Two months ago, I shelved my GDRP toolkit project halfway. Thoughts like "who cares?", "How accurate enough can this be", and mostly, "Who would want to buy?" was constantly what i had to deal with every step of the way.
Well, it's live on Gumroad, the idea of helping others navigate compliance and also generating a trickle of passive income is now a reality.
How I built, launched, and learned from my first difital product focusing on one of internet's most intimidating acronyms - GDRP.
Why GDRP
I built a GDRP-Compliant AWS infrastructure setup using Terraform, packaged with detailed documentation, reuseable Terraform modules, and deployment templates. Think of it as a plug-and-play toolkit for DevOps engineers, founders. or freelancers who want to launch EU-friendly cloud products without hiring a privacy lawyer.
Why GDRP? As a DevOps engineer who has worked across cloud infrastructure and compliance-heavy idustries over time, I have witnessed first hand how intimidating data privacy laws can be, especially for small teams. It's not like they don't care, they are just overwhlmed, confused or resource-strapped.
And that was my in.
What Sparked this Project
One thing is quite clear GDRP is notoriously vague, and AWS on the other hand is notoriously complex. When the two mix, they live choas in their wake.
As a DevOps engineer and cloud consultant, I kept noticing a pattern - most clients know they needed GDRP compliance, but rarely knew where or how to start. Some just copy-paste outdated checklists, others would trust their cloud setup defaults. One client even said, "We're GDRP-ready because we use AWS. Right?"
Spoiler alert: Wrong.
This was when it hit me What if i could codify compliance into reuseable infra that meets GDPR standards by design?
The Dice was cast (and Nearly Giving Up)
Research & Validation
Before writing a single line of Terraform, I asked around freelancer communities, Reddit and whatsapp groups. I posted a simple question: "Would a pre-built GDRP-friendly AWS starter kit help you or your clients?"
The responses were quite encouraging. Some even offered to pay for an early copy.
🛠️ Tools I Used
- Terraform: For infrastructure-as-code module (VPCs, ECS, RDS, KMS, S3, CloudTrail, Cloudwatch, IAM - all privacy-hardened).
- Notion: For organizing my checklist and writing the compliance documentation.
- VS Code & Github: My dev and version control environment
⏳ Development Time
I worked this project mostly late in the evenings and during the weekends. It took me about ~35 hours over 4 weeks. Mostly spent on:
- Testing and re-testing deployments.
- Writing clean, expandable Terraform code.
- Making sure every module met GDRP principles: data encryption, logging, auditability and region restrictions.
Bigest Challenge?
Legal confidence. Like yok already know, I'm not a lawyer, I had to make sure the toolkit aligned with technical requirements of GDRP. Not just the spirit, but also the letters. I had to review the ICO guidance, read AWS whitepapers extensively and had a privacy advisor look over the docs. (worth every penny).
Launching on Gumroad
🛒 Why?
I chose Gumroad for three reasons:
- No upfront cost, perfect for testing the waters.
- Simple setup, I could lauch in munites.
- Digital product friendly, Gumroad's audience gets toolkits, templates, and niche SaaS assets.
💰 Pricing Strategy
I decided on \$59 for personal use and \$99 for basic comercial/agency use.
Why?
- It undercut most legal templates.
- The value was in saving time and avoiding legal risk a nightmare for freelancers and bootstrapped startups.
What I Learned
📈 Results
- Over \$600 in sales within first 2 weeks.
- X former Twitter, followered by direct links via Emails
- 11 purchases: mostly personal use
- Most customers were freelancers, not startup founders. That flipped my assumptions
- Gumroad discovery is weak. Most sales came from my own network, not their marketplace
- "Compliance" sounds boring. I got better results using phrases like "data privacy-ready" and "cloud compliance toolkit".
Lessons Learned
- Overdeliver with clarity. Documentation matters more than design.
- People pay for simplicity. Just making AWS + GDRP less intimidating is valuable.
What's Next?
- Expanding the kit to include support for other cloud providers like Azure & GCP.
- Creating a micro-course on GDRP-compliant cloud design.
- Exploring privacy laws beyond GDRP, like CCPA or Brazil's LGPD
I am also testing selling on Lemon Squeezy or Payhip for a better visibiity.
Final Thoughts
I did not set out to "start a business", just to solve a problem I noticed over and over again. If you are thinking about lauching your own digital product, here's my nugde: Pick a niche, validate it fast, and ship even if it's not perfect.
Want to check out the toolkit? Use this Here link
Got any questions? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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