Damon Chen @damengchen Twitter profile

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Damon Chen

3 months

Oh hey @Adobe , if you're considering wasting $10 million on Google Ads for "PDF AI" keywords, you know you have another option 🤭

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Last Seen Profiles

@MAGsaveslives

@SxOxB_OFFICIAL

@harucolacola

@malose_ranoto

@A_Watt91

@cyjcarteu

@bhuwangiri

@bansh_jha

@Pandaleesha_

@ssakgul

@ltx_ftsh

@abellboys

@shuri3220053774

@__imsococky

@poormanspoison

@Dr_Majed_Qabil

@Troy_OG_APE

@judy7beem

@FT_Staff

@drkaggwek

@charlievanspro

@junkyucenter

@ikumi_Suto

@FG_DJ_Radio

@tamheedbukhari

@idkidmidcc

@NzafhAl

@ssi_nyu

@_AnnaKorf

@polingifs

@ThuleanVibe

@GEcologie

@szeloof

@jucomanes

@mat_kostrzewa

@CGDev

Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 year

Just tried 🔥 Looks like the job of a photographer might become a thing of the past soon!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

I quit my job and put my family at risk since we live in the very expensive SF Bay Area, 6 months later, I hit $100k ARR with 3 projects. This is the year-end goal I promised my wife. If I can't make it, I'll go back to find a job. Now I don't need to anymore! ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

I was once in a job interview, and the person asked me to sort an array. I answered with sort(), then I got rejected. 🤷‍♂️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

9 months of grinding as a solo founder, just hit $100k ARR 😳

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

hits $200K ARR in 3 months. Let me explain to you how you can replicate the same "overnight success": 1. Invest $20k in a new product with zero revenue. 2. Spend $10k on a new domain for rebranding. 3. Launch a lifetime campaign to validate the market. 4.…

PDF.ai | Chat with your PDF documents

We built the ultimate ChatPDF app that allows you to chat with any PDF: ask questions, get summaries, find anything you need!

pdf.ai

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

6 months

Some jobs are paycheck-driven, some jobs are mission-driven 🤯

Greg Brockman

@gdb

6 months

we are so back

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

✅ $200K ARR for I'm still doing this solo, without VC, co-founders, and employees. On to the next one 💪

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 year

The easiest thing to please your developer is to buy him/her the latest MacBook ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

I was a mediocre software engineer. I spent 8 years growing my base salary from $100k to $150k. Now, I'm a founder. It took me 4 months to grow my biz from $100k to $150k ARR. Don't let career title, KPI decide who you are and how much you are worth!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

6 months

just hit $500k ARR. 6 months ago, I accidentally bought it to test the AI waters. As just an AI wrapper, it's simply luck. Thank you @sama and @gdb ! 💜

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 months

just hit $1M in ARR! 🎉 3.5 years ago, it's a dream I never dared to dream, but here it is today.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

I put all my 12-month indie hacking journey into one blog 👇

One year of indie hacking, I've learned a lot!

All things you need to leverage customer testimonials to promote your business ❤️

testimonial.to

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

When I was 20s, my goal by the age of 30 is to land a job at FAANG. Well, I never made it 😅 Now I'm 33, my goal by the age of 40 is just to enjoy doing my own business and stay away from any big tech companies. The journey of building my own startup is so addicting!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

One year ago today, I launched my side project and made my first dollar from the Internet. This is my WILDEST year ever! 🤯

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

11 months

Alright, I'm having second thoughts now 🤪

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

My first million ✔️ 3 years ago, Covid hit; I quit job to care for my kid. I self taught web dev, failed 5 projects, finally was born and started growing. You never know when your destiny will take a turn, but when it does, grab it and push hard!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

I created the Investor page () and asked investors to pay $1 if they want to register.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

I shipped all these apps in 2020. Most of them generated $0. 🎬 $0 🌍 $0 💡 $0 🐞 $1.99 👍 $3,025 in 10 days. But that's ok, just keep shipping! My stories👇

Testimonial | The easiest way to collect and display testimonials

With Testimonial, in minutes, you can collect and display video testimonials and other types of testimonials from your customers with no need for a developer or website hosting.

testimonial.to

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

It's hard to believe, but my AI "to-do" app () is now generating $25k MRR ($300k ARR)

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 year

I spent $20k acquiring Looseleaf (rebrand to ). It only took 6 days to make it break even; I also pocketed $2,891 in profits✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

My Linkedin profile right now 👇 One startup One past employment One school Yes, I just quit!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 months

Here is what the $230 billion company did for an indie business. I call it a win ✌️

