How I went from idea to product (with paying customers) in 7 days

Today, HappyLetter is the simplest way to launch & manage a paid newsletter. It has paying customers with subscribers who are paying them.

A week ago, HappyLetter didn’t exist.

I live-blogged the creation of HappyLetter. In one week and 26 posts, I discussed everything from mission and vision to technology, marketing and business models.

As I was reviewing everything I’ve written so far, I realized something. By documenting every detail over the last week, I now have a rough blueprint that I can follow to think through and develop a minimally viable product for any ideas I have in the future.

Here is a summary of the first 7 days:

Day 1: Genesis

• Patrick Rhone begs for a Letter.ly replacement. I had never thought about building a simple, paid email newsletter service, but it seemed liked a fun exercise in constraint and simplicity. I decided to spend my free time building what Patrick was asking for.
• Patrick and I discussed names for a few minutes and I purchased HappyLetter.net.
• I’m fascinated by transparent companies, so I decided to live blog HappyLetter’s creation.
• I defined HappyLetter’s mission. Missions are mocked these days because corporate America has turned them into an exercise in jargon and nonsense. When you’re starting out, missions are different. Missions should tell the world what you are doing.
• I shared HappyLetter’s Roadmap and the technologies and services I’d be using to build it.
• I shared my first post about HappyLetter’s business model. Letter.ly was loved, yet it was abandoned anyway. That told me they probably didn’t charge enough. They charged 3.5% of transaction volume. I decided I needed to charge more and I worked through what that meant in The HappyLetter Business Model: Unapologetically Sustainable.
• By the end of Day 1, I had a registration page and started integrating Stripe.

Day 2: Refinement 

• I woke up and refined my roadmap. I called it the pixelated roadmap because it wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to guide me for a few days.
• I pontificated about who my ideal customer is and wrote about them in this post.

Day 3: Breakthroughs

• A key feature was the ability for publishers to send an email to HappyLetter using a secret email address. HappyLetter would then send that email to the publisher’s list. I got that feature working.
• I often blogged about issues as a way to break though mental roadblocks. If I found myself stalling because I didn’t want to make a decision, I wrote about it here. Magically, my writing uncovered a solution and removed my excuses every time. Working through the publisher signup process was a prime example of this at work.
• I discussed whether not I should allow publishers to change the price of subscriptions. I decided not to. I later found out that Stripe doesn’t allow it either, so it was kind of a moot point.
• I finished up what happens when subscribers reply to emails. By default, publisher emails are kept private.
• Writing my way through the publisher sign-up process enabled me to quickly get it done. I came up with the form to create the newsletter and get a mailing address.

Day 4: Philosophies

• I finalized the basic UI for the publisher sign-up launch sequence. I didn’t actually finish it until Day 5, but it gave me the framework I needed.
• I decided early adopters should be considered co-founders and rewarded with a discounted service fee as long as they were willing to pay annually instead of monthly. This is another example of using writing to work through an issue.
• I defined HappyLetter’s vision. Maybe it seems hokey, but before you have a “feature complete” product people are buying what you have because of how your ideals make them feel, not what it does today. A strong vision tells the world why I’m building a simple newsletter publishing service. It gives people who want to support you “why” an opportunity to vote with their wallets to help make it real.

Day 5: Getting Ready

• Publishers could sign up and launch a newsletter, so the next step was to give subscribers a way to sign up for newsletters. I built the form for subscribers to enter their name, email and credit card.
• I wrote my favorite post so far about the swampy 20% where ideas go to die. I’ve been there before. I didn’t want to get stuck again.

Day 6: Devilish Details

• I got subscriber receipts working, which means subscriber charges were working as well.
• Everything from the day 2 “Pixelated Roadmap” was finished, so I came up with a new roadmap to help get through the swamps.
• I decided on a scalable, reliable and affordable hosting environment, then I got it set up. I have no idea what I’ll need, but I’m flexible.
• I refined the landing page for the private beta marketing site.

Day 7: Delciousness

• I activated Stripe so HappyLetter could accept real credit card payments.
• I wrote a post to help me decide who I am responsible for supporting. My relationship is with publishers. Stepping in between publishers and their subscribers isn’t in anyones best interest.
• 2 Paying Customers = Revenues!!! I have others now. One was obviously Patrick Rhone. The other were followers of this blog and the process.

Today is Day 8. HappyLetter is open for business.

I have a handful of customers already collecting subscription fees for their newsletters. I’m already helping talented writers get paid for their art. This blows my mind.

For a limited time, you can sign up using the link below to become a private beta, co-founding publisher.

HappyLetter is available in two plans while in private beta. There an annual plan for $120/year (50% discount) and a month-to-month plan for $12/month. Both plans also have an additional $0.25/subscriber/month fee. Get it here. 

Again, these co-founder plans are only available for a limited time. Once we leave private beta, the base cost will be $20/month ($240/year). 

If you sign up for the annual plan and find that HappyLetter isn’t for you, I’ll refund your $120. No hard feelings.

* Since HappyLetter deposits funds directly in to your Stripe account, you’ll need to be in a country where you can sign up for Stripe and accept USD.