#260 – Growing Multiple Products to $18k/mo Revenue with Tony Dinh
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And I was up.

I should not be away right now. I feel terrible. I barely got any sleep site. I like the living dead right now.

Hi hi hello hello hello.

thank you.

Thank you .

for having me.

What what time is IT where you are? You're in um in whole man city.

right? Yeah I mean what man city is elephas now? yeah.

And you'd like typically a night out, like hours. Do you work?

I usually um uh stay a Better late till midnight and then uh go to work at around an hour. So uh, this is the last hour of my usual day. But for today, I think we can get a little bit further than that is totally fine.

Yeah, I appreciate you making the time gently. I I pitch, tony. I S O K. We can do the episode at any time between, like one, three pm pacific time. Because interesting in an american just seems every like in view. Tina, that's gonna like O A M for me OK I can do that .

yeah but I am glad of the is is I F for you, right? Are you also a ah I O or olive d i'm .

like a both. I have excEllent healthy Steve schedule where I stay up super late and then I wake up early, early. Wow, like for five hours.

Sly, every night. It's actually horrible and made IT. wow. You still doing that now?

You still doing that now? I remember you mention that in one of the earlier episode, but still now you still doing IT.

I've got a woop which is like to see this respite, I don't know, got A A fitness device like a fit bed or an apple watch that like records all your stats and I can go through and I can see like my average sleep every week or every month and it's horrible. So like yesterday, I got four and half hours of sleep. Why this month i'm this month i'm averaging of my average. We're in a group chaining of my whip group with me, along with his girlfriend and some of my friends, managing five hours and eleven minutes of sleep. No.

man, you I know five hours .

and five and you and I I don't even have any sort of like bragging, like, oh, I can't say like this is like coastal port. And I not like staying up. Like to work, maybe actually very .

hard work later. My theory, my theory is that courtland doesn't have a very good ability to since the way that his body feels. And so the negative effects of getting terrible sleep just don't immediately affect them.

Maybe, maybe it's just nature.

I guess I think so, but it's still not good and changing. Absolutely right. Like I took me, I didn't realize until I was like thirty one that if I eat a lot of food, I get sleepy IT takes me a while to like connect what's going on, what's going on and like my enviro to my body because I get too scientific.

C, with IT. I am, I know. How do I? I know this is why I get sleeping.

There is, like, do you notice when .

you put your .

hand over fire that IT be a problem?

Well, tony, i'm glad on the show you wear one of my favorite ni hackers in the last year.

Thank you.

Story is crazy. Year ago, almost exactly a year ago last August, you tweet, you pena tweet. You said, after seven years working as a developer, I quit my job to pursue my dream to build software I love and make a living out of IT.

So that was like a year ago that you quit your job, but you pretty just had a dream. You only had like a thousand followers on twitter at the time. You have a handful like side projects really, and they're only doing like couple hundred dollars in revenue.

And now just one year later, you're at fifty thousand followers on twitter. You have multiple products, I think three main ones that are bringing in a total of close to twenty thousand dollars a month in revenue. That's awesome, man. That's like one of the fastest sprints i've ever seen. An ni I can make A I .

think I got Lucy here there a few times in the past one year, but I also learn a lot in the process as well. So i'm glad team are working out for me.

What's the cost of living in vietnam like if you're making like twenty thousand dollars a month, you know as this like in the hacker just working from home, like how well can you .

live off that incredibly cheap uh, in right now? I think I usually live here for less than one K A month. So when I was, uh, about to quit my job, I was thinking that at least I can survive in vietnam for one day.

A man. And now I had a few hundred dollars M I, R. So I pretty sure I can do this right but and now I do much more than that and also live .

in the there .

at three K A month you can leave uh somewhat like a middle income uh average household and at ten you will be like a lazy live on your .

tweet that you end where you stub mention that you have no life for no kid so on top of the background cost of living in vietnam, you also don't have to pay for a family.

Yeah yeah, that's one of the big reason, uh, to encourage me as well because a lot of other india, because I know have wise in kids IT make the IT make the decision A A lot hard for them. So for me, I just want to give people a contest of what where am I to see the full picture of of of my situation? IT would be different to everyone. So if you have kids and you have a family to feed, IT would be IT would be a different, you know so yeah, I was pretty much free when I quit my job and I have a lot of ideas and a few Jackson initial Jackson. So yeah ah I think that I contributed a lot of myself seat today.

So let's talk about a future products quick. You've got a lot of them. I think maybe just really focused at three of them today because it's like it's confusing when we talk about too many.

One of them I made to use her from paying customer for two for products. So one of them is called snapp er like literally the word x snapp. Er, my grand right.

Yeah, it's right. Yeah, I nap.

Yeah super simple. It's like A A screen shot tool. So every time I take a screen shot of my mac, instead of just copying the image of my clipboard, I get this beautiful interface when the image gets this cool Greening background that I can change.

And I get all these like superpower features, like I can select protection the image if I really want to, and IT saves into special folder and I can drag and drop at anywhere I want and I can add rounded corners and a drop shadow and snapp. Er just made forty two hundred dollars last months. I think you just launched IT yesterday.

Then you've got black magic, a twitter growth tool. There's almost like a hodge podge of these really cool individual tools that you made for twitter and you just like stuck them all together. And I got that too.

So I mean, where I got a twitter, I going to put up black magic. I can see all this extra information about everybody's profile, who am looking at their best tweets, who's following them, their best engagement. I can see cool information about every part of my twitter.

Forget to more notifications. I can see which of my people who've notified me are like have been following me for a long time or the recent followers that black magic is making something like ten thousand dollars a month. And then you will get dev uta's, the only one of your apps.

So I don't use yet. And that's basically just a giant tool box of tools for developers. How much money .

is their futures making? Uh, is average hour about four K A month OK? It's not great current, so is dependent the month, right?

And then you add all these things up together and you get to eighteen, nineteen, twenty thousand dollars a month and revenue .

yeah close twenty year crazy yeah.

