Not Business Advice

How I made $1M from my personal projects

Book 5

Into the wild

($5,000/month, mid 2021)

Table of contents

Introduction

1. Timeline

Part 1: Into the wild

1. Freedom at last

2. Cold realization

3. First taste of freedom

4. Zoo Stress vs Savanna Stress

5. Almost domesticated

6. The first storm

7. Real Money vs Paper Money

8. Losing all of my money

9. Burning my hand

10. Staying alive

11. Two is enough

Part 2: Searching for traction

1. Snail pace

2. From hunting, to fishing, to farming

3. The strategy

4. Investing months

5. Getting serious

6. Mirage

7. Polyphemus

8. Clean slate

9. The real world

10. First results and patience

Part 3: Designing my life

1. No right choices

2. A cautionary tale

3. Living with decisions

4. Acceleration of time

5. Trade-offs

6. Timelessness

7. Ancient Athens

8. Escaping the Zeitgeist

Appendix

1. What's next?

2. Time travel

Introduction

Yoohoo! It finally happened. I have officially quit my job.

I am about to experience complete freedom for the first time in my life and be self employed. Hopefully forever.

I thought it would be smooth sailing from here on, but it's actually been way harder than I thought it would be.

I had to register my business, learn all about taxes, lost access to almost all of my money, ended up living among drug addicts, tried a bunch of experiments that all failed and found myself stuck again.

At the same time, I have never felt happier and more alive. I am actually living my dreams.

So let's rewind the tape back to the 6th of January.

I'm in Milan, Italy and it's a rainy morning...

Timeline

Before we begin, here's a quick recap:

• In 2016 and 2017 I learnt how to code and built my first product. I spent two years building it but it went nowhere.

• In 2018 and 2019 I built and failed a lot. I built 15+ products and reached $200/month in revenue.

• In 2020 everything happened all at once. Launched and grew CyberLeads to $2k/month, doubled my salary and quit my job.

• So far, 2021 has been underwhelming. I'm half way through the year, writing this. I haven't experienced much business growth.

I think I'm stuck. Again.

Part 1: Into the wild

It's happening.

It's my last day at work.

Freedom at last

Normally a rainy winter morning would be depressing. But this particular one was anything but that.

It was one of the happiest days of my life.

Actually, I really want to say that it was my happiest day. And I'm not sure what that says about my personality and life.

I worked my ass off for so many years for this.

And today I am returning my laptop to the office. Saying goodbye to everyone and I am done.

As I'm walking down the staircase to exit the company building, I can't help but smile.

I smell the disinfectant from the sterilized medical equipment and look at all the white walls. I can't help but think that they remind me of the aesthetics of a psychiatry clinic.

As I approach the front door of the building I am almost running. I take a deep breath and cherish the moment. I want to save it in my long term memory.

I promise to myself that whatever happens I will never go back to working in an office.

I don't care about material success. Or becoming a millionaire.

All I want is to be free.

Cold realization

A few hours later, as I was relaxing at home, it hit me.

"Damn.. I am completely by myself now. I hunt what I eat. And I eat what I hunt. If I make money with CyberLeads, great. If I don't.."

I remember wondering what the stress would feel like from now on. Would it increase? Would it decrease? Or would it remain the same?

First taste of freedom

The next morning the answer was obvious.

I woke up without an alarm clock. Checked my calendar. Empty.

So peaceful. Slowly got up and made my coffee.

"Wow. So I can focus fully on CyberLeads now?"

Not only did I have unlimited time for CyberLeads, but I also had time to do everything else I wanted to.

And I don't mean business stuff. I mean the little things.

Like exercising. Cooking. Writing. Hanging out with friends.

A few weeks go by. My resting heart rate has dropped by 5 beats per minute. And I feel a lot calmer.

Zoo Stress vs Savanna Stress

When I was growing up, I was always told the following. I'm sure you've heard of it too:

"Well kid, you either work for someone else, make less money but have less stress. Or you work for yourself, make a lot of money but have a lot of stress."

That hasn't been my experience. At all.

It's not that I had less stress or more stress.

It's that the stress was different. It’s a vocabulary problem.

When I was working for someone else, the stress I experienced was chronic, predictable and consistent. Daily meetings, deadlines, performance reviews and presentations never stopped.

The stress wasn't intense, but it was always there.

When I was working on my own things, the stress I experienced was acute and fluctuated wildly.

Sometimes I was super stressed and worked all day. Like when I found new competitors coming after me.

Other times, everything was cruising nicely and I was sleeping like a baby. Hardly even working.

In the end, this type of stress and the fluctuations made me feel alive. More alert. And maybe even smarter.

Reminds me of my favorite Paul Graham essay called "You Weren't Meant To Have A Boss".

He draws a beautiful parallel between people working for themselves and wild animals.

