Growing BitPress, Paul Redmond’s Side Hustle
Guest posting
‘Guest Hustle’ is a very special section of the Zero to Grow publication — yours. We welcome guest stories from frontlines. Hustlers share their experience, failures, and successes with us all. Want to contribute and share your story? Get in touch, we will make it happen.
Today, welcome Paul Redmond.
Hello and welcome to Zero to Grow. Please introduce yourself for our audience.
Yo! I am Paul and I am creating courses and books at bitpress.io. I am an indie author, self-publishing technical books and courses for software developers and beginners. I love mentoring other developers (and making money) and my courses help me fulfil both :)
What is BitPress and how did you come up with the idea?
BitPress is my company that I self-publish books under. I also plan on releasing open-source software and paid software through BitPress. I came up with the idea after completing my first e-book back in 2016.
I paid big money for my college degree (marketing), but ended up falling in love with writing software for the web. As a self-taught web developer, I felt like traditional education was far inferior to the books and tutorials I picked up on my own (and far less expensive).
I also delved into publishing books through large publishers and figured out the hard way that I had less control over the vision of my courses and books, and I made far less money. I have found more joy and fulfilment in self-publishing my own content and owning all of it! It’s on a smaller scale, but that’s a tradeoff that I prefer.
Nobody else will care as much as you about your work, and I decided that I wanted to be in control of my own destiny through self-publishing. Since my margin is much larger, I can focus more on a tiny audience and be more fulfilled in my courses.
What is your favourite aspect of running BitPress? What is the upside that keeps you going?
Like I said, nobody cares as much about your products and ideas than you do. I get to call all the shots on my products, which is a huge undertaking, but I have the feeling of complete creative control over the whole process. There’s a special entrepreneurial feeling I get when I work on my own business, interacting with customers and making money doing what I love. Self-publishing courses is like a monetized hobby, and I can make a residual income on my courses. Earning money while sleeping is a great feeling!
Can you share the story of how you got your very first non-friends/family user?
My first book “Writing APIs With Lumen” was a programming book that teaches PHP developers how to use Lumen, a micro-framework to write APIs. The community was very friendly and open to sharing, and I gained some great friends that bought my book on the launch day and gave me some excellent feedback and praise.
It was that day I realized that I could make money being an author despite all of the typical “starving artists” stereotypes. I’ve proven to myself that although self-publishing is a huge undertaking, I can make a good side-hustle income doing what I love. I feel like if I continue to push myself I could work for myself one day if I choose. For me, this process is about financial independence and working for myself. Helping people is at the center of what I do, which is very rewarding, and my goal is to provide valuable skills to those purchasing my content.
What channel or growth technique has, so far, worked best for you?
I write a lot of articles online in my industry and try to connect with bloggers and developers on social media. My best way to grow is slowly building up my newsletter through writing helpful tutorials and sharing content through my site on social media. Social media is a great funnel into a newsletter, where the best conversion rates occur in going from prospect to customer, but can also be a big time sink in marketing efforts if you’re not careful.
Can you share one growth experiment that completely failed, and why?
Although I count my first book as a success and made some ok money on it, I feel like I failed in some important ways. First, I should have created my book more publicly. I wrote the entire thing in secret, and the day I hit “publish” was the first day I started promoting it. I sold about 300 copies in a couple of months through sharing and writing content about Lumen, and promoting the book through sales on holidays. Black Friday is an excellent time to sell digital products and give people a deal at the same time.
After getting some sales, I decided to spend some money on Reddit ads, without doing any research, and it was a terrible way to spend money on advertising. I spent about $100 USD but didn’t see any return on the promotion. I also did a poor job of tracking advertising campaign conversions, but I did at least know the sources of my purchasers through some Google Analytics goals I set up with Leanpub.
I did make some sales through Reddit, but they came from a post I added to Reddit announcing my book and answering questions. So for a small content creator like myself, I feel that organic promotion through engaging potential buyers works way better than advertising to cold users. I feel like advertising can work for independent creators, but takes some trial and error, and some capital to make it work. I am mostly doing organic promotion and not doing any paid advertising with my latest course.
I am gaining much better traction through slow and steady sharing of articles and quick tips during the process of creating my courses, and engaging people directly through social media, meetups, and writing guest posts. I am a contributor to a popular site within my community, which has also helped with promotion and getting the word out there to customers.
How do you plan on growing your user base?
I plan on continuing growth by creating valuable articles, tips, and videos related to topics I think would be valuable for developers to learn. I am going to shift focus to brand-new developers and try to tap into a market of people that might be interested in becoming a programmer but don’t know how or where to start.
Growing my newsletter is the #1 metric I use to get a pulse on growing my user base, and I am focusing on ways to genuinely provide value to those that sign up, even if they don’t purchase my courses.
Where do you see yourself and BitPress in 3 months (short term goal) and 5 years (long term, pie in the sky hope)?
My short-term goal is to finish my course Docker for PHP Developers, by launching the video screencasts to go along with the book I just launched at the end of January. My focus is to create products that include books, videos, and starter code projects bundled together to make a course. I have already sold over 500 copies of an early release which includes the book and a couple of bundled starter code projects, and I hope to sell at least that many copies of the complete course including both the book and screencasts bundled together.
My long-term goal is to be able to create courses full time (if I choose) and increase my personal financial independence. I have already seen some financial independence through my sales, which one of my most important long-term goals. I want the freedom of changing course professionally and not have the fear of leaving a company if my goals or direction doesn’t line up with that organization anymore.
Hustling to grow a business is rarely done alone. Do you want to give a shoutout to anyone you know (personally or from a distance) who’s doing a great job?
Adam Wathan (https://adamwathan.me) comes to mind immediately. Nobody works harder than he does in my field, and he is coming up with some great courses and open-source projects. I’ve learned a TON from him directly and through following along with his articles and tips on software and tips on being an independent creator. I have learned technical skills from his software courses and learned some great meta tips on how he markets his products (and himself) in the process.
Without Eric L. Barnes (https://twitter.com/ericlbarnes), who owns and operates Laravel News. I know I wouldn’t be in this wonderful position I am in without his help. I have bounced countless product and writing ideas off of Eric and his mentorship and advice as been a tremendous blessing to me.
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