Well, you know that .

at introducing my products, I I was thinking about how to introduce but wow, that's that's very uh, a good description of black magic and snap and death utils as well. So I really like to work on music products at the same time. Is my one my a life motive to be a diversified portfolio of multiple products, you know, just for safety, just if one go out, I have the other ones to bring the revenue. I don't know about .

you like childhood like you're not just like making these upset and kind ably successful if you're also like designing them. Every one of them is beautiful. Your super ambitious.

I mean, to build this many things like you guy, be a hard worker. So I wanted know, like what kind of parents did you have? Like where does this where this drive come from?

My generation in vietnam, am is the first reason that experience peace. So before that, my parents were born in, uh, after the word, so they are all very poor. My, that was a construction worker, and my mom just sales stuff at home.

Uh, the point where I started to be passionate about technology and computers was at high school. My parents, uh, got me a computer and then I started to learn to gold with past cow and visual basic six at the time. And uh well before that I was adapted to games. I think like you uh uh collar .

yeah so i'm i'm so curiously and like how common of an experience was IT like you are on the internet as a kid, you are learning programing, you're playing video games. How common was in the at the time?

Well first of not not many kids had computers in the first place. And then um for people who have computers, I don't really get into programing like me. I remember joining some programming computers and from from all the vietnam from my city, there are only three people, so we can do other people from from my hometown.

So I would say not many people have access to the internet. And also so if uh from those people who have access, not many people are into programme. So um is one of my advantage as well.

Are you in are you in north south vietnam? Or worry you when you grow up?

I was, I was in the middle.

right? The medal. yeah. What was city you mentioned? Like you are kind of the first generation I grew up with, like no war part of that generation, one major generation different from the generation that came before you because I guys in america, it's like we learned very little history about vietor know very little about yeah I think like I wasn't even part of my curricular anything I know about you read subsequently as an adult and like obviously there's like a warn vietnam it's like a very controversial topic and i'm sure you have a different opinions on IT. Maybe the people in the west i'm curiously hear what what was the like being party your generation and like. How does that contrast with like your parents generation?

My dad was a soldier and then he became a construction structure worker. So at the time, IT is the north vietnam and the south will nam, uh, IT was a difficult time for everyone, I think, uh, so my parents was not an action. Uh, they were poor, really poor then, uh, maybe my brother were born poor as well.

Ah later on the few hours away to skip the the pool. So when I was ten and above, our our family started to get uh Better but before that my childhood was uh really, really poor. And uh h those people from the previous generation, they had to work very hard on very uh physical uh heavy works to provide for our generation so yeah, IT was a difficult time for sure.

Your father was a poor construction worker in this period in vietnam, and IT seems like he didn't have a lot of other friends locally who are also working on doing coding and working with computers. What do your parents think that you were doing? They think that that you are wasting your time, that they encourage you. Like how did you stay on this path toward doing something that maybe there was a vocabulary the culture around that being like.

yeah, they absolutely cellular question. I think they right now they absolutely have no idea what I do only know I, I, I walk on computer and on internet and yeah.

I know how .

successful are.

uh, they do but but I don't know what I I do for money. Uh, so they all they know that I I don't work for companies anymore and I work for myself and I make money. So like tony.

or you're doing anything legal, uh.

I think they no, I don't think they think that. But when I was john, I was I was shanto convince ed them that if you can buy me a computer and by me, this city and that city, I, I, I remember, but that was a window in stone city, or some kind of a two C D. That allows me to fix the computer without going to the to repair shops.

I tell them, if you, if you do this for me and do that for me, I will be working on computers and and I will no, no longer play games. I was really edited to games, and somehow that I have convinced, and that's how I get my first computer. S and and I changed my life. I think, yeah.

so eventually you learnt, have a code yeah you stop playing his mental video games as I presume get addicted to coating, which is kind of a game in a way it's got like that addictive feedback loop yeah what what company was worked at for seven years that eventually quit last year?

Oh, uh, I worked for three companies, and I I feel lucky that I work for three times companies each time. So my first company was an outshot company. We do our short works.

The second one was a start up. Uh, they did not go well. Uh, the company went by crop and then I moved on to the third company, which is a big corporate company, is gender. Give you know about IT, I think is okay to mention here. Uh, IT was a big company in in singapore.

So being able to participate in the work of all three types of companies, I think I again some knowledge in the industry that a Normal person who work on a corporate, uh, since the beginning of the career to the end, who does an experience, the the works in an outshore and in the start there are things that uh, we learn on each title company. So i'm glad that I had that experience and ah I I never regret working for those companies at all. I think it's background and knowledge that I I can learn in order to build up the advantages that I have when I quit my job to to do to do my own thing.

Yeah, i'm not a fan boy for a second, uh, court on mention that he's got two of your products. I bought snapper to make for screen shots and I posted a tweet storm just yesterday using IT and thought that was awesome. So clearly, you've learned really amazing skill sets.

These different companies are like you, your excEllent design or your clearly a competent developer at these different companies. Were you always just doing the same thing? Or like, how did you get so well rounded?

Yeah, what did you learn at the so you were that I give you the advantages that you have now.

Yeah, after I created, I was as a front and engineer. So a lot of front and the from and backdating is not like from, and today is more like c as animation. You know in doing this stuff that is be so perfect and ah I was doing that for a few years and doing that I learned about design and and U S U I I am not necessarily learn, but I kind of get the feeling and get a sense of design.

You know what is good? What is not good? So that was a the first company, a from an engineers and then, uh, a second engineer.

Uh, the second company I kind of work is a mist of front and back end. We were were working on the rails, ruby, ruby on rails. And uh, that gave me the experience as well as a third company.

I work solely on the backing side and I was able to touch on some of the biggest systems in the in the company, and we were serving our users from all around the world. So IT was a IT was a different experience at a time. And beside of my phone time job, I also have a lot of py project is, uh, I was doing freeLance work when I was in college doing android apps.

And I I have a cypros c when I I work with P H P, uh uh doing on the back inside. I work with a lot of other technologies that I do not have the chance to practice in my full time job. I do that all in my site project. So basically a few first years of my career is all learning and hundred percent focusing on being a good engineer.

Where did you get this dream to be an end hacker? Because, I mean, a lot of people are happy to just work at jobs their whole life, but just been a good engineering and worked with companies until you were forty. But like lastly, here you are, tweet.