He explains that wild lions in the savanna feel, move and look way more alive than the lions you've seen in zoos.

Almost like different species. They are alert. Smart. Calculated. Their hostile environment keeps them thinking, moving, learning and adapting.

On the other hand, lions in the zoo sit around all day.

With their mouths half open. Drooling. Waiting to be fed. Bored out of their brains as they don't have to do much to survive.

Sometimes it's not even possible to reintroduce them into the wild.

I feel like it might be the same with humans.

Almost domesticated

I certainly think it would've been the case for me.

If I had spent too much time in academia or the corporate world, or if I had never built any side projects before starting my corporate job, I would probably never build anything.

I would think that you need a full team of designers, marketers, developers, advisors and investors to build a successful business.

Luckily, I had already built projects and generated some revenue. So I kinda knew what the real world looked like.

And now I was ready to face all the stressors. The unpredictability of the market. Competition. Everchanging distribution channels. New technologies. Shifting laws and regulations. Extinction events.

I was back into the wild.

The first storm

A few weeks after becoming self employed, the first storm hit.

I have a call with my accountant, who is helping me register myself as a self employed person in Italy. I quickly realize that I have no idea how taxes work.

I buy two books on accounting and taxes. One generic. One specific to Italy. I am excited because I am learning new things.

And not for the sake of learning. But because I have to.

I quickly realize how naive I was.

I had a 90% income tax exemption as an expat in Italy, so I logically thought that I would be paying almost no taxes.

Makes sense, right?

Then I discovered that income tax is just one type of tax out of many.

You have social contributions, regional taxes, corporate taxes, VAT, capital gains taxes. The list goes on.

I run a little simulation on paper. I realize that, at the end of the day, I would be taking home 70% to 75% of my revenue, after all my expenses my expenses and taxes.

Wait a minute.. If I am taking home 70% of my revenue, with the cleanest and simplest online business in the world, with zero employees and almost zero expenses, and a crazy tax benefit on top of that, what is everyone else truly making?

Real Money vs Paper Money

I was fascinated.

Revenue and actual money made had been decoupled in my brain forever.

I wanted to understand what founders of companies making millions are truly making, aka taking home.

I want to see where I stand in the grand scheme of things.

I post a realization of mine that goes viral:

"• $10K/mo solo business, 90% profit margin:

• Founder takes home $9K per month.

• $1M/year biz with two co-founders and 25% profit margin:

• Founders take home $10K per month.

Yet they call the first a side project and the second a business."

A lot of people disagreed and gave me their arguments. The second one can scale. The second one can be sold. The second one can work without you. And so on. But they couldn't argue with the math.

I run a few more simulations with million dollar businesses, multiple founders and a few employees, based in Western countries.

I quickly realize that taking home $5k to $10k per month is considered great. Even for founders of million dollar companies.

Most times they live off a great salary and reinvest the rest of their profits into the business to grow.

These things might be obvious to you. But they were all new to me.

So maybe I'm successful already. At 25, I'm consistently taking home around $5k per month. I have a great quality of life, doing what I love, waking up without an alarm clock and working on my own schedule.

Losing all of my money

Just as I thought that I'm the man and had everything figured out, life punched me in the face.

I was chilling on the sofa, when I received a notification on my phone from my bank.

A few days earlier, I had moved almost all of my money, more than $40k+ of my $50k there. In one big transfer.

I wanted to have everything organized, look at the big number on the screen and have all my analytics and expenses together.

However, as soon as I made the transfer, it flagged the system and they asked for me to provide statements and documents of proof.

Initially I thought I had nothing to worry about.

But while trying to contact customer support for further clarification, I quickly realized that it was non-existent.

I went online and somehow ended up on some forums where people were talking about their experiences with the specific bank. And that's when the nightmare started. All of a sudden, I was reading real life horror stories.

People losing their money indefinitely. Having their accounts frozen for months. Even people who were running legitimate businesses, with multiple employees on payroll.

Just canned, automated responses. And nothing else.

I was freaking out. I had 90% of my money in this account. I couldn't get through to anyone. And now, my account was under investigation.

I collect myself. I take a deep breath, and I send the paperwork. Rejected. No explanation or feedback as to why.

I try not to panic yet, I take my time to correct some things I thought could be wrong.

A few hours later, I re-send the paperwork. Rejected again. Shortly after, my phone buzzes with a message telling me that they temporarily froze my account. My blood went cold.

WHAT?! Ok, this is going exactly like the stories from the forums. Word for word. I am one of the unlucky ones that will never be able to prove their source of funds. For months. Or worse.

I'm sweating. I'm paranoid. I'm fucked.

I have so many expenses coming up soon. Very soon.

$3k to setup my business. Pay for accounting for the year. Expenses and flights to move to another city. Deposits for houses. And who knows what else might appear.

