ZiadHilal

Saas portfolio site for artists. Launched Jan 2013. 0 Marketing. 5k+ users (not sure where they are coming from, not sure if they are spam accounts) 29 customers, but only 8 are currently active/billed.

Site exists on an AWS ec2 instance, mysql DB on RDS. Application is split into three Laravel apps: 1) slidingboxes.com site 2) admin panel to manage portfolio 3) the portfolio itself

Stripe used for billing (via laravel Cashier package).

Ansible used to provision/deploy. Local dev via Vagrant. Source code managed via private Git repo on bitbucket.

$20k was at the peak. $14k was average.

I made many mistakes, the biggest ones were:

1) Having hit a relatively high success at 21, I felt indestructible. I had no fear of spending most of my income on entertainment. I knew nothing about budgeting, I should have saved.

2) Towards the end, I definitely spent too much time having fun and ignoring the product. When you're on a high roll for so many years, you feel invincible.

The decline started gradually, but in my mind I always believed I could easily bring everything back on top. At the end, I repeatedly did everything in my power to save the product but it was too late.

Studied CS at university for 2 years, dropped out to pursue an idea. After a couple years of work, I was bringing in 20k a month.

It was the most incredible time of my life. It lasted for 7 years before it hit the bottom. During that time I spent my days playing beach volleyball, tennis, golf, skateboarding, gaming, girls, beautiful car/apartment, the life in Santa Monica CA!

I wasn't the least bit afraid when the project/business started slowing down. I decided to launch two more ideas - BOTH FAILED. At that point I was burnt out and was running low on savings. I had no other choice but find employment. In my mind, I failed and lost everything. It hurt me for years, and still hurts me to this day.

While I have a great job, the feeling of imprisonment and failure is always with me. Eventually I got the strength to work on another idea during weekends and late nights. That gives you very little time, especially when you have a demanding job. It took over the course of a year to launch this new idea and it's not working out the way I hoped it would.

Call it what you want, but in my mind that's three failures in a row.

I've learned that luck and timing are definitely part of the equation. I've learned that you can spend year after year obsessed with coding your ideas and end up with only the knowledge.

It's extremely tough and taxing to go down this route. Be prepared to fail multiple times. Be prepared to lose every cent of your savings.

I know I'll continue trying, hopefully one day I'll come back on top again :)

#1 - IE 8

#3 - IE 10

#4 - IE 7...

#5 - IE 9

Why do you guys want to work from home? Isn't the isolation during the working hours hard on you?

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With Sliding Boxes, my goal is to offer artists a more beautiful and customizable canvas for their work. Boxes on the portfolio's front page slide to reveal other artwork. And because it's built as a one page application, page transitions are sublime: http://lucalagreca.slidingboxes.com/

I'll rewrite some of the language to target artists instead of developers. Thanks for this feedback, marketing is definitely not one of my strong suits.

The first time I used Stripe, my jaw dropped when I figured out their implementation. It's just so obvious and makes so much sense (Javascript FTW).

Their implementation is both elegant and smart. Even easier than Braintree.