Like you can't wait to quit. Are you did quit? where? Where do that IT come from?

Yeah, it's amazing. How is just so fast? I like five years ago, I was dreaming about being an an excEllent engineer working in a large, complex system for a big corporation. Now I just want to build software that bring value to people.

And that is, after I graduate, I kind of get into the flow of all the people around me who always want to get into a good company with a good pay and and and make money so I kind of forget about everything else at the time and can get into the flow to get in the rut race you know and um uh when I was in high school, I made a lot of window apps, so window up windows application and I was having fun by then, I did not sell for any money, but I was having fun. So in the last few years of my career, I can't remember back into those days and I feel like I I enjoyed that more. I enjoy building applications that served and users uh and provide value for the more than I want to be an expert in, let's say, some back and engineering role. So and I started to grow on me, uh, over and over again in the last few years of my career and then when go go IT, I was forced to be home alone all day IT really hit me hard in the feeling when you know you canna go anywhere, nobody to talk to yeah um so so that combined with the with the urge of of uh going back to build uh build apps and and stuff IT made me think of a going on a new journey and the at the same time I think I learned about the hackers and community and do you as well so if you like this in order to to quit my job and and pursue this, I sometimes .

like i'm unemployable, like technically work at stripe now. But this is the first like actual, real job i've had. And if a lot of any hackers are the same, like chain, you don't really want to be employed. You've had jobs before.

but you're never that happy at your jobs. I had jobs with a very specific goal to get out of them yeah.

there's every point where you're like, I love working this job and like what you are like selling copy machines for a while. You a job as a developer, but i'm of the same. But for me it's like I just don't like the idea of napping. But to work on whatever I want.

I have another theory on top of all of that for what convinces people or persuade people to try to move beyond going and working for the man. And that is, you build something for yourself, and you get a taste of the freedom. You get a taste of, you know, sort of getting building something with your own brain, seeing people pay money for IT eeta.

And I see that before you quit your most recent job, and like may of last year, you actually built and sold a product on micro quire for like two grand was IT called drive start that I oah. And that was before you quit. yes. So IT seems like this edge was there and you are even you know finding some indi success before you are free from the in the ninety five.

I think it's a smart thing with you yeah start a side project before you quit your .

job and just see what it's like yeah that's absolutely solution accurate and um uh the taste of having customers the right customers that you serve directly. It's very different than when I have in a CoOperation where you just treat a little cock in the machine and IT take so long to reach to the end to the end users and IT IT grow on me a lot in the last year, uh, and go IT made IT happen.

So you're at this point now, you've made a sight project. You've got to taste a freedom a little bit and you really want to quit your job. But like obviously, you didn't you didn't have a successful project that was like spitting out cash. You didn't have any of the stuff that you have. Now what what do you do in this situation where you want to cook your job or you're not like you totally set ready to do that?

yeah. So in my case, I set a target to quit my job when at least I have uh, one or two K M R R. Or I have a very clear path to reach that point in a year I have having so IT IT gave me a good right way if I get my job without any income at all.

But I don't want to take that risk is is a little bit too much for me. So in my case, I was seeing some subject from my twitter audience and also black music at the at that time, I think IT has three hundred or four hundred M R, which is enough for me to boost the confidence that I will be able to stop all this in a year, at least the bothers. So the boy would be eight hundred, uh, M, R, which is close to the to to the roman and profit in vietnam. Am, you know? And then I move back to vietnam and should be good be.

So this was black magic was was at four hundred M. R R. And at that time, you didn't have any revenue coming in from separate .

projects yet. Uh, I do have revenue from their dues, but is really low. I think less stone, one hundred dollars or maybe two hundred dollars a month, and it's not even recall. And so I remember there's a period three months or two or three months I haven't work on IT at all like I lost the motivation to work on IT because there's no traffic to the website, no customers, no sale, no revenue. So um I I stop I stop working on IT to find new ideas.

But then uh because I I use my product a lot and then I keep coming back to add new feature here and they're just for me and then somehow is uh, there's a few customers out there, then the APP a just keep living. I I don't sort IT down. I just keep living because IT is a dollar tp APP.

I don't need to I I don't have a lot of maintenance costs for that. So um even though I don't work on on those, I still leave. And um and later on turn out is pick up after I I got popular on it's big up, so it's good.

So you wanted to get to like one two thousand dollars on the revenue before you quit your job. What is that compared to your salary? Like where you're making like a tone of money before that. Would that be like a huge downgrade for you? Or that be like just right .

on part is way is like nothing. So my last salary was last. My last was a tank, uh, a month on average. U S B, uh IT was in singapore, but you know conversion and stock up and stuff. So it's k so one key is nothing.

I I don't think I can survive in in in singapore, but in retina maybe uh but because I also work in in the companies for a few years, uh, three years, so I got a bunch of saving. I don't have wife, no kid, no wife, you know. So I don't only spend money for myself, sometimes spent home, uh, money home for my parents does this. So uh, I think the saving was a good and combined with the fact that, uh, the vietnam living cost is low and I I was confident to do that.

Like hard core, ready to take the sleep. If you're willing to take like that big of a salary cut, like you're you're willing to go down ten of the city.

move back to the annam. Yeah, yeah, I know, is I like nine thousand dollars different every month. But, uh, I was heaven enough, I remember. So this is a professional way.

I remember around this time, around this time, uh, exactly this year, um I already handed over my notice to quit my job and every day I will out I would go out for lunch alone because of go IT and I will listen to india co podcast, uh every day to all of those stories about india kers making ten K A month and to be on the bodgers. So learn a lot and most of all a huge 的 motivation for me that I will do IT。 I can I can do IT, I can make IT. Ah so today is like dream come true for me. So yeah, that's my little confession.

Glad we can inspire people to make irresponsible career decisions.

Yeah what doing s up the right now. Motives is good. Motives is good.

Yeah but but yeah um nike U S is a huge packer for me back then. But I I was confident so that I can get IT up to one. K M, so what was your strategy now?