I'm trying to calculate if I can handle all of my upcoming expenses with the rest of my money. I don't think I can.

I take my time to really think about it and correct my files. I am already thinking of the worst possible scenario.

I correct and send the paperwork for a third time.

A few hours later, at 11 at night, I receive a notification saying that they were accepted. My account is back to normal.

I instantly feel lighter. I pour myself a glass of wine. And enjoy it with a huge smile on my face and red cheeks.

I feel rich and safe again.

Burning my hand

You know what's crazy? And scary?

That I knew that I shouldn't have all my money in one bank account.

But I still did it. And then I got burned.

And I knew that I shouldn't send all the money in one go.

But again, I did it.

Just like I knew from day one that I should launch fast and charge money from day one.

But it still took me 2 years and 19 failed attempts to really understand it and do it.

It seems like I learn mostly by making mistakes. Like a kid that doesn't understand that playing with fire is dangerous until it burns it's hand and cries.

Staying alive

I started seeing risk everywhere.

My money could be frozen. My tech could break. My payment provider could cut me off. My marketing channel might stop working.

I decided to go back to my roots and rewrite Cyberleads in code, since my no code tools were constantly breaking and going out of business. I also tightened up my online security.

Of course, as soon as my issue with the bank was resolved, I split my money into multiple bank accounts in multiple countries. If I ever need to transfer money, I do it in multiple smaller transactions.

I also cut out middlemen and moved from a merchant of record to a payment provider. I have to deal with all the invoicing and accounting now, but I have seen too many people lose their accounts and subscribers, taking their business to zero.

And finally, I have started building a second distribution channel. More than 90% of my customers come from Twitter, and that scares me.

I have accepted that I'll make mistakes. Many of them. But I have to avoid the catastrophic ones. Especially the ones I can avoid.

I recently saw a movie called "Big Fish". I don't remember what it was about, but one quote stuck with me.

• "How does the biggest fish in the river become the biggest?"

• "How?"

• "By not getting caught."

It doesn't have to do anything else. It's just has avoid death and keep growing. One day it will be the biggest fish.

I think it's the same in business.

Two is enough

The banking scare kickstarted this paranoia. But now I am realizing that I could keep doing this forever.

How much should I diversify? How many banks do I need? How many distribution channels do I need? How many income streams do I need?

I used to think that the options I have, the better. But I changed my mind while trying to answer the question from the ground up.

Why am I diversifying at all? To survive another day in case things go bad. Kinda like buying insurance.

So do I need 10 different streams of income? Or 10 different distribution channels?

No.

If I think of diversification as insurance, I feel like having a second option is enough. A second option that will help me buy time to recover my first option. Or build a new one.

Let's say there is a 10% chance that my main distribution channel goes bust. And another 10% for my second one.

That sounds high. But the probability of both happening is 1%. Assuming they are independent variables, you multiply the probabilities. 10% times 10% equals 1%.

You could apply the same to banks shutting down your accounts. Your businesses going bust. Or any other risk.

This theoretical 99% safety is good enough for me. Anything beyond that is probably paranoia.

So my goal is to have two bank accounts and two marketing channels.

And two girlfriends.

Part 2: Searching for traction

I am alive. But now what.

It's time to grow again.

Let's build a new distribution channel.

Snail pace

We are almost half way through the year.

And 6 months after going full time...

My revenue has gone up by $1k/month.

Wait, seriously? That's it? I thought with all this extra time my business would skyrocket.

What. The. Fuck.

From hunting, to fishing, to farming

I don't like that I have to show up every day and post on Twitter. It's exhausting and I'm repeating myself all the time.

I would love to have a marketing channel that doesn't depend on me being motivated every single day.

I decided to try and get customers through Google.

It made sense in my mind to go from:

• Hunting with a spear (Direct Sales)

• To fishing with a net (Twitter)

• To planting seeds (SEO)

The strategy

I used code and automation to create pages for the 25,000 funded startups I have in my database.

The goal was to get them to rank on google and get free traffic.

Take each company and create pages like this:

• CyberLeads contact information

• CyberLeads founder information

• CyberLeads tech stack information

When people would search for things like "cyberleads founder information" on Google, my page would show up.

If they clicked on it, they would find "Alex West" and a bunch of data, but my email would be hidden. They would have to signup to CyberLeads and pay to unlock it.

Most of my competitors were doing this, so I assumed it worked.

Investing months

It wasn't easy to rank on Google.

Initially, the pages were too similar and weren't ranking. I had to add unique info for each company.

Then, almost all of my traffic was coming from a few, very specific locations and behaving weirdly. They were bots.

Later, I started to rank but I wasn't getting any clicks. I had to tweak the titles of the pages.

Some titles were too similar to my competitors, so even though I ranked, I couldn't stand out and get any clicks.

