First Dollar is a technology company that builds healthcare benefits infrastructure. Our Health Wallet platform gives benefit providers the tools they need to launch tax-advantaged accounts, supplemental benefits, or whatever they dream up next. First Dollar is based in Austin, with teammates all over the Western Hemisphere. For more information, visit www.FirstDollar.com

First Dollar

The Noonification: Just Made my First Dollar With My SaaS After Quitting my Job (4/19/2024)

At 24, I’m holding to my aspiration of becoming a founder, but the path has been anything but smooth — I quit my job in Feb, yet already started building my product for months with my friends Private Beta launch in last November, lots of grinding and got first early users. Public Beta launch in Feb, was a blast, number of users spiked exponentially. But amidst the euphoria I faced the brutal fact, still made 0 dollars effectively. This is because we offered free version to test the market first. We are fully bootstrapped, not having millions to burn. Quickly implemented the pricing system and started to accept payment. 2 days after that, a glimmer of hope appeared, we got the 1st monthly subscription user! But alas, it was a false alert, the user made a mistake, he wanted to pay for an add-on in our product, not the core service. Got the money, but not the validation for the product. Self-doubt crept in like a relentless shadow. Considered pivot, discussed how to get new users. 4 days later - today - made a big update, fixed all the bugs early users complained, released the most-wanted features. Sent email to all users about the big updates 6 hours ago. Went for a walk. Came back home and... 1st yearly subscription user!!! Cannot believe my eyes! Yearly!? This feels good. Super, super good! Self-doubt is disappearing I know we still have a lot to go but this small step matters. It's a boost of confidence to our vision: To x10 human productivity and creativity. ✅ Big learning: Before trying to target new users, listen to current ones, do the things they need, then communicate it to them, show them you care. Go for your tribe. With that, I wish you all the best my fellow founders 🙂 And I would love to hear feedback/thoughts from you about how to leverage this momentum :) the product is Saner.ai At 24, I’m holding to my aspiration of becoming a founder, but the path has been anything but smooth — I quit my job in Feb, yet already started building my product for months with my friends Private Beta launch in last November, lots of grinding and got first early users. Public Beta launch in Feb, was a blast, number of users spiked exponentially. But amidst the euphoria I faced the brutal fact, still made 0 dollars effectively. This is because we offered free version to test the market first. We are fully bootstrapped, not having millions to burn. Quickly implemented the pricing system and started to accept payment. 2 days after that, a glimmer of hope appeared, we got the 1st monthly subscription user! But alas, it was a false alert, the user made a mistake, he wanted to pay for an add-on in our product, not the core service. Got the money, but not the validation for the product. Self-doubt crept in like a relentless shadow. Considered pivot, discussed how to get new users. 4 days later - today - made a big update, fixed all the bugs early users complained, released the most-wanted features. Sent email to all users about the big updates 6 hours ago. Went for a walk. Came back home and... 1st yearly subscription user!!! Cannot believe my eyes! Yearly!? This feels good. Super, super good! Self-doubt is disappearing I know we still have a lot to go but this small step matters. It's a boost of confidence to our vision: To x10 human productivity and creativity. ✅ Big learning: Before trying to target new users, listen to current ones, do the things they need, then communicate it to them, show them you care. Go for your tribe. With that, I wish you all the best my fellow founders 🙂 And I would love to hear feedback/thoughts from you about how to leverage this momentum :) the product is Saner.ai Saner.ai

Just Made my First Dollar With My SaaS After Quitting my Job

আমার চাকরি ছেড়ে দেওয়ার পর আমার সাস দিয়ে আমার প্রথম ডলার তৈরি করেছি

Habe gerade meinen ersten Dollar mit meinem SaaS verdient, nachdem ich meinen Job gekündigt habe

Acabo de ganar mi primer dólar con mi SaaS después de dejar mi trabajo

Je viens de gagner mon premier dollar avec mon SaaS après avoir quitté mon emploi

नौकरी छोड़ने के बाद SaaS से अपना पहला डॉलर कमाया

仕事を辞めてSaaSで初めて1ドル稼いだ

직장을 그만둔 후 SaaS로 처음으로 1달러를 벌었습니다.