You've got like because array of different products from the beginning is you think like i'm going to have like you know three different acts that I make, they're all going to make a small amount money and it's going to add up to a lot. Or did you like think you're going to make one? Like do you think is going to take you ten years like one year like what was going to your head for what this process would actually look like?

At the time I had black magic, which is the only product that I had recurrent revenue. So I had three hundred M R. So I was very confidence that I can bring IT to two k in about two years even .

before that, like you first started, like tinkering. I'm curious because like by that time, you're already come up the idea for black magic, you have the idea for death. Utah like you like already kind of like started working on these things will be even before that. Like how did you decide like what your strategy is going to be as an idea? And I think it's pretty unique like most people don't have and array of different things like mostly be have you just keep one thing to work at first?

I only had one product is is a that use you ah that you was my first product and I was trying to make you work. I I didn't have an idea about the black music and snapper later on, but I just want to try to make this work. And one of the things that people told me, friends told me that I should do to get more sales on that is to them on twitter.

So that's why I started to use twitter, you know, and when I started to use twitter, I started to see problems around. And that's how I created black magic. And IT just keep going, you know.

a the black .

magic stuff started to get action. We've bring traffic back to my refugees and at the same time, I also building an audience and join into the movement of building in public and and I think is all all combined together like a compounded interest, compounded benefit IT. Uh I bring uh all the products uh up together. Yeah in the beginning I did I had no idea what I would be doing next. I just want to to have more revenue for that to be.

I notice a pattern now that you say IT with if you started with w tels, um black magic is a browser extension for twitter. The snapper is the screen shot up that make IT so that you in a sense make images look good on social media apps like twitter.

And so there's like this domino effect where you began working on a product if you in the kinds of problems that you ran into trying to build that product, gave you the ideas for other products, right? It's like, you know, you want to build an audience for yeah that tells and then you build black magic that's recognize other people have that problem yeah. So one question I have is these three products are successful. You are we to assume that you have a big graveyard of other ideas that seemed interesting and didn't get off the ground?

Uh, I do. I do. I, I have never counted them properly because I don't know what at which point I should count them that, but I have a few, uh, fair project.

The dividual was not my first maro s up. I was building an up to view logs and that was the first attempt into the hacking. And that was a huge failure. So coming from A A hacker engineering mindset, right, I was trying to build an APP that looks so good not only from the functional but only from the good perspective you know so I was ah I was uh writing unit test like coverage at around eighty percent or maybe in ninety percent uh of coverage.

Four united and h four architectural involve different programing languages a go lang script and java script and doing so many new stuff but um as some boy I started to lose motivation because IT take so long IT took me like s of four month to build and I have no prototype to show and I have no thing to show to the world, only an escorts project in my machine and access and is barely working. I was I remember trying so hard to make the up work, so it's a log viewer up, right? So I tried to make IT work for terri size locks file.

So really, really big lock fight, terrible size. And IT was a really hard problem, is is a hard problem. And IT took me a lot of time. So that was my first lesson. I I ended up never released in IT was in my great job right now.

So you had one lesson. You tried to build a product. IT failed. You made some of the classic mistakes of working on building before you work on trying to make sure you know, validate and see, get IT out in front of other people and .

was like A A classic developer mistake of making they go right, really native developer tool that requires a tony of coating .

and takes there.

They work like we view the people who like, who sell, develop tools and make a law. But it's just a total different type of business.

And tony, basically like the things you have done now to look way more visual, like I think it's a different type of motivation between like putting something on twitter or every time you're out of feature, you can like tweeted and people will love IT versus like doing this, developed a tool, you're just sitting there for months coding this stuff, knowing can even little there is no visual element like a log too. IT just doesn't. It's not your capital. E, yeah, I .

remember A, I was thinking, like, I gonna this for maybe six months, and then when I released IT, you gna be so huge, never happened. I never, I never think about who who am going to wana show IT to, like a few people feel friends, you gonna buy what, uh, turn out to be very, very, very difficult. Even now when I have a bunch of um channels and a lot of followers is is also difficult to make something go viral, not let alone make them. I have nothing. I have no audience, no no changes, no news letter, no nothing IT will be impossible to me.

One of the most distinctive things about your story is how confident you are, the fact that you jump ship when you are making three hundred mr. r. With your product and you're decided, hey, and the next two years or definitely get to two thousand and you know, it's one big leap of confidence up to the next.

But you had this big failure, and that was to start your india cking career. What made you confident that the next thing would happen? That was, that was good.

So so after that first failure, right, I did not need any confidence to work on the next thing because after that I feel like i'm gonna keep my full time job forever until I can do something with my cy project so that you deal with my were the second attempt and I still keep my job, uh, my phone time job and building the video on the side at night and at weekends so I was thinking that if that you use doesn't work, I will keep working on the job.

I I don't have you not confident to do anything else so I will yeah I I uh the risk yes um if if the vision doesn't work for a long time, I may move on to something else but one thing at a time, you know because I have a few time job so so if any other people who are looking to quit the job, make sure you have a cy project that earned some money first or at least something that give you the confidence that you you will make IT in a in a year or two. I only quit my job after I after that, uh was uh popular on twitter. I get somewhat popular on twitter and get some record venue revenue yeah and beside I have a lot of the advantages like living tip in vietnam, am and you know no no wife, no case and stuff.

So you posted on any actions like you've got like actually a lot of great post that and really well where you can just like tell the story of your different products. I think my favorite is, is black magic is the what's the first one you did that was a subscription revenue? You started IT before you quit your job.

And in the very first like month, you went from, like, hey, I made this cool thing for my twitter profile. Think you made this. So like, as you got closer, closer to to a thousand followers, like your twitter profile image would have like a ring that would go around IT and eventually, when the ring got to the top of completed IT would be a two thousand followers and he tweet this.

yeah progress .

yeah yeah the progress. But and like very few people, like even volume at the time of people like, oh, this is kind of cool and then eventually you like launched IT product time, got like number one product of the day.

