Day 30: Got my first paid user!

This email was waiting for me this morning:

This is really special for me, and to explain why, I’ll take you on a little tour of The Ways DK Has Made Money From His Work:

Tutor @ Tutoring Center (2010)

Age 17

I taught math to junior high students at a tutoring center during my senior year in high school. Had a lot of fun getting to know the kids and fending off their shenanigans. Came to a sudden end when I learned that I had to get emergency eye surgery due to a retinal detachment, messaged the owner of the center that I had to miss class (got no response), and found someone else teaching my class when I showed up again. Surprise!

Made maybe ~$15 an hour? (don’t really remember)

Lab TA & Webmaster @ Princeton (2011 - 2015)

Age 18 - 22

Helped intro computer science with their projects as a lab teaching assistant (incredibly gratifying to help others achieve the “omg this works, I freaking did it!!!” moment with programming). Created a brand new website for Princeton’s Pace Center, but the person at the center that I was working for told me that there were ongoing internal disagreements about the website (what should be on the front page, etc.), so it never saw the light of day.

Made ~$14 an hour

Intern @ Tech Companies (2011 - 2015)

Age 18 - 22

Somehow conned Facebook, Twilio, HackNY, and Google into paying me to spend a summer eating all of their food.

Made $5,000 - $8,000 a month

Product Manager @ Google (2015 - 2017)

Age 22 - 25

Worked on Google Search and Google Maps as a product manager at Google for two years (one year in Mountain View, one year in Tokyo).

Made $180,000 - $220,000 a year (large fluctuations because of bonuses, stock price changes, taking a pay cut to work in Japan, etc.)

Web Timer (2011 - 2016)

Age 19 - 24

I made a well-loved Chrome extension called Web Timer in 2011 and received a purchase offer in 2016 when it had around 70,000 users. I took the offer which was silly for many reasons in retrospect — I wish I had known about building SaaS businesses back then because I think this could’ve done quite well.

Made $4,000 one-time

Video Creator (2017 - 2018)

Age 25

Made videos on Facebook and had one go stupidly viral and get over 45 million views. I got messages from companies offering to send me free stuff and do partnerships, but I turned them all down because I’m wary of the corrosive effect that advertising can have and wanted to be really careful about avoiding potential conflicts of interest caused by having money enter the picture. I was much more interested in sharing myself authentically and building an audience that trusts me rather than making money from being an “influencer”.

I did unexpectedly make money along the way from making a video explaining a crypto startup started by some friends because I thought it was cool. When they later decided to shut the company down, they sent me $5,000 as a thank-you which was really nice of them.

Made $5,000 one-time

Intern Playbook (2019)

Age 26

Earlier last year, I created an online course called Intern Playbook to help people succeed at tech internships based on my experience from doing so many. This was the first time I built something on my own for the purpose of monetizing.

After spending months toiling over the content and trying to make it great, I burned out in the final hour and couldn’t motivate myself to make a strong marketing push. I love writing, but I found writing so that I can sell something (i.e. content marketing) impossibly hard. It’s strange — Road to Ramen, the journal you’re reading, could be seen as content marketing for Hide Feed and other things I make, but I certainly don’t view it that way and it certainly doesn’t feel that way. I see this as a way to share my journey, regardless of how well my endeavors go or whether you use my products. Writing blog posts for Intern Playbook, on the other hand, felt like I was writing for the sake of getting people to purchase Intern Playbook. I think it may also have to do with the fact that I felt like I had to present myself as an authority when selling the online course, but I feel much more comfortable just being me and not trying to create that impression.

Writing this is making me realize that I was operating with a lot of assumptions that I don’t think are actually true. Maybe I’ll try running Intern Playbook again this year but do it with the same attitude that I take when building Hide Feed — just share, don’t try to sell.

Anyway, despite my poor marketing, 24 people purchased the course and some people messaged me saying how much they loved it. There’s obviously selection bias here because people who didn’t enjoy the course generally aren’t going to message me telling me that, but I think Intern Playbook still has a lot of potential.

Made $2,064 one-time

Hide Feed (2019 - Now)

Age 27

Ah, here we are in the present day. As of today, Hide Feed has non-zero revenue and because it’s a subscription, the following is now true:

Makes $5 a month / $60 a year

This is by far the smallest number compared to the ones above, but it’s definitely the most gratifying. At a normal job, you’re directly exchanging time for money, and your work is often disconnected from your pay. I could’ve been directly responsible for single-handedly ruining a product at Google, and I still would’ve gotten paid for that time because that’s the nature of having a salary. With something like Hide Feed, I have to do great work — or else I don’t get paid. This means that every time I get a paid user, it’s a reminder that I’m doing work that people find valuable enough to throw money my way.

This is also the first time I’m having any kind of recurring revenue, which is very exciting. While a salaried job offers the upside of consistent pay as long as you’re working there, it also has the downside that the pay stops as soon as you stop working. With a recurring revenue model, you get paid as long as people find your service valuable. I’m hoping I can grow this to a point where I can go on something like a 3-month silent meditation retreat again without having to worry about all my income grinding to a halt.

One step closer to making a living building things I love. What a fun game to play.

Much love to Tom (@tomfme), Hide Feed’s first paid user, for supporting my work especially when he didn’t need to — Hide Feed currently enables Pro features for everyone during the private beta, so having someone upgrade already was quite unexpected. 🙏🏽