Ryan

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.