A Weekend Project That Made $300 (and the Parts That Did Not)

An honest case study of a small side project: what worked, what flopped, the 7 days of work, the $300 in sales, and the 3 things I would do differently.

The case studyFor this case study, all numbers are real. All mistakes are real. The case study is about a small side project I shipped about 18 months ago: a one-page web app that takes a meeting transcript and returns a 3-bullet summary. The total time to build was about 7 days. The total time to market was about 3 days. The total cost to build was about $5 (for the domain). The total revenue in the first 6 months was about $300. The total revenue in the next 6 months was about $50. The project is the kind of small side project that is the bulk of the "AI products" people are building, and the case study is the part that tells you what actually happens with one.The case study is honest about the parts that worked and the parts that did not. The parts that worked are the parts I would do again. The parts that did not are the parts I would skip. The case study is the part I wish someone had written about a similar project before I started, and the case study is the part I am writing for future-me and for anyone reading this post.The numbersTime: 7 days of focused work. About 4-5 hours a day. The 7 days were not consecutive; they were spread over 3 weeks, mostly on weekends. The total is about 35 hours.Cost: $5 for the domain (transcript-summarizer.com, $5/year on Namecheap). $0 for the tools (the AI API was on a free trial that gave me more than enough tokens for development and the first month of users). $0 for the hosting (Vercel free tier, which I am still on because the project does not pay for a paid tier).Revenue: $300 in the first 6 months. $50 in the next 6 months. Total $350 over 12 months. Average $29/month. Peak month was month 2 ($87). Worst month was month 11 ($0). The $29/month average is below the cost of a nice dinner for two. The $87 peak is below the cost of a week's groceries. The $0 is the $0 that tells me the project is dying.Users: 47 paying users in the first 6 months. 8 in the next 6. Total 55 over 12 months. The 47 had a free trial, and about 30% converted to paid. The 30% conversion is the part I was most surprised by, because the trial was 7 days and the price was $7 (a $7 one-time payment, not a subscription). The 30% conversion is the part I have not been able to replicate on later projects.What workedThree things worked. The first was the narrow scope. The project did one thing: take a transcript, return a 3-bullet summary. The project did not do speaker identification, action item extraction, sentiment analysis, or any of the 50 other things meeting-summary apps do. The narrow scope is the part that made the project ship in 7 days, and the shipping is the part that made the project have any users at all.The second was the one-time payment model. The project was $7, one-time, no subscription. The model is the part that converted at 30%, because the model has no recurring cost, no commitment, and no "I have to cancel before I get charged again" friction. The model is the part I would use again, and the model is the part I have not been able to use again on later projects (because the AI API cost is recurring, and a one-time payment does not cover recurring costs).The third was the shareable output. The summary was a markdown block that users could paste into Slack, Notion, or a Google Doc. The shareable output is the part that drove word-of-mouth, because the shareable output is the part that other people could see without using the product. The shareable output is the part that turned each user into a potential advocate, and the advocacy is the part that drove the 47 paying users in the first 6 months.What floppedThree things flopped. The first was the marketing. I posted about the project on Twitter (then X) twice, posted to a few Reddit communities (Hacker News, r/SideProject, r/productivity), and emailed 5 friends. The marketing got me about 200 sign-ups in the first week, and about 60 paying users in the first month. The marketing stopped after the first month. The 200 sign-ups were the part I had. The retention was the part I did not have. About 80% of the sign-ups never used the product again, and the not-using-again is the part that made the project a project, not a business.The second was the lack of a free tier. The project had a 7-day free trial, but no free tier. The 7-day trial is the part that requires a credit card, and the credit card requirement is the part that filters out the people who would have used the product a few times and then become advocates. The no-free-tier is the part I would change. A free tier with a $7 one-time upgrade would have given me more users, more advocates, and probably more revenue.The third was the lack of follow-on products. The summary was the only thing the project did. The follow-on products (e.g. action item extraction, weekly digest, integration with Zoom) were the things I planned for v2. The v2 never shipped. The v2 is the part that would have made the project a real product, instead of a one-off. The v2 is the part I would not skip on the next project, and the v2 is the part I have learned to plan for on day one, not month six.The 3 things I would do differently1. Free tier from day oneFree tier with the 3-bullet summary limited to 3 summaries/month. $7 one-time for unlimited. The free tier is the part that would have doubled the user