My first $10k internet dollars | Hacker News Reader

My first $10k internet dollars

97 pointsJimDesigns42 comments

5 months ago, I launched jimdesigns.co, my one-person subscription-based design studio for SaaS startups, and by doing so, made my first internet $.

Today, I passed $10,000 in cumulative revenue. This is not a significant amount whatsoever, but it means a lot to me and feels pretty surreal tbh.

This is neither an overnight success as I previously tried for years to make money online by building online tools, without any success.

Therefore, by no means do I pretend to have the secret sauce on how to make money online. I just thought I’d share a few thoughts on how I believe that happened for me:

1. Focus on what you’re really good at, and what you know best instead of trying to solve problems that you don’t have for an audience that you don’t know. In my case, as a product designer with +10y of experience designing SaaS products for startups, I didn’t have to look further.

2. Don’t fall into the build trap. In my case, a design studio only requires building a landing page, which means that the rest of the time can be focused on getting traction (+ client work).

3. Deliver outstanding value (product or service). That’s the only thing that matters to your customers. There is no shortcut here, your product or service got to provide significant value. In my case, getting high-quality designs for your SaaS at a fraction of the cost of hiring a world-class designer is a no-brainer.

4. Make your pricing a no-brainer when you’re getting started as the initial goal is to learn and get traction, not to get rich. The $10,000 is total revenue, not MRR but I’m still pumped to have generated my first 5 figures of internet dollar!

This post is not about bragging about my little win, but rather to inspire some folks out there to get started. In fact, my only wish is that I’d started earlier.

You can follow my journey on Twitter (@JimDesignsCo) as I continue to share my journey.

Jim

Congratulations!

> Today, I passed $10,000 in cumulative revenue. This is not a significant amount whatsoever

This is huge. The amount is not insignificant, but also doesn't really matter. What matters is that you got your first revenue. That's a milestone worth celebrating. Good job, and keep it up!

Thank you! Yeah, the first $ meant actually more to me than this specific milestone.

First: Congratulations on your success! This is very exciting, and thank you for sharing your journey with us.

Question: How do you mitigate the risk around unlimited requests? It seems like only a matter of time before you get a client who starts asking for an astronomical number of designs. For example, what if a design agency hires you for all the product designs for the clients? Is there anything to prevent a bad faith player from essentially using their single account to provide your services to a large group of clients?

My pleasure! That's a faire question that I get asked quite a lot ;) Here's the thing: requests are handled one at a time with an average turnaround time of 2 days or less. So until a requests has been completed (including revisions) you cannot move to the next one. This is basically how you would also work with an internal designer anyway, so nothing crazy, just a way to streamline things since I'm the only one doing all the design work.

As for your 2nd question, I actually have some of my clients that are agencies outsourcing their client work to me, which is fine. The same "1 request at a time" rule also applies in that case anyway. The only drawback for me then is that I cannot share the work publicly.

This is an interesting strategy, I hope it continues to work for you!

Thanks! I hope too :)

Congratulations! Here’s to $100k much sooner as the momentum is in motion now :-)

Thanks! Fingers crossed :)

Congratulations Jim!

I have seen this subscription-based design concept pop up a lot lately but as an agency, interesting to see you do this as an individual designer.

Congrats, Jimmy. This is awe-inspiring.

Note: I noticed a typo in your FAQ, under the question, How do I request designs? where designs is spelled deigns. You may want to have it corrected.

Otherwise, looks brilliant. Good luck!

Thank you :) Fixed the typo - thanks for pointing it out!

> Focus on what you’re really good at, and what you know best instead of trying to solve problems that you don’t have for an audience that you don’t know.

This.

I know, right!

> This is not a significant amount whatsoever

Uh yeah it is...

Yes, of course it is in a sense, but it's total revenue spread over 5 months, so just side income, which is pretty neat, don't get me wrong :)

Congrats & Thanks Sir for your valuable information. You'd inspired this small town Indian boy so much :D

My pleasure.

Congrats, this is an awesome milestone!

Thank u!

Great story and congrats! Thank you for posting, I hope I can get your help in the near future for a few projects!

Thank you! Hit me up anytime.

Congratulations, this is huge! Would you mind sharing how did you approach marketing?

Thanks! In short, I'd say building in public on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JimDesignsCo) has been my primary way to get traction.

Congrats! Great concept.

Curious, how do you go about advertising your services?

Thanks! Mainly building in public + referrals from exiting clients.

Congratulations, that's so cool

Thank u!

Jimmy what's your future plan?

Grow my reputation so I can increase my rates over time.

So awesome, big congrats!

Thanks, appreciate it!

will suscribe in a couple of months for my new startup

Awesome! Hit me up at hello@jimdesigns.co whenever you're ready :)

Many congratulations!

Thx!

Congratulations Jim!

Thanks!

Congratulations Jim!

Thanks Peter!

Congratulations Jim!

Thank u!

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