grill
them
them
for
for
dinner.
dinner
And
and
by
by
that,
that
I
i
mean
mean
provide
provide
them
them
with
with
an
an
awesome
awesome
service
service
that
that
they'll
they'll
be
be
Happy
happy
to
to
pay
pay
for.
for
Now
now
that
that
you
you
know
know
not
not
to
to
write
write
any
any
code
code
until
until
you
you
have
have
a
a
marketing
marketing
plan,
plan
let's
let's
talk
talk
about
about
choosing
choosing
the
the
optimal
optimal
tech
tech
stack.
stack
It
it
doesn't
doesn't
matter
matter
if
if
you
you
use
use
WordPress,
wordpress
React,
react
Angular
angular
or
or
build
build
some
some
kind
kind
of
of
freak
freak
show
show
on
on
Kubernetes,
kubernetes
nobody
nobody
cares
cares
except
except
the
the
tech
tech
bros
bros
on
on
Twitter.
twitter
The
the
only
only
thing
thing
that
that
matters
matters
is
is
that
that
it
it
works.
works
Peter
peter
Levels,
levels
another
another
It's
it's
critical
critical
to
to
find
find
technologies
technologies
that
that
optimize
optimize
your
your
productivity
productivity
and
and
stick
stick
to
to
them
them
unless
unless
you
you
have
have
a
a
really
really
good
good
reason
reason
to
to
move
move
somewhere
somewhere
else.
else
For
for
me
me
personally,
personally
that
that
tech
tech
stack
stack
is
is
SvelteKit
sveltekit
and
and
Firebase,
firebase
also
also
Known
known
as
as
the
the
it
it
stack.
stack
I
i
also
also
use
use
the
the
carbon
carbon
design
design
system
system
from
from
IBM.
ibm
It
it
helped
helped
me
me
get
get
the
the
UI
ui
built
built
very
very
quickly,
quickly
but
but
in
in
most
most
of
of
my
my
projects,
projects
I
i
use
use
Tailwind
tailwind
and
and
build
build
something
something
a
a
little
little
more
more
custom
custom
a
a
scratch.
scratch
Ideally,
ideally
you
you
should
should
have
have
a
a
great
great
design
design
to
to
go
go
along
along
with
with
your
your
app
app
with
with
a
a
great
great
landing
landing
page
page
that
that
immediately
immediately
explains
explains
why
why
anyone
anyone
would
would
want
want
to
to
pay
pay
for
for
your
your
The
the
design
design
should
should
be
be
functional,
functional
beautiful,
beautiful
and
and
unique
unique
in
in
that
that
order.
order
A
a
great
great
place
place
to
to
find
find
inspiration
inspiration
is
is
mobbin.com,
mobbin.com
which
which
curates
curates
designs
designs
from
from
the
the
top
top
web
web
and
and
mobile
mobile
apps.
apps
With
with
any
any
technology
technology
choice,
choice
there
there
are
are
tons
tons
of
of
trade
trade
offs,
offs
but
but
I
i
want
want
to
to
highlight
highlight
a
a
few
few
reasons
reasons
why
why
this
this
tech
tech
Technology
technology
choice,
choice
there
there
are
are
tons
tons
of
of
trade
trade
offs,
offs
but
but
I
i
want
want
to
to
highlight
highlight
a
a
few
few
reasons
reasons
why
why
this
this
tech
tech
stack
stack
in
in
particular
particular
makes
makes
me
me
feel
feel
so
so
productive.
productive
On
on
the
the
front
front
end,
end
most
most
developers
developers
choose
choose
React,
react
track.
track
But
but
the
the
reason
reason
I
i
choose
choose
Svelte
svelte
is
is
pretty
pretty
simple.
simple
I
i
just
just
like
like
writing
writing
Svelte
svelte
code
code
more
more
so
so
than
than
React.
react
One
one
thing
thing
that's
that's
extremely
extremely
demoralizing
demoralizing
is
is
working
working
with
with
tools
tools
you
you
don't
don't
It's
it's
not
not
that
that
I
i
hate
hate
React
react
or
or
anything,
anything
I
i
just
just
like
like
Svelte
svelte
more.
more
I
i
even
even
wrote
wrote
my
my
own
own
library
library
called
called
Svelte
svelte
Fire.
fire
It
it
integrates
integrates
Svelte
svelte
stores
stores
with
with
Fire
fire
data.
data
In
in
the
the
code,
code
it
it
allows
allows
me
me
to
to
read
read
data
data
from
from
my
my
back
back
end
end
database
database
by
by
simply
simply
putting
putting
a
a
dollar
dollar
sign
sign
in
in
front
front
of
of
the
the
reference
reference
for
for
that
that
data.
