Hello! I'm Buster Benson. I wanted to write the Great American Novel and got a degree in creative writing before getting swept up in the wonders of the internet (starting with Diaryland and LiveJournal and weblogs back in 1998 or so). I joined Amazon after college, learned to code on the job, and didn't look back for a long time. I co-founded the Robot Co-op in 2003, which built 43things.com (now dead). I built an early iPhone app called Locavore. I co-founded McLeod Residence, which was an art gallery and bar in Seattle between 2006-2009, and then co-founded Habit Labs, which built healthmonth.com after that. I like having lots of spinning plates, and many of them have fallen and crashed over the years, but a couple of them are still going!
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Thank you for sharing this article; it has been incredibly beneficial to me. Your perspectives and insights are very unique and have helped me gain a deeper understanding of the topic. I truly appreciate your willingness to share this valuable knowledge with me.
Thanks for sharing! It would be better if there were more detailed contents about growth.
Thank you for this story
Ich denke immer, man kann schon beim Lesen erkennen, wer hinter einem Artikel steht, und es zeigt sich oft, was für ein Mensch das ist. Aus deinen Worten lässt sich wunderbar erkennen, dass hier viel Wissen und Erfahrung dahinterstecken. 😊 Ich persönlich bin immer sehr dankbar, wenn meine Beiträge kommentiert werden, und möchte dir deshalb sagen: Ich kann ganz viel aus deinem Artikel erkennen und wertschätzen.
Liebe Grüße,
Cornelia
that's really nice man. tq for sharing your story :)
Great read. Nice. Good Job
what a nice and amazing story and can you tell more in detail about the followers on twitter what is your strategy behind it
Thank you for this story :) I am wondering how did you get your initial followers on Twitter?
Thanks for sharing your wonderfull and inspiritional story. It's a worth reading to me. 🙂
Thanks for sharing.
Wow! Great story. I think that's the dream for most of us here. Very motivational.
Thank you for sharing, I am deeply inspired.
I have also created a lot of websites in recent years, but most of them have been closed. Advertising is my only profit model. Through your article, I found that I need to unremittingly explore the user value and needs of a certain website or product, which benefits me a lot.
I really liked what you said about not focusing on other things while working towards your North Star. Definitely worth the read and love how you tackled each obstacle and involved the community!
Love idea of keeping the user community engaged in decisions. Thanks for sharing your journey, and happy to see 750 words organically grow over the years!
-^_^-
Great success story. I think that's the dream of most indie hackers. Financial independence thanks to a 'simple' but useful product.
This is amazing - journaling is one of my most productive/useful habits for keeping me accountable as well as happy in general. Great post
Motivational! Good job :)
This was an inspiring read. Enjoyed reading the journey and about the product.
As a young engineer I am extremely motivated 🔥.
Thanks for the insight ! Definitely sheds light into the power of networks that cater to inherent need that (some) people have; namely writing.
I used 750 Words in the early days and loved it. It's nice to see that the site is still going strong and is making money!
i have also started the agency, but the potential clients are not regular.
i already started my agency to provide the application software with free gold and premium features 2023 visit : picsartapkfree
Good read. I already started my design subscription agency https://www.pentaclay.com
Reading as much article possible to find out what's working for others.
I'm on my way to be an indie hacker, after reading your article, I figure out that except coding, the more important thing is your way of life, your interests, your attitude towards the world. I'm used to busy with work, did less in those. Thanks Buster, you teach me a lot!
wow! I know the book The Artist Way. It's a really important practice and I have been doing morning journaling for 10+ years and it helps set my energy for the day. Great idea to monetize it.
Hi Buster,
Thanks for sharing your article on here, I am really excited to see your journey.
Hopefully I can replicate some of your successes in my own startup.
I like the fact that you posted about some of the failures you had a long the way, and even the decision to shut down you health startup, favouring this 750 words way more because it simply worked.
Also your insight on intentional unoptimization, really makes a lot of sense, I normally fall into the trap of trying to make things so perfect that sometimes i don't turn it in, because it might not be good enough.
Thank you Buster for sharing this with us!