Other titles made me different than my competitors, but then I wasn't showing up on Google for the correct keywords.

Man, I hope this works out.

I am investing a lot of time and energy into this.

Getting serious

I decided to take things seriously with a data driven approach.

I started split testing titles, assigning different titles to every 1,000 companies. In total, for my 25,000 companies I had 25 different variations running at the same time.

Then I started split testing the pages themselves.

I split tested showing and hiding different data points. Made the layout mobile friendly. Added nicer buttons and testimonials. Added extra data like Frequently Asked Questions and metadata that experts said helped with ranking. I even experimented with different navbars vs dropdowns, popups vs buttons, company pages vs list pages, different pricing and CTAs, etc

It was amazing. I could remove my ego and make decisions based strictly on data.

Over the months, I could see changes. The metrics were improving.

I was excited.

Mirage

More months went by this way. Hidden in my little lab, micro-optimizing numbers and metrics.

Until one day, I saw something that completely destroyed me.

Some months before, I had installed a tool that tracks and records what users do. Where they click, where they scroll down to, etc

I had forgotten about it, so I anxiously opened it and watched the recordings. I was ready to take notes and create my action plan.

However, I noticed that most of my users were behaving like bots. Actually, they were bots. Yes. The bots were back.

Wait a minute.. Were all my "data driven" decisions over the past months based on bots randomly clicking around my website?

I also start questioning my split tests. I run a test with two identical pages. One emerges as a clear winner.

Polyphemus

A few weeks later, I was finalizing the monthly list.

I was researching a specific company, trying to correct a data point that was wrong. I went through many other databases to find the correct value.

While doing that, I noticed that we all had the exact same mistake.

Wow, this is odd. I had this gut feeling already, but this made it crystal clear.

They were all pulling information from the same sources and packaging it in a slightly different way. No matter what proprietary software, process or amazing analysts we claim to have on our websites.

I assumed that the giants knew more than me. Especially the ones with hundreds of employees and decades in the industry.

But maybe they don't. Maybe the giants are blind too.

Then why am I copying their marketing strategy.

Clean slate

One morning, a thought I had been suppressing bubbled up.

I was taking another look at my company pages, the ones I had been perfecting and iterating upon for half a year.

"Would I personally pay for this? Would I pay to unlock a very specific piece of data I'm looking for? Absolutely not. This sucks, it's clickbait, and it's annoying. There, I said it."

Enough with the scientific nonsense.

I'm already getting thousands of visitors per month from my pages. I just have to figure out how to convert them.

Back to old school. Let's talk to humans. And use common sense.

I start collecting emails, sending surveys, and even added a little chatbox on my website where people could simply message me.

I have to find out who is using my website and talk to them.

The real world

Once again, the real world proved to be way more chaotic than it was in my mind.

First of all, most of the emails I collected were garbage.

I tried to start conversations with them but my emails wouldn't get delivered. I had to build a custom email validator.

Secondly, my survey data was flawed.

I started reading between the lines and noticed that ALWAYS, regardless of the options, B and C where the most popular answers in the dropdowns. Always. No matter how much I shuffled them. Never adding dropdowns again in my life, only text fields.

Finally, some good news! The chat box proved that I had real users!

At last, real humans were messaging me!

• People that thought that I was the company's support. For example, they were on the "Amazon Contact Information" page and they thought I was Amazon support. I would wake up to messages asking why their packages were late or sent to the wrong address.

• People that were founders of funded startups and wanted their data to be removed immediately, otherwise they were threatening to sue me. I would jump out of bed to remove the page. I decided to remove all of the founder pages completely.

• And a few people that wanted a specific data point updated on their company profile. For example, their phone number or address. They thought I was the yellow pages or something.

What a colossal disaster.

First results and patience

Finally a silver lining. For real this time.

Somehow, this monstrosity of a system has started working. I have no idea how. And I have no idea why.

But this past month I got 3 paying customers from Google. Specifically from my company pages. I know because I asked them.

That's almost as good as my main channel, Twitter.

They feel like flukes. They didn't go through my funnel or follow ups. They simply saw what I did and decided to subscribe.

Feels too simple. But maybe every system feels like this. Twitter used to feel like this in the early days too.

Currently, I'm getting just as much traffic from these pages as I get from Twitter. But here is the big difference:

• For Twitter, I have to post every single day.

• For Google, I don't have to do anything.

If this works, I think I've reached my goals and will transform my business. I can scale it as much as I want by simply pulling and creating millions of company pages. We'll see.

Yes, I haven't grown exponentially yet. But having patience and expecting non linear results is key.

Finally, if this works out, what do I do with my time?

Part 3: Designing my life

Let's rewind a few months back.

I'm at the airport in Sicily. I'm smiling for no reason.

It's a new beginning. A new chapter.