Paul Copplestone — e/postgres

@kiwicopple

2 months

you know you're winning when a $25-billion company starts paying for advertising against your branded search terms

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

10 months

It took me 2 months to grow to over $8,333 MRR. In comparison, with , it took me 9 months.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

7 months

I'm optimistic about ! Because I don't think ChatGPT will ever implement small PDF-related features that customers desperately ask for. Sure, I believe small players will go away or not even want to get started, and big players with VC money will die once…

PDF.ai | Chat with your PDF documents

We built the ultimate ChatPDF app that allows you to chat with any PDF: ask questions, get summaries, find anything you need!

pdf.ai

Alex Ker 🔭

@thealexker

7 months

Many startups just died today. Because OpenAI added PDF chat. You can also chat with data files and other document types. We had a wave of products better suited as features rather than stand-alone companies. Wrappers are being squeezed by OpenAI on one side and incumbents on…

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

$30,000 MRR for 🎉 I couldn't have done it without all of you! I will continue to share all my sweet and sour as I build in public! ❤️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

✅ $300k ARR for 1st $100k took 9 months 2nd one took 7 months 3rd one took 4 months I'm still doing it solo while raising 2 little kids. It is hard AF but it's all possible 💪

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

just hit $20K MRR ✌️ The journey from $0 to $10K MRR took 11 months. The journey from $10K MRR to $20K MRR took 7 months. ALL IN SAAS! 💪

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

9 months

With having $200k ARR and having $800k ARR, my two SaaS products have a combined $1M ARR. 3 years ago, I was working a corporate job, working my ass off for a promotion. Now, I'm running my business. Life has made a big turn!

Testimonial | The easiest way to collect and display testimonials

With Testimonial, in minutes, you can collect and display video testimonials and other types of testimonials from your customers with no need for a developer or website hosting.

testimonial.to

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

5 years ago, all I wanted was to join FAANG. 3 years ago, all I wanted was to get accepted into YC. But now, I am happily bootstrapping my own business. I have finally found my path!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

23 days

It's probably the quickest way to initiate a PDF chat! Simply add "" before any public .pdf URL, hit Enter. We will then add AI to your PDF so you can chat! ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 months

From a small Indian town with weekly power cuts, a guy in his 20s rakes in $100k monthly revenue. No Silicon Valley, no VC. This indie hacker's story now becomes the new norm!

Bhanu Teja P 🪶

@pbteja1998

3 months

Crossed $100k revenue in Feb 2024 🤯 This is our first $100k Revenue month. revenue in Feb -> $95k revenue in Feb-> $7.7k Every year, February is usually the best month for me. The same repeated this year, too. We made more…

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

A chat pdf app just secured a $3.5M funding 😅 I finally had a solid benchmark ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

7 months

✅ $100K MRR now with and Testimonial is $70K MRR and PDF AI is $30K MRR = $100K MRR 💪 Next goal: Grow each app to $83,334 MRR

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 year

Is this a good answer?

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

9 months

quietly hit $17k MRR ($204k ARR) while I’m eating bison burger with whole family in Yellowstone national park 🦬

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

Day 2 after I quit, daily revenue surpasses my day job one-day salary. I think I made the right decision🤞 PLUS, it's my 1st time I earned more than $10k from a single project 💪

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

6 months

Even today, it's hard to believe that I snagged the domain for under $10k, and it's now pulling in 1M+ monthly visitors!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

This is a strong signal I see of a future successful entrepreneur 👇 We are not building products for fun; we are building them to make money!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

✅ $400k ARR for Such an amazing milestone to wrap up my solo journey ❤️ Now with a team of 2, let's see how far we can push 💪

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 year

It's crazy! crossed 10k signup users. A week ago, it only had 500 😱

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

After a feature is shipped, here is what I will do every time: 1. Add a Help Center article 2. Send an email campaign 3. Announce it on Twitter and LinkedIn 4. Write a blog post It's kinda tedious, but really, there are no other shortcuts or fads to do marketing!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 months

I can take $187,300 from Stripe without giving away a single share of my company. The modern-day "VC"!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

Want to build a micro SaaS? You just need to find an API then productize it, in the end, add a pricing tag, offer a monthly or yearly option! Congrats, you are a SaaS founder ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

I'm about $1,500 MRR away from $300,000 ARR. The first $100k took me 9 months; the second one took me 7 months; the third one probably takes 4 months if I can make it next month 🤞

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

I posted a $180 job on Upwork. One guy with no reviews proposed $150, the other with good reviews and a high success rate proposed $550. I hired the $550 one!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

