[HN Gopher] How I made a profitable Vim course
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How I made a profitable Vim course
Author : vitabenes
Score : 109 points
Date : 2021-04-15 20:13 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.slip.so)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.slip.so)
| Tarsul wrote:
| I love your slogan "Pay once, own it forever".
| CoffeePython wrote:
| Thanks! It doesn't really make sense to be a subscription, so
| it's not. Devs seem to like that they can just pay once for it
| too. Win win
| pixel_tracing wrote:
| Hi there love this so much.
|
| Can I please get insights into your stack to launch? I'm thinking
| to do something similar for another programming language and have
| a mental block right now on which stack to use / get up and
| running on an MVP without spinning my wheels :-)
| Scarbutt wrote:
| Is there really anything more productive than JS/TS for these
| kind of things?
| stevewodil wrote:
| Sure but, if you look at all the products the author has
| launched over a single year there's something we're missing.
| Just saying "JS" doesn't answer how that is.
| igeligel_dev wrote:
| Is not this what slip.so is for? Basically a course creating
| website.
|
| Not the author, my go to stack in general is:
|
| - https://blitzjs.com (backend + frontend) - https://chakra-
| ui.com (frontend library) - https://chakra-templates.dev (for
| landing page) - https://stripe.com/docs/payments/checkout
| (stripe checkout + customer portal) - https://render.com (blitz
| supports this quite nicely: https://blitzjs.com/docs/deploy-
| render)
|
| Code evaluation is done via spinning up docker containers
| (Source:
| https://twitter.com/Faraaz98/status/1375802851696373762)
|
| I know Kenneth, the author, used create-react-app intially for
| the frontend and switched to Next.js. Really worth it to follow
| his twitter btw :)
| topaz0 wrote:
| $25?? When I can just use vimtutor?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Ah, that rare combination of someone who doesn't know vim, but
| does know of vimtutor. Let me get my butterfly net.
| CoffeePython wrote:
| Vim tutor is great :) I used it myself when I was learning
| RobRivera wrote:
| you dont like, you don't buy.
|
| "you can tell its a market by the way it is; how neat is that?"
| gen220 wrote:
| You should make a $25 tutorial on how to use vimtutor :)
|
| But in all seriousness, sometimes people just need to pay money
| for something to feel committed to learning.
|
| Also, some people dramatically prefer the format of a human
| talking to reading text. You also get insightful tangents, from
| listening to an expert give an intro, that are sometimes worth
| the price of admission themselves.
|
| I personally love to watch high performing programmers work,
| you learn so much just from the nonverbal parts, get workflow
| inspiration, etc.
| aarondf wrote:
| I was shocked by how cheap it was too. Very cool!
| vegancap wrote:
| It was a fantastic course, well deserved
| carabiner wrote:
| ...And it's down. Edit: nvm, might be corporate VPN blocking it.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Loads fine for me. Do you have JavaScript enabled?
| behnamoh wrote:
| The internet and HN in particular, are full of stories of people
| who became rich overnight. But they never mention how many people
| tried similar things and failed.
| king_magic wrote:
| $10k is rich now?
| r6203 wrote:
| "Prior to launching vim.so I was heads down for about 4 months
| working on an online interactive Python course called
| Deliberate. [...] I was working on Deliberate in the early
| mornings before my day job for 4 months and I had made $0."
|
| [https://www.slip.so/blog/how-I-made-10k-teaching-vim]
| ry4nolson wrote:
| even in this specific post, the author mentions "the struggles
| of launching many failed projects before the vim.so course"
| amelius wrote:
| The author didn't become rich. He made $10K, but spent several
| months trying to, so in effect his salary certainly wasn't more
| than if he worked as an employee for a FAANG company.
|
| I'm grateful for the story for exactly the reason you mention:
| it's a datapoint from someone struggling, not from someone who
| made it. And like you say, we need those datapoints just as
| much as the survivor stories.
| CoffeePython wrote:
| I definitely didn't become rich from vim.so but it's made a
| huge impact on my life.
|
| It's brought me more opportunities than any resume I've ever
| wrote.
|
| It paid off my CC debt.
|
| It's connected me to some really interesting people.
|
| It gave me the idea for my current startup which is growing
| nicely so far.
|
| Couldn't be happier with the outcome :)
| pc86 wrote:
| Those people aren't writing blog posts about it!
| mandeepj wrote:
| Some of 'em do
| jsmith99 wrote:
| Of course not, if such people fired up vim to attempt such a
| draft they wouldn't even be able to exit.
| vlunkr wrote:
| it's called survivorship bias
| ffritz wrote:
| That's not true at all. Stories like "How I f'ed up this" and
| "How my business failed" are popping up all the time. Those are
| also discussed very much, because there is lots to learn from
| it.
|
| If at all, HN is much better at showcasing failures than the
| rest of the interwebs.
| john37386 wrote:
| Very nice story. :)
|
| How did you build vim.so? Is it a framework or purely coded in
| vim?
