Making a Physical Product in 5 Weeks
How I Made and Launched The Achievement Journal
The hard part was already done. I had lived through extended periods of extremely high and extremely low productivity. I did a lot of research over the years and a lot of testing before I finally reached peak productivity.
On the other hand, peak procrastination, that kind of just happened.
I found myself at a very low point in my life where I couldn’t really get anything done. Everything that could go wrong went wrong and before long, I was in way over my head.
Looking back, I still don’t fully understand how I got there in the first place (so I can’t really tell you how to avoid it) but thankfully, I had already learnt how to “escape” peak procrastination before I got there.
I made the decision to make The Achievement Journal near the end of January. I saw a few productivity planners and happiness journals and with my experience using many of the core principles behind these journals to get out of “peak procrastination”, I thought I could contribute a better product.
My goal for The Achievement Journal was simple. It would:
- force you to do at least 1 thing towards your goals everyday
- keep you naturally happier and motivated every day
- make you more productive and efficient
I wanted every user of the achievement journal to experience these outcomes, without having to “learn” anything. To have a simple “do this now” every single day and have that lead to the three outcomes above. That was the goal.
The first step would be to do some research
When it was time to make the achievement journal, I just had to reflect on my experience reaching peak productivity, re-read my notes and make sure I added every single thing that was relevant to the three outcomes above.
1.Force you to do at least 1 thing towards your goals everyday
- The simple way to make this happen was to have a planner. Every month, you would write down a realistic mini-goal (that’ll bring you closer to your main goal) and use the planner to plan out your next 30 days efficiently. So you can reach the mini-goal and get closer to the main goal…
- I also added daily affirmations which in this case, would be your 30 day goal. The power of daily affirmations is pretty well documented but in this context, it’ll help keep your goal at the forefront of your mind everyday.
2.Keep you naturally happier and motivated every day
- The easiest way to do this is with gratitude journaling. write down three things you are grateful for in the morning and in the evening, just write down a few things that “went well” today.
- I don’t have words to explain how effective this simple 3-minute exercise is for motivation and happiness. Just try it for yourself for a few days and you’ll be amazed at how much better your mood and motivation would become.
3.Make you more productive and efficient
- The planner does most of the heavy lifting here. Everyday you write down a list of things you need to do (things that are relevant to your goal) and you split them into 3 lists based on how important each task is. Start at the top.
- I added a bunch of daily and weekly challenges that in general just improve your productivity, motivation, health and effectiveness.
- Finally, I take a few minutes to explain the Pomodoro Technique. The most effective thing I have ever done for personal productivity.
Next step, design.
I had never designed a book before and I wasn’t really in the mood to drop $5000 — $7000 on a book design. So I decided to do it myself.
It started with Microsoft Word.
I used that to structure the book and just place all the text that would end up on every page.
The next step would be to sketch things out.
I sketched out a simple layout for every page. It had to be intuitive, easy to understand and easy to use. This is what I came up with:
Final step, the actual design.
I did some research and found out that Adobe Indesign was the industry standard book design software. Now I had to actually learn how to use this design software.
I already had a Lynda.com account, so I took their beginner Adobe Indesign tutorial (Up and Running with Adobe Indesign by Deke McClelland) after their getting started guide (Getting Started with InDesign by David Blatner). I somehow spent over a week on this.
Now I know how to use Adobe Indesign, but I still don’t know how to design a freakn book. Thankfully, Lynda has a book design course (I love you Lynda).
The Final Book Design.
Three weeks later, I had a complete book designed in a professional print-ready format. Here is the final design, what do you think?
So my book is now ready for print.
Finding an affordable printer.
After a quick Google search turned into 3 hours of googling and sending emails, I was surprised at how hard it was to find a local printer to print the journals. I finally found LeoPrinting which is a decent company, but their prices are pretty steep.
1000 copies cost me £4700 and after about 3 weeks of back and forth with the team we finally I got a sample and my final designs approved and ready to print. I am now working with two manufacturers in China (I got them them off alibaba.com) for the next batch.
The last thing I had to do was create a website.
This was quite easy as I’m a web developer and I had a complete website ready in 3 days. I launched on ProductHunt a few days later and while the launch didn’t go as planned (you can find out what happened here), it was a very important learning experience for me.
So that’s pretty much all it took to launch The Achievement Journal in 5 weeks.
Total Costs:
Design Tools: $59 (Adobe Creative Cloud, Mockups, Icons, etc)
Book Design: $29.99 (for my Lynda Subscription)
Web Design: $13 (for the domain name)
Book Printing: $6676 (for 1000 books)
Total Project Cost: $6798.99
Cost Per Unit: $6.80
Selling Price: $22.99
Profit Per Item: $16.19
I’m working with the Chinese printers to bring the unit cost down, so my selling price can come down.
As things stand, I have about $12/unit for marketing (that’s how much I can spend to get a sale). I’ll explore Facebook advertising next month and write about it here.
You Should join my “Future Posts” mailing list here so you don’t miss my next post.
Hi, I’m Felix. I’m often called a Designer/Developer but really, I just like to make things and “attempt” to express myself creatively. I’m happy to talk to you about anything (Say Hello: felix.oginni{at}gmail.com).
felix.oginni{at}gmail.com
