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Tell HN: Making a living from my side project – Part 1 – I'm Scared

3 pointsby MattBearmanover 9 years ago
About six weeks ago I decided to try to turn by side project BugMuncher into my full time job. I posted a Tell HN at the time (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10152465) and got some amazing responses, as well as some requests to document my progress - I was unsure at first, but I&#x27;ve now decided write a completely transparent blog series about it.<p>I&#x27;ve just published the first instalment, which deals very honestly with the huge amount of fear I currently feel - https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.bugmuncher.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;22&#x2F;from-side-project-to-profitable-start-up-part-1.html - I&#x27;d love to get some feedback.<p>Thanks, Matt

3 comments

benologistover 9 years ago
You&#x27;ve calculated how long it will take to break even on your salary alone via becoming a successful blogger... and it&#x27;s an optimistic 18 month crawl in which helping other entrepreneurs is some sort of priority alongside programming and kitten blog posts.<p>Some thoughts:<p>1) if traffic&#x27;s not coming to you for your product the vast majority of it won&#x27;t care for your product, your best case scenario on product-irrelevant blog posts is awful traffic and most won&#x27;t even deliver that<p>2) don&#x27;t worry about other entrepreneurs&#x27;, they can find blog posts in lots of places and they&#x27;re nowhere near as important as your company<p>3) Buffer and Groove each have the luxury of over a $million in investments to pay people to write content that falls off HN, Reddit etc like it never existed while other people focus on building their businesses, you&#x27;re on your own so you&#x27;re doing one or the other really<p>You have a finished product that some people are paying for, why isn&#x27;t $3000 MRR your goal for this year? That is surely possible somehow.
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tpihaover 9 years ago
It was amazing to read this Matt, honestly. It was like I was reading something I would write 6 months or 1 year down the road. I just finished my project Synkee and now I&#x27;m trying to build up courage to post it on HN. :)<p>And my numbers look almost exactly the same.<p>Thumbs up, I will definitely follow your progress, maybe even become a customer down the road. I wish you luck and success my friend!
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minimaxirover 9 years ago
A personal announcement of a blog is not a Tell HN. It would be better if you submitted the blog post directly.
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