| CoffeePython wrote:
| It's a React app and the code editor is an open source
| component called Ace. There is a vim plugin for Ace that I use
| zerr wrote:
| So how is the platform itself doing? :)
| CoffeePython wrote:
| It's doing pretty good so far! Around $700MRR right now and I
| launched it a bit over a month ago.
|
| Users seem to enjoy the lesson authoring tool!
|
| It's fun building things for developers.
|
| Seeing the stripe notifications roll in when an author sells
| their own course feels pretty amazing.
|
| Making that first $8 was life changing for me. I hope I can
| bring that to other devs too :)
| dheera wrote:
| "MRR"
|
| If I may ask, your $25 seems to be a one-time fee; do you
| incur any recurring revenue from already-signed-up users?
| CoffeePython wrote:
| Ah sorry for the confusion. I think the poster was
| referring to my new product Slip (the site this blog is
| on).
|
| vim.so is $25 one time fee.
|
| Slip is a subscription
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| thih9 wrote:
| I'm getting distracted by titles with specific dollar amounts. It
| feels like FOMO ("This programmer made 10k in one month, here is
| how"). I'd prefer "How I made a profitable Vim course".
| dang wrote:
| Yes, and the site guidelines ask submitters to drop magic
| numbers from titles:
|
| _If the title begins with a number or number + gratuitous
| adjective, we 'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate
| "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to
| "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5
| Platonic Solids."_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| ... although I notice that it's worded more restrictively than
| I remember. It should cover magic numbers in general, not just
| at beginnings. (Edit: fixed now!)
| SteveDR wrote:
| Well a course could make $20 and still be "profitable." If
| you've got the numbers, I think you should boast the numbers to
| show that you're legit.
| krembanan wrote:
| I just bought it. The UX of the purchasing process was smooth
| like butter, with minimal amount of clicks, even with a link to
| your gmail with a magic search to find the confirmation mail.
| Pretty nice.
|
| My honest opinion is that I'm a little disappointed with the
| content of the course itself, I feel like it's way too basic and
| offers too little insight as of now. But maybe more sections will
| be added later?
|
| Maybe I missed it, but I haven't seen any explanation of VIM's
| combination of verb and nouns? I think thats the most important
| part to understand when learning VIM.
|
| Anyway, very cool product and a nice experience.
| CoffeePython wrote:
| Ah sorry about that. The course is aimed more at people new to
| vim.
|
| Good feedback around needing better explanations of the verbs
| and nouns. I try to teach it through the examples but maybe I
| could add a better explanation :)
|
| I think in the future I'll add more lessons but it might be a
| while.
|
| I'd be happy to refund you or upgrade you for free (when the
| new lessons are available) if you want to email me. My email is
| at the bottom of the vim home page.
| CoffeePython wrote:
| Author here :) nice surprise seeing the blog post here.
|
| Happy to answer any questions y'all may have.
|
| It's been a nice feeling finally having an a product that makes
| some decent revenue!
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I can imagine it's an awesome feeling - congratulations!
|
| As a developer, it'd be great to hear from you (or someone
| similar who's reading this) about the business side of how you
| got started. How do you set all that up? Any gotchas?
| azhenley wrote:
| Would be curious to see the uptick you get from being on HN
| again!
| RhodoGSA wrote:
| Love the follow up on the success of Vim.so with Slip. Slip
| looks great!
|
| One thing I would suggest creating as a marketing tool is
| interactive guides on books that don't have alot of excersices
| or are more 'text-booky'. Like a no fear shakespear for some
| technical book.
|
| One of the things that made me think of this is my current
| rabbithole that is learning the rust programming language.
| There are generally two answers when you ask someone how to
| learn rust, "Learn C++ and read The Book, or read The Book".
| "The Book" is dense... but i found this program called
| "Rustlings" that makes the experience much more enjoyable.
|
| Rustlings is essentially a list of exercises, tests and quizzes
| attached onto the rust book and some of the documentation.
|
| With Slip, you could be the genius.com of open source technical
| books on top of courses. More detailed explanations, quizzes,
| courses, etc.
|
| Also, Another field that needs to be disrupted is paid
| webinars. There's alot of people who give talks on topics and
| get paid per attendee. If you could centralize that, i'm sure
| it'd be a good business to get into. I have a friend who gives
| webinars on certain topics and he uses onlyfans lol.
| samstave wrote:
| >* _Also, Another field that needs to be disrupted is paid
| webinars. There 's alot of people who give talks on topics
| and get paid per attendee. If you could centralize that, i'm
| sure it'd be a good business to get into. I have a friend who
| gives webinars on certain topics and he uses onlyfans lol.*_
|
| This one is money.
| tmhrtly wrote:
| cute product! BTW I'm not 100% sure on the "I missed out on an
| additional ~$1200 in revenue" claim you make though -
| increasing the price would probably have dropped some users off
| who would pay $15 but not $25. I'd still guess you left a bit
| of cash on the table but not the full sum.
| CoffeePython wrote:
| Yeah that's potentially true. When I raised the price, the
| conversion rate stayed pretty much exactly the same though.
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(page generated 2021-04-15 23:01 UTC)