Acabei de ganhar meu primeiro dólar com meu SaaS depois de largar meu emprego

Только что заработал свой первый доллар с помощью SaaS после ухода с работы

İşimi Bıraktıktan Sonra SaaS'ımla İlk Dolarımı Kazandım

Vừa kiếm được đô la đầu tiên với SaaS của tôi sau khi nghỉ việc

辞职后，我通过 SaaS 赚到了第一笔钱

I just made my first dollar on my SaaS app and it only took 200 Hours and $110 This morning, I woke up to something very surprising in my inbox: Mixed in with the standard “Someone’s getting placecards!” emails that I get pretty regularly was an email I had only ever seen before in testing. Holy smokes, someone paid! Literally — like the cliche — as I was sleeping. I just made my first $1 of SaaS revenue. If you read you’ll understand why I was surprised. Place Card Me, my , had not generated a single sale until last night. some of my other writing printable place card site As this is a major milestone for me I thought it was a good time to take a deep dive into what it took it took to achieve it. I’m hoping this will help others looking to start SaaS products get a sense of what they might go through. That said, you’ll be smarter and more successful than I was. That probably won’t be too hard. hopefully So what went into making $1? Mostly, time. How much time exactly? As of this writing, just under , or about 5 working weeks and a day, spread out over just about five months. 210 hours If you’re doing math at home that comes out to an hourly wage of just under . It’s a good thing I’ve been enjoying this process! Not exactly something I’ll be able to give up my day job for at this rate. half a cent per hour Here’s how that time broke down week by week: All time reports courtesy of the wonderful app Toggl You can see a big ramp up after I validate the idea and build out the MVP. Then it drops for a few weeks while I ran some experiments with ads, ramps back up as I built out the ability to buy templates on the site and did a second marketing push, and then finally winds down into a pretty steady maintenance period where I’m spending an average of about 4 hours a week keeping the lights on and making little adjustments. I imagine this last phase will continue indefinitely. Product versus Traction Another interesting thing to look at is the split between work — building the site and making it better — versus work — trying to get it out into the world. product traction I read in that a typical business should be splitting its time about 50/50 between product and traction, and since then I’ve tried to keep that approximate ratio. Traction Here’s the current breakdown of those 210 hours: Product (111 hours) vs Traction (98 hours) We can also look at the efforts on these two things individually over time. Efforts on Product Efforts on Traction You can see things start with traction efforts during the idea validation phase, followed by a big product push as I build out the landing page and MVP, traction taking over as I try to market it, and again, finally landing on a pretty even 50/50 distribution in maintenance mode. The 50/50 split in the maintenance phase has been pretty deliberate (and hard, sometimes, since it’s so much more fun to work on the product). What about Money? Of course the other input besides time is money. Here’s what I’ve spent on this project so far. It’s actually quite simple: The bad news is that I’ve still got quite a long way to go before I recoup my financial investment made. The good news is that most of that money was on , and ads used as validation tests I haven’t spent a single dollar on this project in the month leading up to my first sale. And I’m now the proud owner of a brand new paper cutter! So there’s that. You might be wondering where my server costs are, and I’ll admit that I’m cheating a bit on that one. I host all of my projects on the same server — one that I’ve been paying for for more than five years — so I’m not including that in the budget for this project specifically. In reality I should probably include a portion of those costs here. SaaS Ain’t Easy When I set out to try and a lot of people warned me that it would be harder than I expected. Boy were they right. make money by building something on the internet If I knew then that I would go on to spend 200 hours on this project in order to lose $110, would I still do it? Absolutely. Let’s be clear — I’d probably pick a totally different product to work on. Hopefully one that had more of a chance of generating real revenue. I’d also probably target an industry that I understood better instead of weddings. I’ve never been the type of person who learns well by being told things — much better to figure these things out for myself — and thankfully I had the time, skills, and support system to make that happen. But I don’t think I would have truly been able to know those things without having gone through this effort. Now I know infinitely more about what it looks like to build a revenue-generating SaaS product from scratch (spoiler alert: it’s a lot of work!). And therefore I should be able to say with confidence that if I ever have to do this again I’ll be able to be much smarter about it, which hopefully also means more successful. In theory I also now have a sustainable engine with Place Card Me that will — fingers crossed — generate more revenue with much less investment required on my part moving forwards, and may even one day turn profitable. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 1/6th of a meatball sub to buy with my hard-earned SaaS cash. 💰💰💰 Originally published August 24, 2017 at www.coryzue.com .