I was just crushing and everybody loved you and you started charging money for how did you how did you do that or how did you get IT from like you're someone who was like no followers, no even cares that you're building this thing to like suddenly of a tonopah lowers. Everyone cares. I think I would like try to buy IT from you for forty thousand dollars like a few months after you started you're like, no, this is a hot shit. I'm going to keep IT like what did you you gets at that point because like most people just like build stuff and obscurity and they eat about IT and no one responds like that and never .

goes anywhere from there yeah I think that the the one thousand following milestone is a is a big milestone for me. So before that, I have no idea what I was doing. I what I did is to try to build audience on twitter and get traffic to my deputy, right? I did not really believe in in black music at a time.

Black music was a thing, but is is a script that I will, for my own to do the progress boating, you know, so, so at that point, I I already have a thousand followers. So IT is something, is not nothing, is something, something. So if I can do something you know, unique and creative and and can go viral, I can use at one thousand followers.

It's a base to to make things go viral. And I think the progressed by is uh one of the things that go viral in the early day. So that progress bar, I try to make my tweet um somewhat unique and visually compelling so that uh I think he he went final a few times and the next the next thing was the real time banner.

The real time banner is the team that uh is a very special one that uh IT helped me going from one thousand followers to five thousand followers in. I think forty hours are three days or something. IT was a there was a viral loop in that tweet and that there was around the time when I think a few tones that I made for black music get me viral on twitter and and because of the new audience coming in, I launched new product. And then IT is kind of .

compound together. I love IT ops inside VIP s because like of your own twitter, where your audiences, then you're making tools for y're cell on twitter, and everyone else like who you tweet about these tools to like cares because they're also on twitter. And then like your product itself is via because like your product, when you update the sort of background image.

So everybody on twitter has like the banner image behind the profile image and the way changed, you know, like what his banner product does that like show you recent followers so we made IT. So like every time somebody follows you, you're twitter Better and major update and show that person's name, which was super viral because everyone wanted to like follow him so they can see their own name yeah photo and is Better image and so he just shot up to follow our church. So it's like, right like you're in the best possible environment to grow this APP because you're around a bunch of people who like are on twitter and want these total themselves and want to advertise themselves. It's like I don't have you do that on purpose, but it's genius.

Yeah I I was missing a row a lot with you to I B I back then. I was trying to do, I would say, abuse everything that is allowed by them. I will try to use IT to do something interactive and fun and creative so that anything was a success that was a huge to say, yeah. And then other that people want to do that for themselves.

So I think, well, okay ay, why not charge fully? And then I, I, I make from my little strip into a SaaS, let them log in by twitter, and then use the scribe to update their banner and their profile pictures so they can do the same as is a me and I I gave IT for free. Uh for for a very long time, I let people use IT for free.

But I tell, I tell them that h this is free for now and later. Later on, when I launched IT, you will have to pay. So I met that very clear up front. And because IT was free, uh, a lot of people jumped in and try the product. And and that's that's why when I launched on a product con, a lot of people knows about IT already and then they gave on to give their reviews about the brother.

And you know you get popular. You also seem like you do some non obvious things with launching and product, for example. Treg me, i'm wrong, but I think I read that you three days before you launch, you just make a tweet and you say, hi, i'm in a launch on product con in a few days and you give your followers the option like k do you wanted to notify you when i'm launching? Then a lot of emerge just like yes.

So and this isn't rocket science necessarily. It's it's just sort of um leveraging the fact that people are already your fans are already building a public for them. And and a sense you just straight up just asked them.

I think that's so smart and so smart. A lot of people like they just launch something right after they build IT. But I think you should definitely talk to your early customers or early beta users or your early like testers of your product and try to incorporate ate them in two years launch because they did the same thing with any hackers like by the time I launched and hackers I had view like email, like two hundred people try to get them to like do interviews with me and like a bunch of her head. So the day, like a week before I launch, I was like, hey everybody, i've talked to you, i'm going to launch next week you want helps support the launch that I notify the same exact thing and then when you launched, like all these people show up your back to help you out up with you that is everyone else is launching. They like nobody even knows who they are.

I think that's very important to get the the Justin very early in the in the launch. And yeah this is uh this strategy is is quite old already. Uh, one thing I do knew is I ask people to reply on twitter and then I will dm them manually. Uh, but people have been doing this for for a while. Maybe they are send an email uh, in the beginning, uh, a few days earlier or a week earlier to announced their launch and then after they launched, people jump ed in yeah so having an audience is so he was advantage yeah tell .

me about this like acquisition offer because someone tried to to buy black magic, but I go out. This is killing off from forty thousand dollars. Where do do that come from?

And how you feel about IT? So I posted a black magic to micro acquet just to see how people would pay for IT. H, okay, no, I I don't 呀 yeah yeah I I made IT happened。

I posted on micro and I don't I don't give a Price, but we make that is very IT doesn't have the chrome attention yet and the chrome tension was the one that the money make OK. So yeah, I got a few buyers. And h one of them was very interested, and they even give enough of four cay.

So IT was at three hundred something. I am alright. So if I did the calculation, IT was like ten s of A R.

Oh, h even more. yeah. But yeah. Uh, so as I said, my black music was not like today. I did not had the chromate tension. And by the time I had that offer, I already have a few ideas about the chrome tension already. I just have not build yet. So I feel like, okay, this is a very good deal, but if i'm going going to sell this, I would have to do something about this chrome tencent idea that I have. And if I do that, I may get into tribe of, you know, you you already sell that to the other person.

Now you do something kind of similar is gonna to so I thought about IT and because that I did not accept the offer and also uh another reason is forty eight okay is good, is is high but other ducks and stuff uh a fee I don't think IT it's um let's say ta fy life fy gay left is not a life changing money. Money for me I definite not needed the cash right there. And then so IT wasn't not important to me is part of .

the end game that you have in mind. You've got a product that to make him about six grand w tales like magic, around ten grand snapper on foreground. Are you looking to to get these projects acquired? Do you have this idea where it's like now to be dot us to keep growing them and and running them and having this free lifestyle? Do you have like an access strategy in mind?

I don't think about you a lot actually. I am open for sale. It's okay if I I am totally up is possibility .

to sell the like. I'm always to here.

There is surprise for anything. I actually give an a really brief note for this a while ago because I get so many, so many offer to buy, and I, I, I write a brief no saying that, okay, all of my products are for self, but there will be one million dollar before.

