Gumroad makes it really easy to earn a buck or two!
If you're on the Internet these days, you might have noticed that everyone is selling something on Gumroad. Let me share my thoughts why is that. It's not because everyone has something to sell. It's because selling via Gumroad is so damn easy. PDFs, design templates, videos, you name it. Think for a moment, do you have any digital asset you've created? Would you like to start selling it? If you're thinking even for a second "Nobody would…
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Launch day on Product Hunt [before/after]
It seems like launch on Product Hunt become like a Rite of Passage for every project out there. Bee Informed was no exception. It was launched 15 days ago, Jun 18th and got around 230 upvotes that day. It ended up in 18th position. At one point it was climbing up to 9th position but that was it. Until now, it collected ~270 upvotes. I want to share with you the preparation process, my thoughts on PH and…
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Stop asking "Is this idea good"!
It was like only 6 months ago when I was in the same shoes. Having new ideas here and there and going around, asking people the same question. What do you think, is this idea good. Should I build it? I don't do it anymore. I'll write few points that will help you see why I've stopped it. Confirmation bias Your colleagues, friends, or family can tell you that the idea is good. Sometimes (less likely) they…
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Nervous about launch on Product Hunt? Launch a mini side project first!
You're an indie hacker who would like to launch on Product Hunt for the first time and you've heard a lot of stories about the launch. A lot of advice on how to do it properly. A lot of people telling you don't screw it, you have one chance. This thing is important, that thing is important. And all you do is waiting. Waiting till your launch has perfect pictures, perfect copy, perfect logo. Guess what. It doesn't…
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Let them support you! First $15 on Ko-Fi
I'll share a story how I get my first "coffees" on Ko-Fi, a place where you can get few bucks from people who would like to support you. Or to use existing tweet: https://twitter.com/brunoraljic/status/1263785269087608832 It feels nice. I would suggest everyone to try new things every day. Switch yourself from "nobody will do that" to "let's try this" mode. I've put the ko-fi button on my blog without expectations. No big plans. More like to have it ready…
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How to promote your blog when you have less than 100 subscribers
How to promote your blog when you are pretty much "invisible", like I am? I'll share some thoughts that caused several "aha!" moments when it comes to this topic. If your strategy for generating traffic is copy blog post link and paste it on dozens of platforms, then this might be interesting read for you. There are some action items you could apply already. These are not originally mine advices, I've just applied them from someone else. But…
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How my blog post ended up as a lecture material on one of the World's Top 150 Universities
Here is some cool story that I want to share with you. Can a blog post be a lecture material? Find out below. My name showed up on The University of Liverpool lecture slides and this is the story how I found about it It all started with some 404 requests I spot on my Google Analytics dashboard. 404.html?page=/how-to-merge-two-mysql-databases-manually-part-1 That was one of my old blog posts, here on the same domain, before I re-launched my blog with…
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Do I need to create an email confirmation flow?
Resonating intro You're an indie hacker and building a cool new web app. Of course, it's supposed to have users. Hopefully many of them. At least it is designed to have a user. They need to log in to perform some actions. So you're adding the login form and the registration form. And thinking about confirmation email flow already. You know, those tokens you get in the mail, and you have to click them to verify yourself. If…
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Focus on the idea - Don't waste your time
I'll write down some of my thoughts why I think focus on the idea, the core value that you're building, is crucial when developing a product. Why we shouldn't lose time on things that doesn't increase the value. At the end of the article I'll provide a list of 300+ tools that can help you save days or even weeks of work. Courtesy of cenario.co/. Who I'm writing this post for? You are a developer who had several…
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Viral app in 3 days and how we exceed Free Firebase plan
I'll try to summarise how we build a viral app in 3 days and what seemed like an internal fun here in codecentric Bosnia ended up us having to change a Firebase pricing plan 😉. jaje.cc [jaje == egg] was launched on Sunday, 19th Apr, when the Orthodox Christians were celebrating Easter and we had a lot of fun with it. This is a story about that journey, narrated from the moment idea was shared till being actually used on…
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Bee Informed - How I pitched my idea for side project
This is Jim! Let me tell you a story about Jim. And about Bee Informed. Jim is a friend of mine. Maybe you'll recognise him through the reading. We do have some common friends here after all. He is a busy guy, living in a modern world. Heavy mobile user. Has an app for everything. And I mean everything. He also likes to go out. A friendly guy, one could say. Often looking for some entertainment in his…
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Is there a simple method for deciding what feature to work on next? DIE framework to the rescue!
Being an indie and having a small side project, you'll have have a million things to add/improve. Some things are attractive, some are not, some are nice to have while some of them are real pain in the ass but still needs to be finished. You're a one man show, nobody will magically take care of that over the night. And ideas keep coming constantly while you actually implement very few of them. You leave the shower with…
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Re-launching brunoraljic.com 🚀
Hello everyone! After a long time I've decided to do something about my personal domain. It was hanging out there, neglected, for a long time. Maybe to mention this: it was 2012 when I registered the domain. I've decided to relaunch my personal blog. Purpose Originally, I found it cool back then to have a domain with my name. DOT COM! And in the beginning that was more or less the only reason why I spin up some…
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