What actually goes into making your first dollar from a SaaS project

We all know the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun with wings made of feathers and wax. His story is a cautionary tale of hubris, or overconfidence, leading to downfall. With COVID-19 still looming over us, growing and sustaining a business has become more difficult than ever. Many have been forced to close their doors for good, and those that are still hanging on are doing so by the skin of their teeth. In times like these, it’s easy to get caught up in your ego and forget about the importance of grounding yourself and learning what to do to accomplish your goals. When I think about this, I reflect on a recent chat I had with for the Success Story Podcast about the hardships he’s faced in business and how he’s overcome them. We also discussed the importance of ego and humility within business and entrepreneurship. Grant Cardone, CEO of Cardone Capital COVID To address the largest elephant in the room, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a true test of character for entrepreneurs. Many have had to face the harsh reality of having to shut down their businesses due to a lack of demand or resources. Some have adapted and pivoted their business models, while others have persevered through difficult times by making tough decisions like layoffs or pay cuts. Recent studies highlight the significant changes to businesses, from to as a result. how it’s affected various U.S sectors the business closures The pandemic has also been a time of reflection for many entrepreneurs. It has forced them to take a step back and reassess their priorities in life. For some, this has meant making the tough decision to sell their business or close it down permanently. Ultimately, what the pandemic has shown us is that entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. It takes a tremendous amount of grit, determination, and resilience to weather the storms that life throws our way. How then, is it possible to start a business, much less maintain one? Starting somewhere Grant was kind enough to highlight his previous jobs and experience before reaching his current success. From his humble roots in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Grant worked various sales jobs at McDonald’s and furniture stores until launching his consulting business at 29. We all start somewhere, and for many of us, getting a business off the ground is the hardest thing we will ever do. It’s a challenge that can push us to our limits and force us to grow in ways we never thought possible. There are a lot of factors that contribute to this difficulty The first, and perhaps most important, is that businesses require vulnerability. We have to lay bare our ambition and open ourselves up to criticism and failure. This can be a terrifying prospect, especially if we’re not used to it. Another factor that makes starting a business so difficult is the amount of work that goes into it. I don’t mean just the physical work of putting together a website or product, but also the mental and emotional labor of constantly promoting and selling ourselves. This can be exhausting, and it’s easy to burn out quickly if we’re not careful. Lastly, businesses require us to be humble. We have to be willing to put in the hours, learn from our mistakes, and accept that things will often go wrong. It’s not always glamorous, but it’s necessary if we want to succeed. Starting a business is tough, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. It’s an opportunity to test ourselves, push our boundaries, and learn new things. If we can embrace the hardships that come with entrepreneurship, we’ll be one step closer to success. Seeing green Whether it’s a paper route when you are a kid, or your first entrepreneurial escapade out of college, earning that first dollar is a huge step. But don’t get too excited. Profit is good, but it’s not always a measure of success. Some of the most popular and valuable companies in the world weren’t able to turn a profit for years. The key is to focus on the long-term goal and not get too caught up in the short-term gains. It’s easy to be distracted by monthly revenue projections and forget about the people you’re trying to help. Remember, your business is about more than just money. Money is