Wrote my first angel check to @pbteja1998 for his ✌️ My goal is never to help him do a moonshot but help him achieve $10k MRR (by 2023)! If that happens, I help a founder make a nice living with his passion. $10k MRR is a tragedy to VC, but not for us💪

Feather: Notion to blog in minutes (No-Code & SEO-friendly)

Write your content on Notion and automatically publish it to your SEO-friendly blog with a single click. No coding or design skills required.

feather.so

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

OMG! I got my 1st subscription user 😱 It happened just now 🥳

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 month

Never hit something like this, but I finally have a product that has over 1 million users ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 months

$50,000 MRR for for the third time. We are back! 😂

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 months

What a bootstrapped business focuses on vs What a venture-backed business focuses on

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

Gross monthly income crossed $30k for the first time 💪

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

6 months

crossed $60k in revenue in November. That's 3x what I paid to acquire the product! Sometimes you build your luck, and sometimes you just buy it.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

5 months

This year, I focused more on PDF AI but almost forgot how good my other "boring" SaaS is. It grew by 92.3% in its third year! Though it doesn't ride the hype, it has an 85%-90% trial-to-conversion rate and a 2%-3% monthly churn rate. No AI wrappers can…

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 months

Still can't believe I own the domain . People just search "PDF AI," which is the top-performing query like crazy! With no dedicated marketing team, this is mind-blowing!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

9 months

Started seeing more frequent $1000/day days for 🔥 Yes, it's the simple "Hello World" app in AI, but a business is more than just code. The code repo only worth $20k when acquired. But now, as a business, it's worth much more.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

10 months

By the end of 2022, I took out a $40k loan from Stripe to grow . Now, I'm almost finished paying it back, and our business has added $300k in ARR. This is how we invest in our business! ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

10 months

How many of you started from browsing IH products' list, filtering for subscription-based, solo founder, 0 employee. And then, started to think: "Hmm, I could build one too." 🤔

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

Startup School is great, but I wish there is a more bootstrapper-friendly course. I'm not dreaming to build a billion💰business with loads of fundings, countless users, plus some crazy KPIs. What I only need to build is a sustainable business. $100k ARR is good. $1M is awesome!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

@AbdelElrafa They couldn't believe their work can be replaced by a sort wrapper 😅

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

After two years of hardworking, my wife finally got a $15k salary raise. My business got a $15k increase too in its ARR after one month of my casual work.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

Finally hit the paywall of the f****ing @ChartMogul !

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

7 months

I acquired a dying product, , back in April and turned it around. I only did one thing: cut the price in half. It used to be $19.99/mo, now it's $10/mo. ARR got slashed by 50% right after the price cut, but soon, it started to rebound. Usually, I only…

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

Let’s see what a startup life would be with another little dude 🤞

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

7 months

Watching the $1 payments coming in, now I'm thinking not only can we build in public, but also raise or exit in public. 🤔 X is a crazy place!

Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

I created the Investor page () and asked investors to pay $1 if they want to register.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

9 months

We made Resume AI Scanner 🎉 Recruiters and hiring managers can upload the candidate's resume to generate an overview and 10 relevant questions that can be asked during the interview ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

This is the course I learned everything about web dev 👇 I paid $9.99 to Udemy. But it actually cost me $4,800. Why? 24h watching, another 24h practicing. Assuming my rate is $100/h, that's $4,800. Devote yourself to learn something. Cost is big, but ROI is bigger!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

Wait? I never run Google ads, but my affiliate did it for me? 😳

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

When I worked as a software engineer, I didn't like sales & marketing team; my ego told me coding is far more advanced. Now I'm running my own business; I owe them a sorry.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

11 months

Deal closed 🎉 Will announce it this week ✌️

Damon Chen

@damengchen

11 months

3rd one in the year 🤫

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

I'm going to give @ycombinator S21 a shot as a solo founder 🤞

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

6 months

Paul, co-founder of , once said that CopyAI contributed 14% of OpenAI's revenue last year. CopyAI is the wrapper though, but it's the OG wrapper that inspired many other startups like Jasper to enter the wrapper race. I'm not sure how much total revenue…

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 year

Launch Day 🚀 is now live on Product Hunt! 🔥 It lets you chat with any PDF documents with the power of ChatGPT 🧠 I'll give away FREE lifetime accounts to 2 lucky friends. Like, RT, or comment on my tweet to participate 🙌

PDF.ai - Product Information, Latest Updates, and Reviews 2024 | Product Hunt

From legal agreements to financial reports, PDF.ai gives your documents some AI superpowers. You can ask questions, get summaries, find information, and more.