I persisted for a period of time with 750 words, but unfortunately gave up in the end. How much of your success comes from consistently writing 750 words every day?
good one
Thank you for sharing :)
awesome story, inspiring
For a while a few years ago, I was a paying member and was able to get some serious writing done but then life got in the way! I think I'll restart my subscription to your website, I loved the clean layout, the easy way to start saving the information, I think a lot of it was mostly journaling. But great site!
Very inspiring. This will motivate me. Thank you.
Great Read!!
very interesting
Very Valuable information! Much respect to you and I look forward to your journey!
Great Read!! and Invaluable lessons here.
Great
Thanks for sharing. It is important to note that it took years to be profitable, so I will keep trying, I know I will do it
I love the 'seen it all, done it all' vibe of your experience in tech.
p.s. also me obsessing over the UI of the product and how it could be so much better with a visual refresh.
cool
interesting
Great read!
very interesting
I needed to hear this! Thank you!!
Very insightful: build something valuable before you try to make a living off of it
Great to hear the story, very informative
Great story. The inspiration I needed today! Thank for sharing.
Indeed
i am just starting out on starting a business. this article helped me calm my nerves today, after 2 weeks of stressing out on how-to. thank you
"The biggest thing required to do this really well is to not try to do other things at the same time. " Thanks for sharing
"Intentionally Unoptimized" link broken
Great article, it's very educational and unique. Please keep us updated on any updates.
Such a beautiful story! Thanks for sharing
I like how longetivy of an idea is almost always tied to it's simplicity, perfect example here
I love when things work out. Thanks for sharing.
so inspiring story
Love this! Thanks for sharing.
awesome story, inspiring
I love this. Very inspiring, thanks for sharing. I really like the name too.
You have 569,746writers already joined you. Congrats.
Thanks for sharing. How did you come up with the name 750 Words?
wow, man, nice work!
Awesome interview! I loved the thought about simply building something that helps fix the problem you want. Monetize later!
Impressive! Good Luck !!
I. Love. This. Thank you so much for sharing. I'm a lurker at present, but I'm building something and holding it against the wall hoping to God we can get it to stick. You've given me the spark to put what we're doing out here... warts and all. Thank you!
Quite inspiring
Great story!
interesting, planning to start something on the side as well, it was a good read, especially the "unintentional optimization" part.
10 minutes ago I signed up for Indie Hackers for the first time... and I'm already enjoying it. Great article!
Love this! Thanks for the inspiration
very good congratulations friend, I am about to create something that can host video media, like an English learning course and that people may be paying a monthly fee, you can be created with this or would do with another tool!
https://emby.media/premiere.html
I feel like am late to make my comment on this great and inspiring article. But suffice to say, "Its better late than never".
For sometimes, i have been frustrated a lot by whats happening in my life. Then i everything boils within me. I tried writing it as a story in Medium. When i clicked publish, i was told, my story could not be published due to the fact that i haven't been using medium for a long time.
Its another frustration to someone who wants to release a bit of pressure.
750Words.
By the way, in my country $20K is a lot of money that i can't finish spending in a year, unless if i decide to use it to build a house or buy nice cars.
Thanks for sharing all this Buster! I found it really inspiring and am working on a writing app of my own. Similarly, I hope to build it slowly into something that a small group of people like me enjoy using. I really believe you're right about focusing on building something people love first. To start, I am just trying to build something I love and not get side-tracked by rabbit holes around profitability, business models, and all that. On some past projects, I think these distracted me and made it hard to be honest about what I wanted, and what other people wanted (or more accurately, didn't want - lol).
Thanks again for taking the time to share with the community and congrats! This is great stuff!
I read @buster's story of 750 words very soon after it was published. And that inspired me to start thinking about a similar idea I could pursue by building a system myself since I have been a Ruby on Rails Developer for long. The best I could come up was to build a knock off of 750 words - 650 words maybe - and gave up on that as neither inspiring nor likely to work. For now I am focused on writing my memoir of living with Glioblastoma Multiforme since November 2016 and exploring ways to turn myself into a Indie Hacker.
Keep going! I also am passionate about writing tools and came up with a concept that enticed me enough to build it. It's still in its infancy but is pretty close to 750 words, just not about the amount - it's just about writing whatever you want privately with others.