important, but it’s not the only thing when you’re factoring in your overall success. If you’re focused on squeezing every dollar out of every day, your customers will be able to tell — and they’ll be less likely to do business with you. Think about it from their perspective. They’re coming to you because they need help with something — whether it’s a product or service. And if they can tell that you’re only interested in taking their money, they’ll be turned off. It’s about solving the problem that sent them searching for answers. By taking the time to understand their hardships, you’ll be able to build trust and establish yourself as an authority figure in your industry. That’s what it takes to be successful in business — understanding your customer and providing them with value. So, don’t get too caught up in making money. Instead, focus on helping others and adding value to their lives. Me or everything: Addressing ego It may be your business, your goals, and your vision, but that doesn’t mean you can do it alone. Most successful entrepreneurs will tell you that ego can be one of the biggest hurdles to success. It can get in the way of making smart decisions, listening to others, and being open to new ideas. It can also lead to impulsive decisions, rash actions, and a general sense of entitlement. All of this can be incredibly destructive to a business. The ego can blind you to your weaknesses and make you resistant to change. It can also alienate employees, customers, and partners. How, then, do you keep your ego in check? If you’re constantly putting your interests ahead of your company’s, it’s time to check yourself. Be aware of the dangers ego poses to your business. A strong team will keep you honest and help you stay focused on your goals. Surround yourself with people who will challenge you and help you grow. Humility is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it will help build trust with those around you. Don’t be afraid to admit when you’re wrong. Ego can be a tough enemy to overcome, but it’s essential to the success of your business. By keeping it in check, you can create a more collaborative, innovative, and successful company. The 10X rule As the author of , Grant explained that to be successful, you must take massive, determined action and develop an unshakable belief that your success is inevitable. You have to go all in — 10 times what someone else would do to achieve the same result. The 10X Rule Work smart, not hard This isn’t about working harder, it’s about working smarter. It’s not about putting in more hours, it’s about using your time more efficiently to achieve greater results. To 10x your business, you have to get out of your comfort zone and take risks. You have to be willing to put in the extra work required to see results. And you can’t let your ego get in the way of your success. Develop a clear vision Most businesses fail because they don’t know what they’re trying to achieve. They might have a vague idea, but they don’t have a specific goal that they’re working towards. Have thick skin One of the most important things for entrepreneurs is to be able to take criticism. It’s easy to get defensive when someone points out flaws in your business, but it’s important to listen to what they have to say and learn from your mistakes. Be persistent Most successful businesses are built on years of hard work and dedication. It’s easy to give up when things get tough, but those who persevere are usually the ones who end up succeeding. So if you want to 10x your business, start by getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks, and putting your ego aside. Be humble, and be willing to learn from your mistakes. If you do these things, success is inevitable. Wrapping up Though it may be difficult at first, starting and maintaining your own business is possible with the right mindset. Be prepared for hardships and have faith in your abilities to overcome them. At the same time, be humble and always remember that you are not alone in this journey. There will always be people willing to help you along the way. As Icarus learned (too late), ego and a lack of humility can lead to disaster. Business is hard, there’s no doubt about it. But those who can maintain a healthy balance are usually the ones who find the most success. Also published here.

