Weekly Update #1

Goal

The goal is to replace a salaried job with a portfolio of revenue streams that make $1 million a year.

Quarter 4 Goals

1. Launch my SaaS (Wordings.io)
2. Have 250 unique readers on my blog
3. Increase Twitter followers to 250

Numbers

• Revenue: $1/month
• Expenses: $9/month
• Website: 77 visitors with 133 views
• Twitter: 211 followers

Learned

• Schedule social media posting. Schedule time to be on social media and respond to people. Separate that from the posting schedule. Automate the posting so you can plan the content a week before and not think about it.
• I will work on some automation tools in the future as I figure this out more.
• If you can't plan a week at a time, then don't be an entrepreneur until you can.
• Building the systems is hard. Once the systems are in place, you can rely on them, making tasks more manageable.
• Use the strengths of social media and "@" people or hashtag things to increase visibility.

Progress

The first hole’s the hardest.

— Holes by Louis Sachar

Revenue

I made my first dollar!

It feels like cheating, though. A friend asked me about my goal and how I plan on doing it. I jokingly said I'd tell her for $1. Always be closing! She paid me. I told her. Boom, easy. I only need to find another person next month.

Product

I feel like I both did a lot this week and not enough.

I'm building a SaaS that manages localization strings and allows non-engineers to write the copy for cloud apps.

It's called Wordings.io.

I basically started from nothing this week, so there was a lot of groundwork to lay.

• Basic setup
• Production environment set up
• Database setup and schema
• User Authentication
• Create and manage projects
• Create and manage namespaces
• Create content and the values
• Export the data

It's rough, extremely rough, but I got the entire thing working end-to-end. I've started (in a very loose interpretation of that word) to use the product to manage its copy.

I will spend the next week getting into the look and feel of the app. After that, I'll build out standard components and refine the flow to be more usable.

It's rough. But it's functional and getting there! Going from zero to one is the hardest part. As Dayana said,

Make it work. Make it work better. Make it work fast.

We've made it work—time to make it better.

Consulting

A friend reached out and pitched me a project. Her company has several applications spread around on different services and servers. She wants to consolidate all their operations and make a landing page, so it's easy to go to each one. She also wants to build a feedback mechanism so people can ask questions and offer feedback to improve the products.

We valued the work at around $30k. I'm putting together the proposal now.

The friend wants it done in 9 months. I think I can finish it in 3-4 months part-time or one month if I work on it full-time.

The big question I have is:

Do I pocket the money or use it as seed money to start a corporation to maximize revenue and reinvest the profit?

If I take the money, it's a nice payday (20k post taxes). But if I build a company around it, then the game begins. $30k of revenue is $30k to invest in future projects with the goal of not making a profit for years while the footprint of the business expands.

Do I dare take the leap?

Website

• Post 1: https://ethanmick.com/how-to-set-up-prisma-with-next-js-postgres/
• Post 2: https://ethanmick.com/how-to-set-up-apollo-next-js/
• Weekly Update: https://ethanmick.com/weekly-update-1/

I tore down my old custom website (RIP) and set up a new blog run by Ghost (blogging software). Instead of hosting on my own, I paid for their hosting service for $9/month. This setup allows me to focus more on writing and driving traffic than messing around with code. I'm eliminating distractions where I can to focus on the essential tasks.

I reset the analytics on my blog and started from a blank slate.

I had 77 visitors in the past seven days. If I continue on this trajectory, I believe I can meet the goal of 250 unique visitors for Q4. I post two tech tips twice a week. On Friday, I post the weekly update.

While the bounce rate is high (there's not a lot of content, that's fine), time on the site feels like most readers are reading part of the article. This is the long game; more content will mean more people are returning. Articles next week will focus less on "How to" and more on "why." I'm still working on a general content strategy.

I think I will create a new subscription for people to follow the weekly updates next week.

Twitter

My most prominent social presence is on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ethan_mick, follow me!). I use Twitter to post content twice a day about my journey. Having a large social following is a superpower. It gives you a user base of people who magnify your message. It gives you a beta-testing group of early adopters.

But growing that following is slow and painful. It doesn't happen overnight. You need to find people online doing similar things and organically grow. I will be patient, consistent, and persistent even when things aren't working. And then you need to be lucky. And when it all comes together, you start everything on the internet with a boost.

I grew three followers this week. The struggle is real.

Still, I hope this continues to grow slowly as I work on additional ways to drive people to my profile and website.

One of the best interactions this week was a random internet person reached out on Twitter asking for some advice and thoughts on starting their product. They wanted to know what technology may be good and where to start. It felt great talking and pointing them in a direction, and I hope they follow up once they've started building something.

Other Media

I'm entering other social areas and posting content, and establishing myself. The first hole is the hardest. You're building yourself up from nothing, and it takes time. I created a new Reddit account and an indie hacker account that both need to organically add value before I can drive people to my site.

Wrapping up

This was my first whole week of shooting for this goal. It's been a lot of work with uncertain payoffs. It's way too early to know if any of this will work. But I'm starting to see a crossroads where I might need to make some big decisions.

• Do I keep a full-time job and slowly grow this on the side?
• Do I switch to part-time/consulting and work a little less to give this project more time?
• Do I fully commit and start a business with the express goal of taking no profit for years as I build the different revenue streams and reinvest all profit?

I don't have the answer to that yet. But it's what is on my mind.