Going from nothing to $200 is harder than from $200 to $5000
Going from 0 to 200 is harder than 200 to 5000 even though the differences would imply the opposite.
This isn’t a scheduled post either. I was supposed to write this yesterday, but company hackathon got in the way. We did well, though!
The title came to me about two days ago randomly as I was thinking of what to do with my side projects and seeing reels and articles by very successful people who are doing their own thing. One of them recently passed the yearly $2 million mark. Amazing achievement!
I think going from nothing to $200 is actually harder than then scaling that up to a higher number. At least it is for me.
Before my first $200, I don’t know whether what I’m selling is actually going to benefit people. Sure, I have some “if it existed I would pay for it” sentiments, but that’s a lot different from folks actually paying for it now that it exists.
I don’t know whether folks are going to be unhappy with me and angirly spam that refund button. I don’t know whether they’ll feel ripped off, or delighted. I don’t know what kind of customer service requests they’re going to have, and whether my resolution of those would be timely, or satisfactory to them.
Going from nothing to $200 is an entirely new state of things. Even though it’s only $200.
Whereas when going from $200 to $5000 I’d already know how my customers like my product, I know the customer service questions, I’ve figured out a bunch of things I no longer need to think about. I need to do more of the existing things I’m already doing. I know I can handle more customers, it’s just a matter of going faster.
I assume the fifth side project I’d start going from 0 to $200 will be significantly easier. The first side project’s first $200 though, that’s a new territory.