Day 18: Maker Log is now Road to Ramen 🍜

Back in July, I purchased the domain roadtoramen.com with the goal of keeping a public log of my journey as an indie maker. As with most domains that I purchase with great fervor and excitement, I thought of all the amazing things I’d do with it and proceeded to do absolutely none of them. But over the past few weeks, I’ve somehow managed to write this public journal consistently and I don’t have plans to stop, so I’m digging the domain out of its grave and rebranding Maker Log as Road to Ramen.

In case the ramen bit makes no sense to you, “ramen profitable” is a term used in the startup world to describe a business that “makes just enough profit to pay the founders’ living expenses”. In his 2009 essay on the term, Paul Graham concludes with:

But remember that ramen profitability is not the destination. A startup’s destination is to grow really big; ramen profitability is a trick for not dying en route.

For me, ramen profitability actually is the destination. Obviously, I want to make enough to eat things other than instant ramen, but at this point in my life, a business that’s able to pay for my living expenses and gives me the freedom to pursue my interests and live in a balanced way is vastly more appealing than raising a bunch of money, having pressure from investors to grow as much as possible so that they can get their 10x returns, and spending years grinding in the hopes of winning the startup lottery.

A lot of people seem to hold the impression that building a profitable business is a near impossible task. I think that’s true if you’re trying to build a Google or a Facebook, but if your goal is just to make a decent living for yourself, I think it’s much more straightforward than people imagine. The mental model that I have for building a profitable business is that it’s like learning to ride a bike: you’ll fall off a bunch, but as long as you learn from your mistakes and keep getting back on, you’re bound to succeed.

That’s my current, optimistic viewpoint, anyway. We’ll see how I feel in 6 months or a year from now!