Success or Flying into the Sun: Discussing Emotions and Modern Business

. The Art of Money Getting or, Golden Rules for Making Money by P. T. Barnum is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series . The table of Links for this book can be found here I hold that no man ought ever to indorse a note or become security, for any man, be it his father or brother, to a greater extent than he can afford to lose and care nothing about, without taking good security. Here is a man that is worth twenty thousand dollars; he is doing a thriving manufacturing or mercantile trade; you are retired and living on your money; he comes to you and says: "You are aware that I am worth twenty thousand dollars, and don't owe a dollar; if I had five thousand dollars in cash, I could purchase a particular lot of goods and double my money in a couple of months; will you indorse my note for that amount?" You reflect that he is worth twenty thousand dollars, and you incur no risk by endorsing his note; you like to accommodate him, and you lend your name without taking the precaution of getting security. Shortly after, he shows you the note with your endorsement canceled, and tells you, probably truly, "that he made the profit that he expected by the operation," you reflect that you have done a good action, and the thought makes you feel happy. By and by, the same thing occurs again and you do it again; you have already fixed the impression in your mind that it is perfectly safe to indorse his notes without security. But the trouble is, this man is getting money too easily. He has only to take your note to the bank, get it discounted and take the cash. He gets money for the time being without effort; without inconvenience to himself. Now mark the result. He sees a chance for speculation outside of his business. A temporary investment of only $10,000 is required. It is sure to come back before a note at the bank would be due. He places a note for that amount before you. You sign it almost mechanically. Being firmly convinced that your friend is responsible and trustworthy; you indorse his notes as a "matter of course." Unfortunately the speculation does not come to a head quite so soon as was expected, and another $10,000 note must be discounted to take up the last one when due. Before this note matures the speculation has proved an utter failure and all the money is lost. Does the loser tell his friend, the endorser, that he has lost half of his fortune? Not at all. He don't even mention that he has speculated at all. But he has got excited; the spirit of speculation has seized him; he sees others making large sums in this way (we seldom hear of the losers), and, like other speculators, he "looks for his money where he loses it." He tries again. endorsing notes has become chronic with you, and at every loss he gets your signature for whatever amount he wants. Finally you discover your friend has lost all of his property and all of yours. You are overwhelmed with astonishment and grief, and you say "it is a hard thing; my friend here has ruined me," but, you should add, "I have also ruined him." If you had said in the first place, "I will accommodate you, but I never indorse without taking ample security," he could not have gone beyond the length of his tether, and he would never have been tempted away from his legitimate business. It is a very dangerous thing, therefore, at any time, to let people get possession of money too easily; it tempts them to hazardous speculations, if nothing more. Solomon truly said "he that hateth suretiship is sure." So with the young man starting in business; let him understand the value of money by earning it. When he does understand its value, then grease the wheels a little in helping him to start business, but remember, men who get money with too great facility cannot usually succeed. You must get the first dollars by hard knocks, and at some sacrifice, in order to appreciate the value of those dollars. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. *This book is part of the public domain.Barnum P. T. (1980).The Art of Money Getting
 or, Golden Rules for Making Money: Project Gutenberg. Release Date: July 30, 2009 [EBook #8581] Last Updated: February 4, 2013, from [ https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8581 ]( https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8581 ).*This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at[ https://www.gutenberg.org ]( http://www.gutenberg.org/ ), located at [https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html ] (https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html)

The Art of Money Getting or, Golden Rules for Making Money - Chapter 14

What Is Being a FinTech CEO like?

