I’m unemployed :(. Initially I thought I was going to contract with gumroad for at least 4 weeks. What I thought was a bare minimum 4 weeks of income was cut down to 3 days. I forgot the cardinal rule for startups: “when it comes to startups, anything goes”. I mean, looking at it objectively, it probably was a good decision on their part. Still a shitty thing to do.
It really sucks because I still think that Sahil is a cool guy, which is somewhat throwing my ego for a loop. But I suppose multiple things can be true. He can still be cool and it can still be a good decision to reject me. And it can still be a shitty thing to do. I guess my dear reader, ego isn’t real.
Interesting enough, my self-esteem has increased. I took an expected value calculation (fancy finance term for a YOLO-style bet) and it didn’t work out. But they don’t always work out. I’m proud of myself for that.
I have 2 months of runway before I get evicted from my overpriced bay area apartment.
What Now?
Let’s first principle this shit. I just need cash flow. My expenses are 3.5k a month. 2.3k of that is rent. RIP. If I can make rent in a month, I can do this forever.
I have a few options.
- Get a full-time job.
- Get a part-time job.
- Consulting.
- Make my own products.
Sell my body.
Ironically for the position I’m in, the list is ranked by easiest to hardest. But what I really want is to make my own internet products. Not for the money, the freedom. So for my next bet, I’ll bet a month of my time and money to do The Challenge.
The Challenge
I’m gonna do 30 products in 30 days. I’m gonna put my obsessive personality to good use.
Business needs constraints so here are mine. Here are the rules.
- Over 50% needs to be paid products. Free tools aka engineering marketing is allowed.
- Need to naturally fit into a user acquisition channel from day 1.
- Need to have some kind of cash flow model - OTP.
- The idea needs to be backed by data - keyword research, niche of a larger product, competitor to a legacy product is ok.
- Needs to provide obvious business value - saves people money, makes people money.
- Needs to be compatible with the current trends in the world today.
- No copycatting. Taking an opposite marketing stance is allowed.
- Need to launch each one publicly. ProductHunt, Twitter, Show HN, etc.
- Need to retro each one publicly. Tweet, video, article, etc.
- Can build off of each other. I can reuse codebases, data, but I am not allowed to build a new feature and call it a product. Each product needs it’s own link (probably product1.hshidara.com or hshidara.com/product2)
- Needs to be aimed at a specific audience that I’m familiar with.
- Agency gig counts as 1 product. Selling a productized service counts as one product.
- Ship high-quality stuff only.
I’m going to try and stay in the same audience (internet creators) for the network effects. But occasionally I’ll have to stray a little.
If I can’t do it, I’ll turn on my Linkedin “open for work” flag and in the meantime wait tables at some restaurants in Oakland.
Can I do it? Let’s find out.
Products
Start date - July 11, 2023. I'll keep this page updated with my products.
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