No right choices

I moved here to extend my runway and pay less taxes.

But I'm not going to lie, I experienced culture shock. Even though I was still in the same country.

Milan was like Europe. Skyscrapers. Electric cars. Fashion. Business. People from all over the world.

Palermo was like North Africa. Chaotic. Loud. Rough. And no one spoke English. Rougher than Greece, actually.

My first plan was simple: be a cockroach.

Spend as little as possible to stretch my runway. And go with the cheapest Airbnb I could find.

I spent a whole month in a tiny, dark studio in the old town of Palermo. I hated it and was depressed.

I started wondering if my income depends on my mental state to show up every day, now that I don't have a fixed salary.

I started thinking about this while looking at houses.

In one house I feel like I'll be depressed and will be paying $500/month. In the other I'll feel like a king but will be paying $1,000/month.

The percentage difference is huge. House two is 2 times more expensive. But the absolute value is not.

It's $500/month. Or 3 CyberLeads monthly subscribers.

So the question is, could I make up for those 3 subscribers if I felt far more productive and happy in a better house?

After debating it for a long time and calling all of my friends and family for their opinion, I decided that the answer was yes.

A cautionary tale

Growing up without my father at home, my grandfather naturally became my first role model.

I remember dressing the same way and going on walks together, with our hands behind our backs like two old men hanging out.

He was hard working. Reliable. Responsible. Worked at the same printing plant in London for 50 years.

The goal was to work hard until his retirement and then enjoy life.

One day after his last day at work, literally the next morning, he woke up complaining about some pain in his chest. I remember it because I was there.

Less than a year and many chemotherapies later, he was dead.

Lung cancer.

Worked from the age of 15. For a retirement that never came.

Living with decisions

I decided to rent the apartment I loved the most. I stopped looking at prices at the grocery store, started taking trips and even stopped feeling guilty about grabbing taxis when I'm late.

I don't feel like I'm waiting anymore.

In my cost effective AirBnb in the historical old town of Palermo, I would see people warm up their spoon and shoot heroine right outside my doorstep at 5:00 PM. All the buildings were destroyed and ruined. The streets were littered and full of shit.

In my new house, I am ten meters away from a huge beautiful crystal clear beach. In an extremely safe area. Where people are running, exercising, playing beach volley and sailing every day.

Looking back, I believe this was the wisest move I made.

But if things had gone badly, I'm sure I'd be writing the opposite.

Acceleration of time

I am happily living by the sea, working on my newsletter, exercising and being productive. I am in the zone.

However, one morning I realized that we're half way through the year.

My mind's hard drive had decided that nothing was worth saving into my long term memory, since most of my life had been routine since I moved to my new house.

It's scary to admit, but the past few years have been like that. It almost feels like I looked down at my screen at 20 to start building City Vibes, then looked up a few moments later and now I'm 25.

Sure, I changed my life during these 5 years. But time is accelerating and I am not creating that many new memories. My life feels enjoyable in the moment but short looking back.

What I have found to help is doing new things and traveling. A 2 day hiking trip to Olympus with my family is a core memory of my life.

But to do that I have to break the flow. As much as it pains me to do so because I love my work and routine.

Trade-offs

It's funny. I've been in Sicily for 6 months now. Yet, the main thing that comes to mind when I think "Sicily" is moving into my new house by the sea and a 5 day road trip I did around the island.

In between, life became full again.

I ran a marathon last year. I decided to run a triathlon this year. And I also trained and competed in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

I learned Italian by memorizing the 1,000 most common Italian words and practicing with friends.

And dieted off the fat I had slowly been accumulating over the past few years. My goal was to get a proper six pack.

Many months later, I finally did it. I was proud. I looked like a praying mantis.

The scary part was realizing how little I could devote myself to. When I focused on my training, my Italian stalled. When I focused on dating and going on trips, my training derailed. When I tried to do everything at once, I ignored CyberLeads.

Timelessness

I remember once being at a museum in Crete, looking at jewelry from 3,000 years ago.

Some were made of stone. They were destroyed into little pieces and were basically junk.

Some were made of bronze. Their shape was perfect till today but were black due to oxidation.

And some were made of gold. They looked like they were made today, they were absolutely perfect and could be worn right now.

There was something magical about them. Sitting there, quietly, sparkling, as if time doesn't exist at all.

I wonder what makes some things like books, ideas and thoughts age like gold, while others don't last a decade.

Technology changes almost every year. Society changes slower, but still faster than our biology. And our biology changes very slowly, almost frozen in time. I think that ideas that are closely tied to our biology are timeless.

I read this a few years ago and it stuck with me.

"We live in a world where we have paleolithic brains, live in medieval societies and use superhuman alien technology."

Ancient Athens

Ok, assume I have a time machine. I'm not high.