Borrowing-to-lend for loan-to-buy customers Toyota Financial Services has to be one of the most fascinating, fraudulent entities operating in the world right now. Initially fuelled by cheap Japanese interest rates when it was first begun in the early 2000s, this “ within a factory” is one of the world’s most opaque, byzantine and powerful global financing organisations that you have never heard of. bank Today, TFS is the focus of Toyota’s operations, issuing billions in zero percent and cut-rate financing offers a year and guzzling a similarly sizeable chunk of money from the fixed income markets. Take, for instance, the company’s 50 billion euro note issuance last September. This was a collaboration between no less than 7 issuers spanning four continents all organised under the giant TFS banner. Not content with borrowing in just euros and yen, in July this earlier, Toyota issued its first dollar-denominated bonds: $2 billion of 3-, 5-, and 10-year commercial paper. That quick capital raise was shortly followed up with a further $3 billion issuance of USD-denominated retail notes aimed at American private investors — debt that your mother and father might put their savings into. The retail notes are “a way to expand and diversify TFS’ funding sources and provide a competitive investment alternative to investors,” Mike Groff, TFS’s new President, at the time. said in a press release That’s not all, though — there are the for environmentally-conscious lenders (a cool $5.5 billion), , another , and there was even a . Oh, not to mention lending the company solicits, too. Plus the standard fare of Japanese long bonds and other debt tranches the company issued this year via its myriad network of franchisors. By all accounts, it all adds up to a sizeable chunk of borrowing, representing more than 3 times the company’s steadily relaxing net income. green bonds the 2021 $750m 3.183% yield debt 300 million euros of 3-year debt $300 million 1-year tranche which redeems this month the $500 million of overnight The recent borrowing splurge is yet another unconventional policy play from Akio Toyoda, the current chief executive of Toyota since 2009. Toyoda is the third-generation heir to the family empire. It was his own grandfather Sakichi Toyoda, no less, the company’s founder, who once famously quipped, “it is more difficult to spend than to earn money.” That was back when the company used to stockpile cash and amortise loans before the year was up. How times have changed. , TFS launched a new office earlier this year, alongside a handful of other countries which saw the manufacturer’s finance empire expanding. However, investors might be forgiven for wondering where all this borrowing is going. After all, Koji Kobayashi, Toyota’s chief financial officer and an executive vice president, told Toyota’s November earnings conference attendees that he intended to cut costs by another full 50% over the coming year. In Ireland manufacturing “It would be good if our annual cost savings could reach 600 billion yen ($5.3 billion),” Koji-san , expressing concerns at what he forecast as “difficult” conditions for the company going ahead. That was despite having posted a record net profit on industry-wide record profit margins. (Toyota’s margins, at 8.9% trounce Honda’s, at around 6%, and Ford’s, which are as low as 3%.) said at the time , where Toyota Motor has a rather less well-respected reputation, may offer some insight into where all this debt is headed. The Japanese auto-maker laid off 50,000 factory workers in Altona a few years ago, many of them entire families. Needless to say, the effect on sales was felt across the 400-odd dealership franchises throughout the country, denting the company’s usually PR-self-conscious image badly. (Aussies tend not to forgive and forget too quickly if you fuck them.) The challenge has been — how to get sales back on track? A peek at Australia “At the moment, the (dealer) reputation may not be too great but I think we can turn that around and we think this is the way to do it. So we are pretty positive about this,” TFS president and CEO John Chandler told about the company’s latest sales-side innovation: an algorithm-based credit-matching engine. The algo, which is essentially nothing more complex or fancy than what a bank uses to credit score you for a loan, is, according to Mr. Chandler, the company’s best potential bet yet in getting sales back on track: GoAutoNews Premium “We are seeing some dealers talking of putting the finance decision earlier in the sales process,” he said. “When they can integrate that into the early discussion, particularly quoting the rates, that will become part of the whole process and we won’t necessarily have to hand the customer over to the finance guy at the end of the sales part. Affordability is a key part of the decision.” Of course, giving customers wads of cash to buy your products so that they end up paying you more on the back end is all very well, but when you are borrowing chunks of cash to do so that is rather a different proposition, surely? At that point, not only are you exposing the investor in the bond to the credit risk of the corporation and its technology systems, but you are actually exposing them to the credit risk of the borrower. More importantly still, to what extent does the manufacturer have an incentive to make sure that such loans are profitably issued? That will be the subject of our next post on this topic.

