Closing thoughts

I’ve been thinking a lot about makers; the people who put themselves on the line to create products that people use.

Most people don’t create, they consume. You’re different. You’ve sat at your computer day after day writing code, looking towards the day where you’d ship your product. Putting something out into the world takes guts. You’ve done it.

Secretly, we’re all scared that our project will fail. We’ve poured our heart and soul into creating it, and we hope that people will receive it with open arms.

If your first attempt at marketing a product doesn’t work, don’t despair. Keep making things. Most of us have to try multiple times before we find something that works.

Stuart Butterfield was working on a game called Glitch. He and his team had invested two years of development time in the project. They were hoping for a massive launch that would drive thousands of gamers to sign up in multiplayer mode. The launch failed: they just couldn’t attract enough players.

Stuart and his team decided to pivot and launched a little internal chat app they’d been using. They called it Slack. If you’ve paid attention to tech news, you know that Slack has experienced incredible traction. At the time of writing, Slack is valued at $2.8 billion dollars and has over 750,000 daily users.¹

Sometimes you just need another turn at bat. Keep at it. Keep shipping! Learn from the response you receive. Focus on getting better.

“I’m convinced…half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

– Steve Jobs

At the beginning of this book, I told you about my goal: that more developers would earn an income from the things they create. Supporting independent makers is a purpose I’d like to pursue for the rest of my life.

I’m cheering for you! I’d love to hear about what you’re making. You can reach me at [email protected].

Finally, I want to thank you. When you purchase a self-published work like this, you’re supporting something bigger: a movement of independent makers who can make a living from the things they create. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Let’s connect soon,

Justin Jackson

@mijustin

Footnotes

1. techcrunch.com/2015/04/16/used-daily-by-750k-workers-slack-raises-160m-to-value-collaboration-startup-at-2-8b/ ↩