We are going to ancient Athens for the afternoon. To have a glass of wine and observe the people.

Most people are not that interesting. Just normal people that happened to be born in that era.

Probably just like you and me. Nothing exceptional. Simply born in a different time.

But two of them really grab our attention and force us into deep thought and introspection. We wonder if we would ever exchange lives with them.

...

The first one is a very materially successful person. He owns one of the fastest and most glamorous carts in the city.

He has a lot of golden coins and slaves. Eats well, drinks well, his days are full, and rarely walks anywhere himself.

Many people in the local market recognize him and nod with respect.

He is part of the elites and partakes in their private gatherings. And is planning to strategically marry his daughters in order to continue growing the family dynasty.

...

Now the second person is going by.

No one is really recognizing him. He isn't famous or anything like that. Doesn't want to be either.

He is not rich. But he is not a slave either. He is his own boss. He is a trader.

He is in great shape. Handsome. Strong. Healthy.

He has an amazing relationship with his family. Many kids. And a strong group of friends. Some are new. Others from childhood.

He has an amazing active sex life. Has traveled the known world. And has many scars and stories to tell.

He ponders the meaning of life and has deep conversations with others or alone. And creates art from time to time.

...

Gun to your head, who are you switching lives with?

Escaping the Zeitgeist

My mind wants one life. But my actions are pointing towards another.

Both are hard. And both are attainable.

But one feels timeless. Even two and a half thousand years later, I am envious of that trader.

And I think that my great-great grandfather and great-great grandson would be too. Not to copy. But as a heuristic. As a compass for life.

Live a timeless life. A life that would be enviable in ancient Rome, modern day New York, and futuristic Shanghai.

Appendix

Maybe I didn't experience insane growth in my business.

But I experienced insane growth in my quality of life.

Maybe that's enough. Or even more than enough.

What's next?

So, what's next? Not sure.

I'm still trying to figure out what my ideal lifestyle looks like.

And I'm still looking for that next lever of growth.

Time travel

Hey. This is Alex from the future writing this.

I decided to clean up and re-post my blog posts as free books.

Nothing changed. Even if I disagree with things I said back then.

Regardless of marketing or algorithms, the greatest books have always ended up in my hands through recommendations.

So if you you enjoyed them, you can do the following:

• Share them on X or LinkedIn

• Message me so we can have a chat

Or don't. It's ok.

Thank you for reading.

Credits

Finally, special thanks to everyone that inspired and supported me, whether they know it or not.

• Pieter Levels, thank you for building in the open and making this movement happen for all of us. It was your revenue tweets and blog posts that made me realize that I could do the same.

• Courtland and Channing Allen, thank you for building Indie Hackers and putting a name to our little movement. I have read every single post, listened to every single podcast and have day dreamed countless times being on your show.

• Patrick and John Collison, thank you for building the tool that has allowed us all to make a living online. No joke, Stripe changed our lives. In awe of what you're building with Arc Institute. And huge fan of your podcast "Cheeky Pint".

• DHH, thank you for bringing common sense to the tech industry. Reminding us that you don't need to run a VC company and become a billionaire to be successful. And that you can have work life balance.

• Jason Fried, thank you for sharing your contrarian views regarding work. It's inspiring to see how ahead of the culture you were with remote work and SaaS. Your books are awesome too.

• Pat Walls (and Demi), thank you for replying to my emails back in 2021. Also for your awesome daily blog, which definitely inspired me to continue to write daily. Finally, thank you for showing us the power of focusing on one business, which you can adapt and evolve over time.

• Daniel Vassallo, thank you for introducing me to Taleb's books and philosophy, they changed my world view and helped me with my journey. Also for sharing your authentic thoughts and taking a stance, even if it's not popular.

• Stamos Venios, thank you for inspiring me to start this journey and for teaching me that you learn by doing, not studying. Your story inspired me a lot. I've told you this directly, but it's true. You are one of the main reasons I'm here today.

• Sam Parr, thank you for sharing my little business with your audience. Even more importantly, thank you for always being nothing but kind and generous to me. Funnily enough, your show, "My First Million", helped me make my first million.

• Derek Sivers, thank you for having the most awesome blog on the planet. Also for writing all your books and giving everything back to charity. You are awesome.

• Jon Yongfook, thank you for building and failing products at the same time as me, from 2018 to 2020. You launched BannerBear roughly at the same time I found CyberLeads, after roughly the amount number of failures. It was cool to not fail and succeed alone.

• Damon Cheng, thank you for showing us that even indie makers can acquire and grow businesses. Your run from quitting your job till today is legendary.

• Marc Köhlbrugge, thank you for building WIP.chat. Seeing other successful makers public TODOs made me realize that everyone just builds things, fixes bugs and makes mistakes. Like me. This was actually one of my most important realizations. It was frame breaking.