But that that is .

make no money to make. No say I say, okay, if you buy this, you are not buying the product. You just buying my fun away from me .

so well of any of the products. I think black magic as a smart is one not to sell because you had def utils out of the time. But like that one, as you said, you didn't charge a monthly prescription. People just buy that after the make capture.

Downer IT one's pay for once and that's IT the black magic you are making like, you know a few hundred dollars a month in revenue that you said three hundred dollars a month and yeah that was not that much but that was recurring um and so you know why sell this thing that's recurring revenue. And you know you've got a plan, the chrome ic extension and had more features and make IT even Better too. Um and now it's like your big like your big money generator IT makes half of all the money you make comes from black magic.

It's a ten thousand dollars on the revenue. How did IT gross fest like most people who are trying to sell a house, don't grow from a couple hundred dollars th to ten thousand dollars months and just a year. So like what's the what's the black magic behind black magic?

Yeah I think the reason is um I use twitter a lot and uh I have an audience building audience on twitter and the product is also about so that's a fit of the audience and customers. So that's why um I was able to grow the product without doing any other types of marketings. I tried but I was not a succeed.

I tried uh pt up and and and blocks and stop. Indian, I think is not sustainable for me is one person. So because IT IT is a product about twitter, I just keep twitting and I should be able to get in as people visit my profile. And another reason is that I think I have created something useful for people and I keep getting recommendation for other people that totally not affiliated um kind of a water mouth magazine. So that's why is IT role by itself is up now every day I got a fifty people, hundred people signed enough for black magic um just just stability so I am I do nothing uh for marketing cept tweet so I think is a is a kind of perfect fit for audience and customer that make IT role so fast and so stable .

between dev utils, black magic and snapper. How many hours a week do? Thank you. Put in total okay.

Uh in the in the beginning, I think IT were quite EQ between that video and black magic. But a later on black magic took me like. Seventy percent of of my time yeah because this is a online product, is a SaaS product and IT has servers and stuff run everything running in background, require more attention and also a custom support.

So compare to deduct use, which is a standalone application where you can dark t and use IT black muc took me a lot of time. So the same for snapper as well. Snapper is the beginning when I was actively building IT. Um I spent two days to build IT and then uh a few weeks that I spend maybe a few hours week to build and then that is most of my time, seventy percent spent on on black .

twenty hours a week, eighty hours a week. Are you are you work around the clock or like what's like a week in your life in terms of just how much time you spend working .

on all these projects? Yeah I look at the numbers recently and I say I work on average for hours a day. Um I think six months ago is about six to I was in the beginning when I was, uh I just uh, quit my job.

I think I will at ten hours or even more and mostly a mostly could link but also not accounting for the time I spend on twitter right? I brought you a lot. Yeah like I do think think .

four hours or five hours or whatever the number of hours working for a company is totally different qualitiative fully than for to ten hours or whatever are working for myself. Like, I love working for myself. I have friends who are like, do you need work?

Like baLance, you're working on a sunday. I am so sorry for you. Like i'm sorry for you. What are you doing like reading that monday's coming around?

Yeah so true. Yeah this was a point where you right .

realize your revenue where IT click for you that your revenue was going to like surpass the ten came month. You're making your job and you're like colly shit like this work and i'm never going back to go back to work.

Yeah I that happened to me when I was at five K M R R. So I K M R R is the world that I said when I quit my job, uh, even before I quit my job, I was talking like, okay, if I get to, hey, I will be able to provide for myself, for my future family, and I can even send money back to my parents. That is a perfect point that I will be fully sustainable, if yet.

Now so uh, when I read ten, I R I feel like i'm free, you know, totally free, but but not looking at actually I did not work less after I raised by K I mean, when I raised pi K I was in, uh, I think I was in the middle of a of a grow curve. IT was going up. And at the time I was doing something very special for black magic or something I could not remember now.

But I work a lot at at the time, much until later on, when I reach to seven, eight, and then I K, and then I K, I, I started to to realize, okay, I am, looks, looks like i'm going into a treat meal of one thing more and more and more and more forever. You know, I should, I should do less. Why my doing more and sometime I uh even though I dress whenever I want, I feel I sorted because sometimes it's like addiction you know is you cannot control yourself so um yeah when when I reach about seven k or eight K I was focusing more on forcing me to relax. I I travel a lot more and I enjoy lot more time. And also the last few months living in a beach IT has incredibly increase my mental health, just leaving me a match and having a walking distance to a bit, you know.

so good yeah, what you like idea of lives now, because you have to, like, everybody has to think about this at some point once you hit this point to financial freedom. And like, so I don't want to work for anyone else. I can do whatever I want all day.

And people like, do fall into these buckets. So some people get on to that trade mail. And they are just like, okay, when I wanted to make ten k like, now I wanted make twenty k okay, and made twenty eight.

Now I want to make, I want to to make fifty. Okay, make fifty like i'm trying to hit a million dollars and it's keep going up and up and up and like, that's just their life like these ever increasing goals. And some people were the exact opposite.

They are like, okay, I got to my goal. Like, now I wanna have fun, right? I want to make a lot of friends. I want to spend my time on the beach like you were saying. I want have a really chill life.

Put everything on autopilot, put thing in the passive mode, and some be born more like creative like Peter levels is like, you know what like I love tinkering on my projects. That's his favorite thing. You just love to doing that. And so he's got a very well baLanced but isn't have any sort planned retire or try to go for like billions of dollars. So like what bucket do you fall in?

I think the the the dream life would be. I will only do the stuff that I enjoy, which is uh somewhat product designing and coding right now. I'm still doing that most of the time, but there are still some kind ground work like something support and you know fibers and some of the borrowing features that you know necessary for for business but not to work on.

So I think the dream life for me is I can start to delegate some of those work for other people that I just so that I can focus more on innovating new ideas and new products. I was thinking like, if I get to, you know, to the poe way, I can snap a company our resistant to work on some new product, new idea. Anybody fail, I would not feel regret for spending the money I would get into the boy.

Yeah, yeah. I just experiment with stuff at a larger scale. You know, right now, I can do I can still do that, but I have to do that with my own time.