data
This
this
is
is
quite
quite
literally
literally
all
all
the
the
code
code
it
it
takes
takes
it
it
can
can
be
be
expensive
expensive
in
in
certain
certain
situations,
situations
but
but
here's
here's
how
how
it
it
simplifies
simplifies
things
things
in
in
my
my
application.
application
When
when
a
a
user
user
submits
submits
this
this
form
form
to
to
get
get
a
a
voice
voice
clone
clone
sample,
sample
it
it
will
will
write
write
this
this
text
text
to
to
the
the
Firestore
firestore
database.
database
But
but
on
on
the
the
back
back
end,
end
a
a
lot
lot
of
of
things
things
need
need
to
to
happen.
happen
1st,
1st
we
we
need
need
to
to
reach
reach
out
out
to
to
the
the
11
11
Labs
labs
API,
api
which
which
is
is
the
the
service
service
that
that
handles
handles
voice
voice
cloning.
cloning
From
from
there,
there
we
we
have
have
an
an
audio
audio
file
file
that
that
we
we
need
need
to
to
save
save
in
in
a
a
storage
storage
bucket
bucket
somewhere
somewhere
in
in
the
the
cloud.
cloud
We
we
then
then
need
need
to
to
generate
generate
a
a
secure
secure
download
download
URL
url
that
that
makes
makes
the
the
file
file
accessible
accessible
only
only
to
to
that
that
one
one
user.
user
Then
then
back
back
in
in
the
the
front
front
end,
end
we
we
need
need
to
to
show
show
the
the
user
user
a
a
loading
loading
state
state
and
and
update
update
the
the
UI
ui
when
when
the
the
job
job
is
is
done.
done
Why
why
the
the
hell
hell
am
am
I
i
doing
doing
this?
this
When
when
the
the
initial
initial
document
document
is
is
saved
saved
Firestore,
firestore
it
it
triggers
triggers
a
a
background
background
function
function
that
that
does
does
all
all
the
the
work
work
securely
securely
in
in
the
the
background.
background
We
we
don't
don't
need
need
to
to
expose
expose
any
any
HTTP
http
endpoints
endpoints
to
to
the
the
front
front
end.
end
What's
what's
really
really
awesome
awesome
is
is
that
that
the
the
Firebase
firebase
SDK
sdk
on
on
the
the
front
front
end
end
will
will
keep
keep
the
the
database
database
in
in
sync
sync
in
in
real
real
time.
time
Like,
like
initially,
initially
the
the
document
document
has
has
a
a
status
status
of
of
processing,
processing
then
then
goes
goes
to
to
a
a
status
status
of
of
complete
complete
once
once
we
we
have
have
a
a
download
download
URL.
url
In
in
the
the
Svelte
svelte
code,
code
this
this
allows
allows
us
us
to
to
use
use
an
an
if
if
statement
statement
with
with
the
the
real
real
time
time
store
store
that
that
produces
produces
code
code
that
that
really
really
can't
can't
get
get
any
any
more
more
simple
simple
when
when
it
it
comes
comes
to
to
full
full
stack
stack
Logic.
logic
In
in
addition,
addition
we
we
can
can
secure
secure
this
this
code
code
by
by
ensuring
ensuring
that
that
the
the
authenticated
authenticated
user
user
only
only
has
has
access
access
to
to
its
its
own
own
data
data
with
with
just
just
a
a
single
single
line
line
of
of
code
code
in
in
the
the
security
security
rules.
rules
Now,
now
the
the
next
next
huge
huge
component
component
of
of
any
any
application
application
is
is
the
the
database.
database
Firestore
firestore
is
is
a
a
document
document
database
database
that's
that's
fast
fast
and
and
easy
easy
to
to
use,
use
but
but
is
is
not
not
always
always
suitable
suitable
for
for
highly
highly
complex
complex
data
data
relationships.
relationships
In
in
my
my
case,
case
I
i
just
just
have
have
users,
users
and
and
users
users
can
can
generate
generate
many
many
audio
audio
clips.
clips
It's
it's
a
a
very
very
simple
simple
relationship
relationship
that's
that's
perfect
perfect
for
for
Firestore,
firestore
but
but
choosing
choosing
the
the
wrong
wrong
database
database
can
can
be
be
a
a
disaster.