count, and the doubled user count is the part that would have more than doubled the revenue (because the conversion rate on a free-tier user is higher than the conversion rate on a trial user). The free tier is the cheapest user acquisition strategy, and the cheapness is the part I underweighted on the first project.2. Marketing that is not meThe marketing on this project was me posting, me emailing, me replying to comments. The "me" is the part that has a ceiling, and the ceiling is the part that made the project a $300 project instead of a $3,000 project. The marketing that is not me is the part that would have been SEO (the project ranks for "transcript summarizer" and gets maybe 200 organic visitors a month, which is too low to drive a real business), the part that would have been a content marketing arm (I have since learned that 1 blog post about the project would have been worth more than all 7 Reddit posts combined), and the part that would have been partnerships with the people who already have the audience (e.g. the productivity podcasters, the meeting-tool reviewers).3. The v2 plan on day oneThe v2 plan on day one is the part that would have made the project a real product. The v2 plan would have been: in month 1, ship the summary. In month 3, ship the action item extraction. In month 6, ship the weekly digest. In month 9, ship the Zoom integration. The v2 plan is the part that turns the project from a one-off into a product line, and the product line is the part that makes the project a business, not a hobby. The plan on day one is the part I would do, and the doing is the part that compounds.The $300 in contextThe $300 in the first 6 months was about $8.50/hour for the 35 hours of work. The $8.50/hour is the part that makes the project look like a bad deal on the surface. The $8.50/hour is the part that misses the second-order effects: the project taught me a prompt pattern I have used 100+ times since, the project taught me a deployment pattern I have used for 5 other projects, the project taught me a marketing pattern I have used on 3 other projects. The $8.50/hour is the part that ignores the $8.50/hour x 100 = $850 of value the project created, which is the part that actually matters.The second-order math is the part most "side project" postmortems skip. The postmortems say "I made $300 in 6 months" and stop. The postmortems do not say "and the project taught me X, Y, Z that I have used many times since." The postmortems do not say "and the project is the reason I started the blog writing factory, which has made $X since." The second-order math is the part I want to capture here, because the second-order math is the part that makes a $300 project worth doing.What this post is forThis post is for anyone who is considering building a small AI side project. The case study is the part that shows what actually happens: 35 hours of work, $5 of cost, $300 in revenue, a real product, a small user base, and a 12-month decay curve. The case study is the part that tells you the truth, which is: small AI projects are real products, with real revenue and real decay curves, and the case study is the part that makes the project more real than the "I made $10k in 30 days with AI" Twitter posts.What I would tell past-meIf I could go back and tell past-me one thing, it would be: ship the project. The project is not going to be the next $1M product. The project is going to be a $300 product with a 12-month decay curve. The $300 and the decay are real. The project is also going to teach you things you cannot learn any other way, and the things are worth more than the $300. The $300 is the cost of the lessons. The lessons are the value. The trade is worth it.I would also tell past-me: do not skip the v2 plan. The v2 plan is the part that makes the project a real product. The v2 plan is the part that turns the $300 into a $1,200 or a $3,000. The v2 plan is the part I skipped, and the skipping is the part I would not skip again.Who this is forAnyone who has shipped a small side project and is wondering whether the time was worth it. Anyone who is considering shipping a small side project and is wondering what the realistic outcome is. The case study is the answer. The answer is: the project is worth it, but the project is not a business, and the project is the cost of admission to the next project. The cost of admission is the part that compounds.The honest partI am not going to pretend $300 is a windfall. $300 is not a windfall. $300 is the cost of a nice dinner. The cost is the cost. The cost is not the point. The point is the second-order effects, the lessons, the patterns, the next project. The point is the part I cannot put a dollar number on, and the cannot-put-a-dollar-number-on is the part I have to be honest about.The honest part is the part I want this post to be. The honest part is the part the AI-product Twitter threads are not. The honest part is the part that makes the post worth writing, and the worth-writing is the part I am trying to do on this site, and the site is the part I want to keep shipping.Want a prompt pack that ships projects like this?The Blog Writing Factory is the system I used to write the 7-day project. The system is the part that turns a vague idea into a shipped product, in 7 days, with a real launch. The system is the part I have used on every project since, and the system is the part that makes the projects ship in days, not months.Buy on Gumroad. $14

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