Hi

thanks for reading my first post. I’m Cedric a senior software developer pivoting from freelancing to building products.

I was always interested in 3D game development and one day i listened to a podcast of Blender Guru with Gleb Alexandrov talking about podcasts they enjoyed. They mentioned the Tim Ferris Show and so my journey began.

That was roughly 10 years ago, which inspired me to learn even more from YouTube and Podcasts. In one of Tim’s episode he talked with Noah Kagan, which introduced me to the 4-hour Workweek and the Coffee Challenge from Noah. That stuck with me and i was eager to learn.

I read the book and injected more videos about that entrepreneur space, but nothing happened. I just consumed!

Don’t understand me wrong, i managed to break free from my 9-5 and started freelancing in 2017. I’ve had built a reputation in the Microsoft technology space from work which helped me to get clients. But the dream of building something on my own vanished.

I thought about making YouTube videos building games with Unity, or modelling to sell assets. I came across drop shipping, digital product selling and building courses. I even opened a Udemy creator account and started iterating about ideas.

I did not start, because i feared that i couldn’t provide value. My knowledge of all the spaces i wanted to tap into was limited.

In 2020 the world came to a halt. But not for me, as i was working on software project for big companies. The projects didn’t stop, the demand increased.

At that time my daily YouTube consumption sky rocketed 😅 And so i started to pivot on building products.

The first one was from a client who wanted a Connector of a Document Management System with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. The technology stack was familiar as it all was .NET, some JavaScript. It was the first time i encountered Stripe and integrated it.

The client was a software company who was doing consulting business and thought it would be a nice cross-sell opportunity for their clients. I and a college emphasized that they should start talking with their potential clients (which used the specific DMS) and convert them to beta testers. The hope was to generate feedback, so we could improve the service. I invested my time without pay into it.

Nothing happened…
Revenue: $0

Frustrated from that experience i moved on and started streaming on Twitch, as all did in that year.

Streaming playing games was fun. Streaming to 2 people watching at peak was not working.

Revenue: $0

The stocks and crypto went through the roof and i was fascinated and found a crypto currency project i started to get involved in more. I don’t want to mention it here, because in the end it was a failed project.

The project had a vault protocol like MakerDAO, which introduced leverage and protocol debt risk. There was no risk management group or counsel and there i saw a real SaaS opportunity for me.

So i started building my first NodeJs project with a expressJs web server, React Front-end and blockchain analysis. Almost all was written in JavaScript, which was fun to watch it actually worked. I implemented Stripe, a database and Google authentication and was proud as hell.

I knew i had to learn about marketing. Over the years i always was a quiet consumer. Never interacted in social media or YouTube comments. It was hard to overcome my inner fears of rejection, but i started a Twitter account and actually got some traction posting about my website.

I abandoned the project after crypto went south in 2022.

Revenue: $0

I was doing the same mistake over and over again: No marketing!
I dedicated a lot of time, which was sometimes fun and i learned a lot of stuff, but i also had bills to pay. I underestimated the growing frustration and resentment while having to work to pay the bills, part-time developing the own stuff and getting no results because i avoided the pain of marketing.

As i watched YouTube on a daily routine i also jumped on the rising tide of the AI hype with ChatGPT becoming popular.

But this time it actually helped me getting shit done! I actually realized i needed a spare partner that i just could tell or ask about things to get the next steps to get things done.

This new empowerment silenced my inner fears. From that point on, i iterated faster. I built a fully functional Telegram Bot in about 1 month (Product #4). I started to tap into marketing and copy writing.

I started to read again from other solopreneurs and people that have built apps like Noah Kagan.

The following sentence hit me like a rock:

I had to start. I had to build an audience. I needed real feedback!

After another rough year in 2023, i realized that i lost control of my finances. Freelancing business was doing okay, but the uncertainties of income stability grew. Over the last 2-3 years lifestyle inflation kicked in and i needed to pivot again, after i had months where my freelancing income was lower than my expenses.

By that time the excel sheet of personal finances was so messy, that i started to think about another way to display them. I knew the formula for years. I was doing okay, but not growing.

Growth = Income - Expenses > 0

Product #5 was born. I first made it for myself and i knew i had to get feedback early. So i joined #buildinpublic on X.

This year Noah Kagan came again into my sight with the “Million Dollar Weekend” book. I bought it, read few pages and it hit me with the first challenges.

I hesitated with the idea to reach out, with an unfinished product.

Then i asked ChatGPT, what marketing i could do to get customer’s feedback. There it was again. A text wall of suggestions like finding a subreddit, talk to potential customers on niche forums or talking in public about the product on X.

At first i thought i just grow it organically with good content and SEO optimized pages. I really fast realized that this is not enough and i also read something along those lines, that stuck with me:

I published the first posts on reddit (because of anonymity - struggled with the fear of rejection again). Then extended the postings and continued to build an audience in the build in public community on X.

Ad campaigns to test the demand came to mind, to get traffic to my new site and i just did it.
I added Google Analytics and MS Clarity for the first time. Without that experience of traffic, user behavior on my landing page and getting feedback from real users in the finance space i would have never been able to understand the dynamic of what a new user experiences vs. the developer mind who is working on his beloved code for weeks.
The product evolved with every new challenge i had to take.

In the coming weeks i will share my experience of building an audience, rejection goals, getting the first harsh critic and more in this newsletter. If you liked reading this, i would be over the moon if you subscribe 😀.