Financing The Factory Bank

How I’ve taken my SaaS app from $1 to $100/month in three months. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. “ — Lao Tzu Two months ago , my little place card making website and SaaS-building testbed made its very first dollar. Place Card Me Two months later, towards the end of October, it passed another major milestone: $100. With a few more sales it will pay back every dollar I’ve put into it so far! Moreover, if you ignore the Y-axis, the revenue growth looks great so far: I’m now convinced that barring any surprising unforeseen changes (like Google deciding to kill my search rankings or a new heavyweight competitor jumping in) it will be feasible — if not easy — for the site to become a steady source of passive income, maybe one or two hundred dollars a month. Pretty great, right? Honestly, I stoked. There were many times where I thought I was going to fail to earn a in six months. That would have been — among other things — super embarrassing for me. am single dollar At $100/month, I can cover all my hosting costs, many of my lunches, and maybe even the occasional night on the town! The rest of this post describes — in possibly more detail than necessary — exactly how that happened. And while a lot of what follows is specific to my own product, I hope the lessons and thinking can help guide and inspire others to continue to grow their SaaS businesses. From $1 to $100/month So it took me . By comparison getting to $100/month was a cakewalk. 5 months and 200+ hours to earn my first dollar These were the major contributing factors — in approximate order of importance: My organic reach and top-of-the-funnel continued to grow. I picked up a new distribution channel. I started charging more. That’s it! I’ll talk more a about each of these below. The Compounding Effects of Reproducible Organic Reach Many months ago — when I was first trying to figure out how to market my site — I read . Traction The book outlines 19 different channels you can use to get traction for a product, and provides a methodology — called “bullseye” — for picking which ones to focus on. I found it to be super helpful in coming up with my overall traction strategy and I’d highly recommend it to anyone that isn’t sure where to start with marketing and selling their product. The spreadsheet I used to evaluate the 19 different traction channels I could use When I did the “bullseye” exercise I selected SEO as as the number one channel to pursue. As a result, I set about . Through the techniques described in that article, I was able to slowly target certain keywords and phrases until my site started climbing the rankings in search. And as this happened, I started getting more and more organic traffic until eventually making that first joyous sale. learning SEO and adapting a strategy that worked pretty well However what’s important to realize is that that sale wasn’t a miraculous single-event. It was the eventual conclusion of very simple game of probabilities. One of out every N visitors to my site will eventually make a purchase. So if that first sale came after N visits, then the next sale should come after approximately 2N, and so forth. Therefore, if the rate of visits went up (which it did) then the rate of sales should also go up (which it also did). It’s just math! So far, I believe that the biggest factor in my app’s increase in revenue over the last two months is simply that it’s getting way more traffic. More traffic = more sales, plain and simple. Traffic to Place Card Me over time. The “home alone” face is when the first sale happened. (Chart courtesy of ) Tractionbeat As an aside, I now have enough data to know what my sales rate is and enough traffic to run A/B tests to try and move it — but that’s a subject for another time… New Distribution Channels The second increase in revenue came from a completely new distribution channel. That channel was . Etsy Etsy is where millions of people go to buy and sell creative products — especially for weddings Early on in my research of the wedding industry I learned that Etsy was an absolute behemoth in the space. In fact, a significant proportion of brides (and grooms) will search on Etsy when they’re looking for things for their wedding. only Realizing this made me want to figure out how to get in on some of that Etsy action. The simple way to do this — which you’ve probably guessed — was to create a shop on Etsy and sell my place card templates there. This did require building out some tech to support a workflow centered around someone purchasing something on Etsy, but turned out to not be too complicated. Those orange slices in the chart at the top — those are my Etsy sales. In September they were actually higher than my organic sales, though in October I toppled them with organic. Unfortunately, I don’t quite know how to improve my organic reach on Etsy so the numbers seem to stay much flatter over time — at least so far. If anyone figures out how to exponentially grow a shop’s Etsy reach, I suspect they could make a lot of money! Also please let me know if you know how to do this. :) Pricing Changes The last thing I did to increase revenue was raise prices. The way Place Card Me works is that you can use it for free, but certain templates on the site cost money. When I was — wondering whether I would ever make a single sale — I dropped the price of all templates to just $1. After several back-to-back weeks of regular sales I decided to start bringing them back up. deep in the trough of sorrow Specifically I did three things: I eliminated all free designs except the “blank” one. I raised prices on most designs from $1 to $1.95. I started charging people who uploaded their own designs. The combination of these changes actually sales rates. I believe that was mostly a result of removing the free designs — which I suspect created a psychological effect of making people think that they “should” have to pay for a design, and were therefore more willing to do so. increased We developers are often very hesitant to raise prices. This gentleman provides some helpful advice. One last funny anecdote: charging for custom uploads was actually an accident. When I introduced the change that made all designs paid, I changed the default behavior of the site in a way that inadvertently caused the upload workflow to also cost money. The way I found out I had changed it was getting notified that someone had paid for a custom design! Of course — once that happened — I decided to keep the change in place. Custom design sales are now the most popular single template/option on the site. What’s Next? I’m quite happy to be at $100/month in revenue at the moment, but it’s still a long ways away from anything that might meaningfully get me on a road to passive income. In the next installment of this series, I’ll talk about how I plan to try and grow that number by at least 10x to $1000/month. It should be fun! If you’d like to follow along you can subscribe below. Edit: Part 2 is now out! You can find it here . You can still subscribe if you want though. :) Originally published at www.coryzue.com .

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Since 2019

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FIRST DOLLAR

firstdollar.com

11-50 employees

Since 2019

COMPANY RANKING

FIRST DOLLAR

EVERGREEN INDEX #4153

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