So it's kind of costly for me. And because the opportunity cost is increasing for me day by day because every time I don't work on on on, black magic is making money, right? So if I don't work on IT kind of feeling kind of losing money.

So I feel later that, that opportunity cost is putting me on a thread that I need to continue working on this. But I don't really enjoy all of the part of my daily work. So yeah, I still want to reach uh to fifteen and a million and stuff, but I wanted to do that in a sustainable way and enjoy my life at the same time.

It's easy to get to a point where you forget like like that fire you have and you're trying to like first, financially free to give every day you're willing to do all this ship that you don't like doing because you like I need to make IT and it's I think it's really easy eventually like i'll check on you in a couple years to like to lose that fire is so easy to be like ah you know I don't want to do any of the hard things that I used to do.

I only do so. I like to do, that's right. I also only want to do the stuff that I like to do. But then I became harder to do, harder things like when I think back to, like when I talk people who we are like you just crashing in our marketing and sending all these cold emails and you know, tweet every single day and like, man, that seems exhAusting. But then my way I used to be me like four years ago and I wasn't that hard. So I feel like there's like yet in a Young like chatting, you're all was talking about this two about like how you structure your life, like always want to do hard things.

Well, the way that I see IT is I think that one approach you could take is to just keep your foot on the gas peddle and just keep growing. But another approach you could take is to take that same fire and ambition and look at other areas of your life that sort of are are lacking or you like, you know, things that you haven't ever felt had the time in the freedom to work on the, for example, of ini hackers. We still have a lot of growth to do.

So what I want to make IT seem like that on autopilot. But it's like, you know, i've had the foot on the peddle for many years. And like a lot of my immediate friend group is dwindling. So i'm like all i'm going to take my ambition in my fire and like an awesome friend group in york city is sara. So that's in a way that's the the way that I like to not let my sense of effort and ambition get dolled by working on things that are not really giving the same excitement returns that they once did.

I see that is a that's an interesting approach.

Yeah, I mean, you launched snapper more recently than w tales and black magic. So like even after black magic is like doing so well, you decided to like continue adding new products. And snap is really interesting to me.

So this is the screen shot tool. It's interesting to me because it's also kind of like W T S, your first one, it's not a recurring revenue product like guy just pay for once and that's that I don't never have to pay you any money again. Um why go that out? You know what's IT like making these like mac apps verses like these like websites, like charge subscription revenue and like what are some many advantages and chAllenges of of going that out? Because if you decided to do the second time with night, there must be something good about IT that you like.

Yeah I think, uh, for for apps, mark ups in general, I don't want to pay a supercuts, so I wouldn't want to sell IT to customer like that either. The payoneer forever model that i'm using for refugees and and snapper is not exactly a lifetime. So when you buy, you will buy that one exact version and you can use IT forever.

Never had to pay me again, but let's say, uh, one year later, two years later, you want to go to the latest version, you have to pay a little fee to to renew IT. So that is the model that I find perfect for mary s up. And a lot of other apps are using the same model.

If you are into mac west up, uh you know a few popular apps like sketched the design up IT used to be on that model, the intel um the I D up forever. Also the same model table plus process men nova APP. Or going from that same model because that is the only way that can give the customer a lifetime license and also having a sustainable business.

So that's good about the macos up. I think um there are a lot of web up these days. And if I want to make A, I gonna do something different so much, why I be something that one can build to, to deliver a Better experience for the users. So that's what i'm I was trying to focus on.

Yeah yeah you just posted about how you launch snapp. Er and you've already made like I think four thousand two hundred dollars in earnings. Was that just like on your launched day, just like in the last month or so?

Yes, just for the lone day in this one, I already met like seven or eight thousand dollars for this month and um in the month earlier I think I made like tank because uh, I was selling early but cell so when I when the first wasn't came out, I already letting people use for free but I is but I tell people that if you want to buy IT early now you can get very very cheap so um I was about to sell like tk on get road and on put uh in total so is the first time that I build that have a big audience um customer base.

You know that future is only for developers, but the screen shot too. Everyone can use IT. So I think it's get we got more potential. We got more, more potential.

But is IT is IT harder to sell stuff like is you so used to twitter which have this feedback loop? O O, all the audience is on twitter, but like a screen shot tall. It's like, well, it's in the APP store.

It's not a discoverable. It's probably harder for you to keep tweet about IT. And so what's the difference marketing and growing that that this is growing a twitter APP.

So for snapper, I use IT a lot. So uh when before I use snap, right, I have a combination and of three different tools to make that same winter. And I take me a lot of time, but I still have to.

I still do IT because I I find IT very beautiful. So h, before snap, I, I did that. And a lot of people ask me, how did you make this happen? how? How did you make a street look beautiful like this?

So I keep having the answer to people again, again, again, how I did IT. So I fear out if I make a an apple for this, I would be able to market IT easily, authentically. When people ask me how I did this, I just say I would use. And that's how I that's how I was thinking about marketing the product.

So IT would be what a mouth marketing from me and um actually I I was not very concerned about the the growth of because IT was smug as up right I beautiful me so even if IT doesn't get any traction, I will use IT myself and I only spent a few days on IT. I I don't have a lot to lose and I save my and my time so even if IT doesn't IT, IT doesn't make any money for me. I'm okay with that, you know so everything comes as a bonus for me.

IT is a tiny bit of built in marketing right in the form of if you have the free vers you don't want to pay for IT, then IT has like a whatever name dot com water yes.

yes, yes, yes yeah.

marketing.

I don't think a lot of people will use that. Um people get .

a hit and time off immediately yes.

Yeah if if you pay for IT, you're going to get rid .

of yeah seems like you're .

open for like a couple of cheap case who might at least like this free marketing for you .

yeah I got to hope that would be a marketing loop but I don't think so many, many people care about design will and about the one of so they try to turn IT out yeah I think it's naturally .

Better because when I you share something beautiful with other people um they usually asked you how you made IT and screen shot is something that people share so every time I take a screen shot now let to get this ool grading backgrounds and i'll send IT to my friends i've IT to um like anyone i'm working on the project with and like a good person at the time once i've sent to two or three screen shots so figure out like oh every screen should I take looks like this and I ask me how I did IT and oh just check out snapp er and so it's got like this kind of so you're building something that people naturally want to show to other people.