disaster
In
in
general,
general
relational
relational
databases
databases
like
like
MySQL
mysql
and
and
Postgres
postgres
are
are
the
the
safest
safest
bet
bet
for
for
the
the
majority
majority
of
of
applications,
applications
but
but
that
that
doesn't
doesn't
mean
mean
they're
they're
immune
immune
to
to
their
their
own
own
The
the
YouTube
youtube
channel
channel
Codem
codem
has
has
a
a
great
great
eye
eye
opening
opening
story
story
about
about
how
how
they
they
hit
hit
the
the
limitations
limitations
of
of
limitless
limitless
scale
scale
with
with
Prisma
prisma
and
and
PlanetScale.
planetscale
The
the
bottom
bottom
line
line
is
is
to
to
do
do
your
your
a
a
search
search
and
and
be
be
careful
careful
when
when
choosing
choosing
a
a
database,
database
but
but
that
that
brings
brings
us
us
to
to
our
our
final
final
topic.
topic
Dollar
dollar
dollar
dollar
bills,
bills
y'all.
y'all
How
how
do
do
you
you
actually
actually
get
get
that
that
money?
money
You're
you're
some
some
kind
kind
of
of
psychopath,
psychopath
you'll
you'll
wanna
wanna
use
use
a
a
payment
payment
API.
api
And
and
in
in
my
my
projects,
projects
I've
i've
always
always
gone
gone
with
with
Stripe,
stripe
but
but
there
there
are
are
many
many
other
other
providers
providers
out
out
there.
there
In
in
my
my
application,
application
I
i
give
give
you
you
100
100
free
free
tokens
tokens
to
to
started.
started
In
in
my
my
opinion,
opinion
it's
it's
always
always
a
a
good
good
idea
idea
to
to
have
have
some
some
kind
kind
of
of
free
free
trial
trial
to
to
allow
allow
users
users
to
to
try
try
out
out
the
the
app.
app
In
in
this
this
case,
case
you
you
can
can
use
use
my
my
app
app
for
for
free,
free
but
but
once
once
you
you
run
run
out
out
of
of
tokens,
tokens
you'll
you'll
need
need
to
to
buy
buy
more.
more
To
to
handle
handle
we
we
have
have
an
an
authenticated
authenticated
Firebase
firebase
Cloud
cloud
function
function
that
that
generates
generates
a
a
checkout
checkout
session
session
on
on
Stripe,
stripe
which
which
redirects
redirects
the
the
user
user
to
to
a
a
hosted
hosted
checkout
checkout
page
page
so
so
we
we
don't
don't
have
have
to
to
code
code
up
up
any
any
of
of
the
the
UI
ui
manually.
manually
Now
now
once
once
the
the
user
user
makes
makes
a
a
payment,
payment
Stripe
stripe
will
will
send
send
a
a
webhook
webhook
to
to
our
our
server,
server
which
which
again
again
is
is
another
another
Firebase
firebase
Cloud
cloud
function.
function
The
the
webhook
webhook
will
will
contain
contain
data
data
about
about
the
the
payment,
payment
so
so
we
we
can
can
look
look
up
up
the
the
user
user
in
in
Firebase
firebase
and
and
then
then
update
update
Firestore
firestore
with
with
the
the
tokens
tokens
they
they
purchased.
purchased
In
in
addition,
addition
I'm
i'm
also
also
using
using
another
another
service
service
called
called
SendGrid
sendgrid
in
in
this
this
function.
function
You
you
send
send
a
a
transactional
transactional
email
email
to
to
the
the
customer
customer
With
with
their
their
order
order
confirmation,
confirmation
but
but
how
how
much
much
should
should
I
i
be
be
charging
charging
the
the
customer
customer
for
for
these
these
tokens?
tokens
Well,
well
I'm
i'm
going
going
to
to
use
use
a
a
technique
technique
they
they
teach
teach
in
in
business
business
school
school
called
called
the
the
Vercel
vercel
strategy.
strategy
In
in
my
my
case,
case
11
11
Labs
labs
charges
charges
18¢
18¢
per
per
1,000
1,000
characters
characters
generated
generated
with
with
their
their
voice
voice
cloning
cloning
service.
service
So
so
what
what
I'm
i'm
going
going
to
to
do
do
is
is
just
just
jack
jack
up
up
the
the
price
price
to
to
69¢
69¢
per
per
1,000
1,000
characters.
characters
Will
will
teach
teach
you
you
how
how
to
to
build
build
an
an
app
app
just
just
like
like
this.
this
It
it
should
should
be
be
ready
ready
by
by
the
the
end
end
of
of
June,
june
and
and
here's
here's
a
a
big
big
discount
discount
on
on
pro
pro
memberships
memberships
if
if
you
you
wanna
wanna
be
be
the
the
first
first
to
to
And
and
that,
that
my
my
friends,
friends
is
is
how
how
you
you
market
market
a
a
side
side
hustle
hustle
within
within
a
a
video
video
about
about
side
side
hustles.
hustles
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 speakers discuss the benefits of learning to code and building a side hustle, as well as their success in building AI software applications and creating a platform for mass distribution. They emphasize the importance of finding the optimal tech stack for productivity and optimize productivity through a marketing plan and design for an app. The speakers also highlight the benefits of working with Svelte, including a cloud storage file and the use of a payment API and Vercel strategy for marketing side hustles.