• Danny Postma, thank you for showing us that even indie products can exit to a larger company. And that even after an exit, if you want it bad enough, you can go back to square one and try again and again until you succeed again.

• Jason Cohen, thank you for your amazing blog and talks. Probably the best business blog in the world. And for your talk on boutique bootstrapped businesses. Seriously, that talk helped me niche down, raise my prices and change my life.

• Dru Riley, thank you for running an amazing campaign for CyberLeads together, back in 2020. Those high revenue months were the final push and confidence I needed to quit my job. Thank you my brother. Forever grateful.

• Andreas Klinger, thank you for being a class act and making an effort to help me find a job when I needed one. Also, for always replying to my emails and DMs.

• Vic, thank you for helping me find the next lever of growth for CyberLeads. No joke, you helped me change my life.

• Mubs, thank you for launching 50+ projects in public throughout the years and showing us how fast one can build.

• Andrey Azimov, thank you for your epic 2018 run, becoming Maker of the Year and changing your life. Your scrappiness and determination were infectious.

• Dimitris Raptis, thank you for being one of the very few people from our little hometown that is in our little bubble and industry. Also, thank you for reminding me that working on products you enjoy is more important than the money you make.

• Katerina Limpitsouni, thank you for being the final person from our little hometown that is in our little bubble and industry. I've used your designs and illustrations countless of times. They are awesome.

• Dimitris Kourtesis, Nikos Tsoniotis and Stefanos Tsiakmakis, thank you for accepting me in your startup incubator back when I knew nothing. Thank you for teaching me that killing projects is just as productive as building them. This was one of the biggest lessons I ever learned.

• Justin Jackson, thank you for your essays and podcasts regarding the importance of markets. You might not know it, but they were super impactful to me and helped me end up in the lead generation market, which helped me find CyberLeads and change my life.

• Josh Pigford, thank you for being one of the first people to show your complete list of failed products before your big success. I remember seeing the list and preparing mentally to go through the same. I built 19 failed products, then the 20th changed my life. Thank you.

• Nathan Barry, thank you for being one of the few people continuing to share revenue numbers after reaching millions in revenue. We have small businesses like myself doing that. We also have huge public companies doing that. It's great to have companies in the middle, like yours, do that too. Also, thank you for showing me the value of niching down and focusing on one segment of the market at a time. It really helped me grow CyberLeads and change my life.

• Ali Salah, thank you for being one of the OGs from 2018 and showing me that slow, consistent growth, in a saturated market, while focusing on product, can actually happen. This hasn't been my own experience and it's another example that anything and everything can work, there are no magic recipes.

• Michael Aubrey, thank you for being another story of hard work. Seeing you try for multiple years before finally achieving success is inspiring. Reminds me of my own journey.

• Reilly Chase, thank you for showing me that you can build a boring business, on top of an existing platform, and grow alongside it. Been inspiring to watch you grow over the years, build a team, a house and a life for yourself and your family.

• Rob Walling, thank you for your books and for your amazing podcast. I've listened to so many episodes over the years and there is always something interesting to take from them, because you and your gueststalk from experience, not theory.

• Jack Butcher, Bilal Zaidi and Trung Phan, thank you for the awesome podcast, the great art and the funny memes you've all been sharing with us for the past many years.

• Nico Jeannen, thank you for showing us that building and exiting multiple little businesses is possible. Also for keeping it real and sharing the good and the bad. There aren't that many people that do that and it's inspiring to see.

• Marc Lou, thank you for setting a new standard on shipping fast. I thought I was prolific for shipping 20 products from 2018 to 2020, but you took it to a whole new level. Respect.

• Peter Askew, thank you for blurring the lines between boring and cool. Selling onions online is simultaneously one of the most boring and one of the coolest businesses in the world.

• John O' Nollan, thank you for inspiring me to build a remote business and travel the world. You were one of the first entrepreneurs I looked up to, and still a massive fan.

• Harry Dry, thank you for showing me the power of storytelling and copywriting. Seeing your Yeezy.Dating saga unfold in real time back in 2018 was awesome and your climb to the top of the copywriting world is inspiring.

• Jordan O' Connor, thank you for your amazing blog. I remember reading every single post, multiple times, as you grew your business from zero to tens of thousands of dollars per month, changing your life for yourself and your ever growing family.

• Sahil Lavingia, thank you for building Gumroad, it helped me make my first $100K online. Also, thank you for challenging the status quo, thinking out of the box, doing things your own way and never being too busy to reply to my DMs back in the day. Truly grateful.

• AJ from Carrd, thank you for showing us that you can build and grow a simple, elegant and useful product by yourself and make great money without charging high prices. Frame breaking.

• Alex Napier Holland, thank you for being real and having authentic thoughts and opinions. Your are one of the very few non BS and non cringe people on my timeline.