Yes, it's very visual. Only if IT is beautiful that people ask how you need IT. So I think that that's something that I can that I was able to unlock and hopefully that will drive more people to to be aware of the APP.

Yeah in a way, this is like a sneaky benefit of these you know pay once, own forever kinds of products you made to post on our our forum of whatever a couple of a weeks ago. And I was like, hey, you know here's how i'm you know defying all of the start up now all the start advice to only focus on one product. I ve got three of our products and make an eighteen grand a month. Um and since snape r doesn't really require a lot of your continual time, yes. And theory I could imagine like over the next ten years, you're ballooning up to having like seven products right as long as or not all subscription based and it's like, yeah no, I only spend time working on two or three of them right?

Solo absolutely. I I have known a lot of people who make a bunch about like tens or even hundreds. I don't need much maintenance IT just keep growing and bringing revenue. So at this is a way and even though is one temperate IT doesn't require much of your time, which is, I think, more valuable.

what do you what do you think your are your approach to building in public is so successful? Because I like just growing to your twitter, dude, and you've got so many tweet and I know a lot of people who build in public and it's like it's not a new thing, right? People have been building in public for years and years and years to the point we're now, it's almost like passed. It's like, you know you're just one of a million ini hackers tweet about your revenue and you're marketing strategies. But for you, like IT works, like are getting a tunnel, likes your follow account is blown up, why do you think it's working for you and IT doesn't work for so many other people?

I find that, uh, even though many people doing the same thing in building public is me, they did not get the the attraction and I talk about that a lot um in conclusion, I think there's something about the creativity that uh of the stuff that I tweet that trigger people to be curious about the stuff that that I do.

So let's let's get example, when the early days, when I have only a few hundred followers, I build something fun with javascript H A little water simulation. So IT was was something just, I do just for fun, but because he was so strange and so creative and and IT looks so fun, got people attention. So I laid on when I build public, I I feel like nobody.

What I do IT has to be special. IT has to be something the people have never seen anywhere, or something that make them curious, or something that wasn't able to do before. The then the tree will get attention.

So that is something I think would be difficult to get for other people. Uh, that dude is a borrowing product. But black magic and snap is kind of interesting because it's touch on the market. Well, I don't think there's anything exist like that before they make people curious about the product and then they want to try uh the fact about I build I build mark west up also contributed to IT. I think um people use web up too much like there are only already a lot of work apps and something on your makerere IT will be more engaging in in and a more beautiful and I think I think they like IT more. There is no coincidence .

that I mean, probably the main place to build in public is on twitter. But if everyone building in public on twitter is then linking back to their website or they're linking back to their APP or they're linking to their newsletter, there's extra effort people have to go through to see what they're doing. But if you are building in public and the thing that you're building on twitter is a twitter product and everyone sees your awesome profile and they see this dope like banner like it's just a sort of this direct demo, there is a tremendous amount of public credibility that you have, though everyone can kind of see themselves using that product and benefiting from IT.

Yeah, I I heavily invested into the totally invested in is everything. So everything I do share on deter yeah smart. I mean.

you've got such variety too because it's if I follow your twitter, I can it's not just like one thing. It's like you've got three or four different products that you tweet about. Almost all of them are visual.

So this could starts to look at. And as a follower, like i'm also your user, so you're like tweet about like stuff that is relevant to me because i'm like using your products, then you're also waited by your progress. Is an ani hacker celebrating your successes, asking for help you okay, what's the best somebody to post snapper and and hey, i'm in a logical and do this. So you're like really engaging and this just like a huge variety of stuff like you ve given people like half a dozen reasons to follow you as compared to someone to just like working on one thing and doing about that one thing all the time. It's like now I have one reason to follow you and if I get bored.

yeah come me back. I also really like what you said, that you have a big focus on making things that are fun. Tony, i've ever heard of probable problems.

There's a new um website coming out for that right interactive website in .

new fun, new new the problems. You know just this old philosophical problem where you you see a going is going to kill three people, but you can pull the lever, and then you only go one person, but then you have to sort of own the consequences. In any case, he took, this is offical problem.

He made this fun game. And the cool thing about this is that IT went so viral that a friend of mine who doesn't even go to hacker news senate. To me, he's not like that techy, but he's like this game is awesome.

And then I saw IT and then I wanted to know every other thing that this neal guy built. So i'm like browsing his website. I'm playing all these different games and i'm like thought, you know, I want to see what is doing on twitter. And so I think there's such a huge untapped benefit of like, instead of just going for what's just useful, what can I make money on ever now and then just letting your hair down and building fun games. It's also fun to build those things.

You you add any constraint you want to to any other work as an antique, you can say i'm going to be super fun, everything's that look super well designed or everything's going to be like really simple, right? And IT doesn't have to only be about like, oh, how do I make money but I can be about any these other things. You put your personality of your own sort of touch under what you do.

And I think that like, when people do that, I just makes that much, much more fun for them to be in the acres. But also that makes the product stand out like every tony didn't product is like very obviously from you got you're touch on IT. Every part of from Peter levels is like got aog es all over IT.

It's like really Peter levels ask and then you yeah you can always guess and then you can see other products. People like ripping 一个 off。 You know people don't have their own vision or their own interest to even thought about lic what they want to put into their own products til they copy. Peter levels something but new, Peter, anyone who's got their own touch that you seem like you having a really good what's your parting advice for ne accor listening to this, what something that you've learned in your journey that they might not you heard somewhere else that you think they should .

take a way yeah are wanting, is to focus on solving the problems that they are experience by themselves, uh, even Better if they are the users for their own product. So as an in as an any hacker and you don't have a lot of resource as a as a big company so that if you are the user of your own product, you get an a huge advantage of having a look inside the product and having the insides of the problems. So always try to look for for problems around you and solve those problems.

So of your own problems. Tony, then thanks a time for for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much. Let listeners know where to go to find out more about what drop to you like your twitter .

or websites that that would be donated in that com. My website. In there you will be you be able to see my news letter and my twitter and everything else about me.

cool.

Thanks again.