How to get rich as a solo software developer - The Ultimate Guide
The dude you're looking at here runs a one man business developing Chrome plug ins that makes over $20,000,000 a year. That's 4 times more than the average NFL quarterback. Man, it's unfair. Fair. It's my quarterback. One of the best things about learning to code is that it gives you the ability to build money printing machines that regular people can't. In my world, the ultimate freedom in life is to be a solopreneur with a business that runs itself on autopilot. No deadlines, no bosses, no Bugattis, just pure freedom. But that's easier said than done. You won't get there with a 4 hour work week, and for most of us it takes a lot of hard work and some luck. I've built a ton of side hustles over the And almost all of them have failed miserably, but a few of them have been moderately successful, and that's given me enough wealth to move out of my mom's basement. In today's video, I'm going to show you exactly how I built and deployed my own real AI software as a service application with only 2 days of programming work. But first, we need to talk about the mindset of a side hustler. Danny Postma recently created a project called Headshot Pro that now has over 12,000 customers. A lot of people might just say he got lucky by jumping on the recent AI hype train, and those people would be absolutely right. But the thing is, he made his own luck. He first developed the skills to build Then identified the problem of corporate photos being a huge waste of money. Then finally, when AI got good enough to replace photographers, he was able to seize the moment. Here's another anecdote. Movie director Quentin Tarantino wrote a screenplay where Selma Hayek pours tequila down her leg, then some guy drinks it off of her toes. Then guess who he cast in that role? Himself. That's what making your own luck is all about. The problem is that most of us won't get this lucky very often, and that's why you need to be prepared To fail early, fail often, but always fail forward. The only person that can actually tell you whether or not you're going to fail is the customer, and that means you wanna try to get real users giving you feedback as soon It's possible. The last thing you wanna do is spend 2 years building a project in secret only to release it and find out nobody actually wants it. Now that you're in the right mindset, It's time to come up with an idea of something to build. The other day, I came across this trendy new Manosphere channel telling men how to live the GigaChad lifestyle. But weirdly, I was the one narrating bed. For the body, make sure you exercise so that you can keep your mental and physical health in check. And I don't ever recall doing that. That's because it's illegally using my cloned voice. I'm not the one behind this channel, and I could tell the FBI to find this guy and put him in jail, but I actually like the idea of people replicating my voice for mass distribution. I like big. Bundles and I cannot lie. You other JS devs can't deny that when a site loads in with all 5 inch in a 3 gs interface, you get And that's how I came up with the idea for vocalize dot cloud, a platform that allows you to use my voice legally, and not just my voice, but all kinds of different celebrities. So far, I've Reached out to Morgan Freeman, Tom Cruise, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Jackson, and many others. None have gotten back to me yet, but I did get a From A list Hollywood actor, Dax Flame. You might know him from 21 Jump Street or his YouTube channel. We actually collaborated to produce an AI cartoon recently that combines Meta's new character animator along with Midjourney and the voice cloning technology that I'm going to show you today. I was given executive prompter credits on that project Along with my 1st Oscar nomination for Approveder of the Year. You can watch the full short film on his channel. In any case, there's one big problem with my side hustle idea. I have no idea if anybody Another thing you should know, ideas are cheap, execution is everything. By execution, I'm not talking about the technology itself, but rather the business model Because you could build the most awesome app in the world, but if you don't have a good marketing plan, nobody's ever going to use it. If you're rich, you can pay for advertisements or pay influencers to shill for you. But assuming you're poor, you'll likely have to do some form of organic marketing usually through social media like Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, or whatever. It's no different than fishing. You wanna first figure out where Fish are, then put out some bait like an advertisement or a call to action. Then once a user signs up, you'll want to club them to death and then grill them for dinner. And by that, I mean provide them with an awesome service that they'll be Happy to pay for. Now that you know not to write any code until you have a marketing plan, let's talk about choosing the optimal tech stack. It doesn't matter if you use WordPress, React, Angular or build some kind of freak show on Kubernetes, nobody cares except the tech bros on Twitter. The only thing that matters is that it works. Peter Levels, another It's critical to find technologies that optimize your productivity and stick to them unless you have a really good reason to move somewhere else. For me personally, that tech stack is SvelteKit and Firebase, also Known as the it stack. I also use the carbon design system from IBM. It helped me get the UI built very quickly, but in most of my projects, I use Tailwind and build something a little more