www.producthunt.com

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

7 months

Last night, I told myself about ChatGPT's news. I asked her, "What if failed in the end?" She replied, "It's just one project. Start a new one." 👩‍❤️‍👨

PDF.ai | Chat with your PDF documents

We built the ultimate ChatPDF app that allows you to chat with any PDF: ask questions, get summaries, find anything you need!

pdf.ai

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

11 months

3 users reported the same bug in . I fixed it and notified them with the same message. I got 3 different replies: 1. You were useless 2. Great work 3. YEAHH

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 months

One day, if one person can run a $1 billion company, VCs will be pretty much dead.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

Last year I interviewed with YC. Because I'm a solo founder, they can't be convinced if I am running real biz or just a lifestyle one, so I got rejected. A year later, my biz has grown 300%, and my family has expanded by 1. I'm happier than ever! And, I'm still soloing ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

I spent $35,000 on a domain. Here is why 👇

I Just Spent $35,000 on a Domain. Here is Why!

It is the most expensive domain I ever bought, and $35,000 is a loooooot to me, but I think it is still very much worth it. I’ll do some math to explain it!

testimonial.to

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 months

It may take an indie hacker 10 minutes to update the UI. Guess how many months it takes Google engineers and PMs to update the new UI to a 2-column layout?

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

An indie fella told me he made millions last year and is growing another biz at $20k MRR, with no audience on Twitter/LinkedIn. A lot of things (audience, funding, cofounder) you think are prerequisites to run a business, but in fact, they are not! Just go do it, simple!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

7 months

Update 👇 135 investors signed up and paid their $1. However, I refunded all of them. Yesterday, @dvassallo DMed me and warned me about the potential violation of SEC policies. I then reached out to my lawyer and received his confirmation as well. This is what he said: The…

Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

I created the Investor page () and asked investors to pay $1 if they want to register.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 months

Carrd: Bootstrapped for 5 years, then raised $2M, with 16.5M monthly web traffic and a global rank of #3 ,977. Webflow: Raised $335M in funding, with 6.2M monthly web traffic and a global rank of #6 ,285. 🤔

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 year

Someone just paid me $199 for walking with my son ✌️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

I got an investor asking for an intro, and I sent him my meeting link 👇

Tej Kanani

@tejkanani

3 years

2021: the year where founders charge VCs for a meeting 🤦🏽‍♂️ #shouldipay

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 year

I have a dev in New Zealand; we never met nor did we have any video calls. Whatever I assigned to him, he just gets it done in the perfect way. Reading his code almost makes me fall in love with him 🥰

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

This dude tried to sell me his product at $1k+/mo. I squeezed my time from caring my baby to test it out and don’t think it’s a good fit. He called me dick🤦‍♂️ WDYT?

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

1 year

Nothing beats the first sale 🤩

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 years

Wait... I got my first paying customer for , but the Product Hunt launch is tomorrow😱 My Christmas dream come true 🎄❄️

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

Zero to one is always the biggest milestone for me; I'm lucky I made it! 🙏 Now I call it the end of my open startup journey. There is always an end to everything, and I just have to accept it.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

5 months

now supports chatting with all your PDFs! No more digging through files, our AI finds answers instantly. 📚

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 years

Two years ago, I started as a side hustle. I'll never forget the feeling of getting my first paying customer; it kept me up all night! 😅 Today, Testimonial is helping 500 global customers build their social proof 😱

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

2 months

This is what a lifestyle business looks like: I push the git commits, nobody else pushes me.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

11 months

now can be officially treated as a SaaS 😅

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

7 months

MacBook may have Safari, but Chrome still rules. Sure, Shopify offers a free review app, but there are better options out there. iPhone has its builtin note app, but Notion is there killing it. And the list goes on... You get the idea.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

3 months

Two of my best investments so far: 1. $2k to start 2. $20k to acquire (formerly ) Invest in yourself 👊

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

Among all hosting providers, Vercel nailed it in the AI wave. They found the perfect distribution channel: consistently building popular AI apps, open sourcing them, and using Vercel's AI SDK. Well played! 👍

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

9 months

This is a milestone for me. For the first time in my life, one of my products has surpassed 1 million page views in a month 🥂

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

9 months

crossed 1,000 customers! 🎉 THANK YOU!

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

8 months

We created another PDF AI tool: Invoice Scanner 🎉 Simply upload your invoice/receipt and ask for any data that you want to extract. Our AI tool will send everything in JSON format.

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Damon Chen

@damengchen

4 months

Marketing idea: Put on Cybertruck, drive to schools, park on busy street for students to take pics. Wait for virality. 🤞

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