I've been building side projects on weekends next to my job for years. Until this week every single one of them made $0. Not anymore haha.
What I built
Detent is a React component library. The components install with shadcn and take your theme, so they drop into an existing app without fighting your styles. Some are free, and there's one paid tier with full blocks like onboarding flows and a support inbox.
What happened
I posted a 20 second video of the onboarding block on X with one line: "most onboarding is a checklist and a progress bar, but not at detent".
That post did 19.7K views, 464 likes and 710 bookmarks. More bookmarks than likes, which I didn't even know was a thing tbh. My followers went from 365 to 439.
And then 2 people actually bought it. $79 each, $152 after fees.
[one or two lines in your words: where you were when the first sale notification came]
Why this one feels different
My last product got a lot of "this is great, love the idea" and zero sales. Compliments are nice but they don't pay bills. This time two strangers put their card in for something I built.
What I learned
- Launch instead of polishing. I almost kept tweaking for another week. The sales came from the shipped version, not the perfect one in my head.
- Show it, don't explain it. One line plus a video did 19.7K views. My next post explained a block in 4 lines with the link inside and did 258 views. Same product, same account.
- Links go in the reply. X pushes down posts with external links, so the link goes in the first comment.
- Bookmarks aren't sales (yet). 710 people saved it, 2 bought. I think most will come back when they start their next project, at least that's what I'm hoping.
What's next
Product Hunt launch on Saturday, more blocks, and I'm still job hunting, because $152 doesn't pay rent. But it proves the thing can sell, and that's what I needed to know.
If you want to see what they bought: detentui.com
I'm writing about the whole journey from $0 to (hopefully) $1M, so if you've been stuck at $0 with your own side project, tell me what you're building in the comments.
Top comments (1)
Congrats on the first sales. The part that stood out to me was 710 bookmarks against 464 likes. That usually means people saved it for a project they have not started yet, so they are future buyers more than browsers. For your Saturday launch, I would post a short follow up aimed at those savers, one onboarding block they can drop in today. Detent is also easy to remember, which helps when they come back weeks later.