custom a scratch. Ideally, you should have a great design to go along with your app with a great landing page that immediately explains why anyone would want to pay for your The design should be functional, beautiful, and unique in that order. A great place to find inspiration is mobbin.com, which curates designs from the top web and mobile apps. With any technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech Technology choice, there are tons of trade offs, but I want to highlight a few reasons why this tech stack in particular makes me feel so productive. On the front end, most developers choose React, track. But the reason I choose Svelte is pretty simple. I just like writing Svelte code more so than React. One thing that's extremely demoralizing is working with tools you don't It's not that I hate React or anything, I just like Svelte more. I even wrote my own library called Svelte Fire. It integrates Svelte stores with Fire data. In the code, it allows me to read data from my back end database by simply putting a dollar sign in front of the reference for that data. This is quite literally all the code it takes it can be expensive in certain situations, but here's how it simplifies things in my application. When a user submits this form to get a voice clone sample, it will write this text to the Firestore database. But on the back end, a lot of things need to happen. 1st, we need to reach out to the 11 Labs API, which is the service that handles voice cloning. From there, we have an audio file that we need to save in a storage bucket somewhere in the cloud. We then need to generate a secure download URL that makes the file accessible only to that one user. Then back in the front end, we need to show the user a loading state and update the UI when the job is done. Why the hell am I doing this? When the initial document is saved Firestore, it triggers a background function that does all the work securely in the background. We don't need to expose any HTTP endpoints to the front end. What's really awesome is that the Firebase SDK on the front end will keep the database in sync in real time. Like, initially, the document has a status of processing, then goes to a status of complete once we have a download URL. In the Svelte code, this allows us to use an if statement with the real time store that produces code that really can't get any more simple when it comes to full stack Logic. In addition, we can secure this code by ensuring that the authenticated user only has access to its own data with just a single line of code in the security rules. Now, the next huge component of any application is the database. Firestore is a document database that's fast and easy to use, but is not always suitable for highly complex data relationships. In my case, I just have users, and users can generate many audio clips. It's a very simple relationship that's perfect for Firestore, but choosing the wrong database can be a disaster. In general, relational databases like MySQL and Postgres are the safest bet for the majority of applications, but that doesn't mean they're immune to their own The YouTube channel Codem has a great eye opening story about how they hit the limitations of limitless scale with Prisma and PlanetScale. The bottom line is to do your a search and be careful when choosing a database, but that brings us to our final topic. Dollar dollar bills, y'all. How do you actually get that money? You're some kind of psychopath, you'll wanna use a payment API. And in my projects, I've always gone with Stripe, but there are many other providers out there. In my application, I give you 100 free tokens to started. In my opinion, it's always a good idea to have some kind of free trial to allow users to try out the app. In this case, you can use my app for free, but once you run out of tokens, you'll need to buy more. To handle we have an authenticated Firebase Cloud function that generates a checkout session on Stripe, which redirects the user to a hosted checkout page so we don't have to code up any of the UI manually. Now once the user makes a payment, Stripe will send a webhook to our server, which again is another Firebase Cloud function. The webhook will contain data about the payment, so we can look up the user in Firebase and then update Firestore with the tokens they purchased. In addition, I'm also using another service called SendGrid in this function. You send a transactional email to the customer With their order confirmation, but how much should I be charging the customer for these tokens? Well, I'm going to use a technique they teach in business school called the Vercel strategy. In my case, 11 Labs charges 18¢ per 1,000 characters generated with their voice cloning service. So what I'm going to do is just jack up the price to 69¢ per 1,000 characters. Will teach you how to build an app just like this. It should be ready by the end of June, and here's a big discount on pro memberships if you wanna be the first to And that, my friends, is how you market a side hustle within a video about side hustles. Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
The speakers discuss the benefits of learning to code and building a side hustle, as well as their success in building AI software applications and creating a platform for mass distribution. They emphasize the importance of finding the optimal tech stack for productivity and optimize productivity through a marketing plan and design for an app. The speakers also highlight the benefits of working with Svelte, including a cloud storage file and the use of a payment API and Vercel strategy for marketing side hustles.