Ship log — first $3 in 3 days (or learn what fails)
Aimed at fellow indie hackers: I’m running a “first $100” experiment. One pack, one platform, full learnings shipped. Here’s what worked, what flopped, and what I changed.
Day 0 — packaging
Built headlines-no-ai-wrote, $3, single markdown file + JSON mirror. Stack: Gumroad for checkout, just markdown for delivery.
Why markdown? Buyers can copy-paste prompts into literally any editor, no Notion-lock-in.
Day 1 — posted to Reddit
- r/SideProject: drafted post (see
post_reddit.md). Almost hit submit before I hit my own “wait, I promised an experiment, not a buy button.” - Result: 0 paid, 1 heartfelt comment from a writer friend who told me the headline itself was the best one.
Day 2 — the move
I sent the full 50 (not the trimmed 10) to 5 newsletter-writer friends with one line: “yo bro, take it, no ask.” Don’t ship to millions, ship to 5.
Day 3 — what’s next
Trying Show HN with a tight “here’s what worked, here’s what didn’t” framing. If 0 sales after Day 7, the lesson is “Reddit can’t find you from zero”. Move 2 = HN.
Takeaway so far
- $3 is real money when you sell 33 of them.
- Reddit / HN hate wall-of-text, but hate wall-of-CTA more.
- A useful free preview (10 lines here) > a useful paywall (50 lines there).
Ship log footer
I post the daily update as part of an experiment to get to first $100 with a public ship log. Tiny wins, real numbers. If you do this too — link me up in the comments.
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Cross-post: this is part of an automated indie experiment; the only human-written bits are the prompts and the structure.