Its an interesting conversation! Thanks for sharing your experience & all those figures/insights @buster. Looking forward to keep learning from you
hey @buster I admire your story!
I would really like to speak further as I noticed that you mentioned you plan on setting up a kickstarter to get funded for 750words and I’d love to discuss this and see how I can join in as an investor/partner/advisor.
I'm very passionate about writing and reading and helping the world discover it's incredible powers!
I’ve contemplated in the past starting a community where people can support each other in reading and writing, so I strongly believe in your company and what you’re doing!
My email address is on my profile - https://www.indiehackers.com/ree4three
Speak soon!
I'll reach out when I start thinking about this stage of development. Thanks for expressing interest!
What's the rational behind funding using Kickstarter and not the website's own income? Seems a bit greedy to me, but I'm interested in learning if there is a non-greedy motive :)
Just the cost of living in the SF Bay Area and finding a way to not have to have another full-time job so I can focus on this. Is it greedy to want to stay in this area? Perhaps. We're considering other options too that might make this raising of money less of a requirement. I agree that it feels like it should be possible to do this with the revenue from the site alone. :/
I'd be fascinated to read a post about your lifestyle in the bay area. I'm sure there are a lot of reasons you might not want to do this, but it would certainly get a lot of attention (especially at places like HN)!
If you're already making 20k/month, isn't it already a pretty good lifestyle business?
It is! And it is certainly enough to support a family of 4 almost anywhere in the world other than the Bay Area. We’re considering a move somewhere cheaper as another option to trying to make more money with this project.
Wow it must be really expensive in Bay Area. I was just reading this thinking how in the hell is 20k a month not enough! I barely spend that on living in a year.
Ugh. Yeah. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here. In my 20s I was able to live off off of $1k/month without much problem. Suffice to say, this is why a lot of people are leaving the bay area...
I mean, with a family of four, you have school, rent / mortgage, transportation, food, so 20k makes a bit more sense. It'd probably be pretty close almost anywhere else, right?
Hey Buster!
Thanks for all the thoughts and congrats on making something so many people love (myself included)!
I actually have all sorts of questions but I'll limit it to two:
Was there any surprising or unexpected you learned about your users or the way they use 750words?
If you had say... $500 million dollars and could only spend it on making 750words bigger and better, what would that version of 750words look like?
Oh, so many things. The fact that they kept using it month after month, year after year was a huge surprise. :) I've built many things and there seems to be a universal law that growth requires constant effort and improvement. The opposite happened here... and I suppose that's the best kind of surprise a product builder could hope for. I never expected to have to make a 2,000 days badge, or a 3,000 days badge.
On the neutral kind of surprise side of things... I was surprised how many schools and classrooms were using it, even though we didn't do anything to support that use case. When we do the big refactor in the future, supporting groups will be something we definitely consider.
On the bad kind of surprise front... hm... no, nothing really jumps out at me there. People who use the site are just super nice and pleasant to work with for the most part, and forgiving of our flaws. They're very communicative and thoughtful (there might be a link between private journaling and being a better online communicator). Lots of people internationally use it even if English isn't their first language, which is another use case we want to solve. Yeah, I can't think of any bad surprises really.
I'd probably give the money back. I'm pretty turned off by giant influxes of cash and the expectations/demands that come with that kind of thing. I think most of the things we want to do can be done with bootstrapping off of what we're already making, and that'll make sure we don't over-extend ourselves or make promises we can't keep.
If it was $500M with no strings attached... we'd probably use the first $1M to localize, make a mobile app, make it more customizable for groups and other writing goals, and maybe include writing prompts... and then we'd make the site free to use for everyone and ask them what they wanted next.
"The writing site was actually the better business. Who woulda thunk!?".
Yes I defnitly wouldna thunk that!.
Very interesting...
Good luck with your next adventure.
Thank you!
Really inspiring.
And thanks for sharing this.
Here i just got another good real
to take my journaling habit even more serious than ever.
Thank You Once Again.
Donfelix from Nigeria.
You're welcome! And thanks for the kind words. Good luck with your writing!
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