• Florin Pop, Mr Purple, thank you for staying humble and ambitious at the same time. It's inspiring to see you set goals and then go after them.

• David Park, thank you for sharing the good and the bad so openly and authentically. Not only in business, but in life too. Your story is inspiring.

• Andrea Bosoni, thank you for showing me the value of being consistent and for being one of my Italian brothers. It's been great your amazing content for all these years, whenever I see your posts I always get a nice feeling of familiarity.

• Flavio Copes, thank you for showing me the value of writing daily, with the simple heuristic of "do stuff, encounter problems, write about the solution". Your website and blog remind me of what the internet was originally made for, real and authentic.

• Lim How Wey, thank you for sharing all of your knowledge around SEO. It was really helpful to me. And thank you for always being kind and supportive, I truly appreciate it.

• Arvid Kahl, thank you for sharing the story of exiting your SaaS business. It's been awesome to see you re-invent yourself and write your books.

• Swyx, thank you for inviting me on your podcast back in the day and for always being kind and supportive. Also for being prolific and constantly working on new things and technologies, it's contagious.

• Dmytro Krasun, thank you for showing me that progress happens slowly, then all at once. Your journey is awesome.

• David Perell, thank you for spreading the benefits of writing and specifically of writing daily. Your essays, podcasts and newsletters are fantastic.

• Noah Kagan, thank you for building AppSumo and for always keeping it real and honest. Seeing you embark on random new side quests like YouTube and being successful is cool to see also.

• Andrew Wilkinson, thank you for showing me that you can build insane wealth with boring businesses. Your essays and books are amazing. It's great to see your progress from being a freelancer, to running a small studio and being afraid to hire people, to managing hundreds of employees, to running a portfolio of companies, to finally going public. Insane.

• Andrew Gazdecki, thank you for building Acquire (formerly MicroAcquire) and helping indies like myself exit our companies and change our lives. Gazdecki style.

• Steph Smith, thank you for all the amazing essays. I remember reading "How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably" and realizing that I don't have to be fancy, just consistent. Also, every single one of your MFM appearances was great.

• George Mack, thank you for being one of the few, modern, original thinkers, popularizing new terms and expanding the lexicon. Your newsletter is one of the best I've read in my life, your ability to explain concepts is on another level.

• Jonathan Garces, thank you for all the amazing memories working on CyberLeads together. You are the only business partner I've ever had and helped me more than I could even imagine. It was a blast, my favorite business era.

• Lachlan Kirkwood, thank you for all the amazing chats over the years, going through similar milestones and challenges with our very different businesses. I'm really proud of you exiting your business and re-inventing yourself.

• Vytas Bu, thank you for believing in me and trusting me to work together. Even more importantly, I'm grateful to call you a true friend and thank you for treating me like a brother.

• Andreas Asprou, thank you for reminding me what true wealth is and for pushing me to take a break and write these books. I wouldn't have done it without you.

• Max DeMarco, thank you for inspiring me to continue being the main character of my life. You always have main character energy and it's contagious. Seeing you grow and always challenge yourself was amazing. Hope to make it to your next Muay Thai fight.

• Niklas Christl, thank you for being one of the most successful yet humble and honest people I've met. That contrast is amazing and inspiring. Hope to see you soon and catch up again.

• Giuseppe Ettore, thank you for growing side by side since 2020. I still remember showing you CyberLeads when it was just an idea, during lunch break at the office. Time flies. We started our jobs on the same day in Milan, we both quit our jobs since then, have achieved a lot and always support each other. And I believe we always will.

• Justin Gluska, thank you for the amazing chats in New York. I hope to see you again somewhere around the world.

• Eracle, thank you for welcoming me to Las Palmas. We had many amazing chats and nights out. Hope to visit again.

• Nikolas Konstantinou, thank you for welcoming me to the island of Cyprus. You have always helped me when I needed help, without asking for anything in return.

• Dawid Cedrych, thank you for being a dream client and for showing me that true business is a win-win game. I'm forever grateful for your trust in me, for encouraging me to write and for always being humble and real.

• Pete Codes, thank you for featuring me in your awesome newsletter and for being supportive over the years. It was also cool meeting in person a few years back.

• Jonny Ward, Daniel Ward, Doug Ward and David Carter, thank you all so much for being generous enough to invite me one of the impactful coffee/dinners of my life, when you had absolutely nothing to gain from me. I will never forget.

• Mohammad, thank you for giving me perspective on life and how you can continue being happy and positive no matter what happens.

• All the staff and friends at Cafe Nero for giving me free coffee and letting me write my books all day.

• Eneas Lari, for being my best friend in life.

• My family.

And to all the people that have supported me over the years or have shared my books. If I missed you, it's not on purpose.

Constantly updating this list.