This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Welcome, thank you for tuning in. This is "Side Hustle School." I am your host, Chris Guillebeau, bringing you episode 1889, almost an episode 1900, all about helping you create extra income without quitting your job. Stories of real people out there who are making something happen for themselves. Detailed stories, case studies, tips, all kinds of good stuff. And today is our segment known as Failure Friday.
Failure Friday. We can learn as much from failure as we can from success, if not more. So Failure Friday is a collection of short stories about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course failure. Often it is failure as a precursor to success, but nevertheless, we try to be really open and honest at looking at things that go wrong. I have to really thank all the side hustlers that have been part of this so far, because of course it's their stories.
So they're the ones who are sharing so openly. And these stories vary, but they often begin with some kind of idea. And then the idea meets reality, what really happens, what they learn or what they take away from it. I don't need to say much more than that, because our focus should be on the story. So today's story features Steven Braverman.
He is the founder of Birthday Buddy. Birthday Buddy, a service that helps users automatically post birthday messages for friends on Facebook. Even if those users are asleep, it's a service that's basically helping you maintain positive relationships, even when you forget sometimes, you know. If you've ever forgotten somebody's birthday, well, that's what Birthday Buddy does. They can help you out.
And we told Birthday Buddy's story on episode, I think it was 1162. That was more than a few days ago. But as you'll hear, an early free prototype stopped working, generating complaints. And also the inspiration for the paid version where Steven makes his money. All right, let's hear the details from him, Steven Braverman.
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- My name is Steven Braverman, and I am the creator of Birthday Buddy. Birthday Buddy is a tool designed to bring automation to birthday wishing across social media. Currently, it works with Facebook, LinkedIn, and personal email lists. Creating Birthday Buddy has been such a rewarding experience. While making additional revenue has been amazing, everything I've learned before, during, and afterwards has been invaluable.
But long before I got to this point, just around the time I actually started to make money with Birthday Buddy, I almost had to give up and throw in the towel. It was October 2017, and I had just reexamined how my little Birthday Buddy project was doing. It had been running pretty smoothly for the past three years since its inception. But suddenly, Facebook had completely revamped their entire birthday functionality, and I had received several complaints from users that the service was no longer working. I decided to take a look at the number of installs, and I was shocked when I saw that I had nearly 5,000 subscribers.
I remember thinking to myself, wow, if each one of those subscribers gave me $1, I would have $5,000. I decided to do some further sleuthing to determine if anyone else was offering a similar service. I did find a handful of other birthday wishing services that sprung up trying to mimic Birthday Buddy. But not only were they also facing the same issue caused by Facebook's Birthday Makeover, but they all fell short in some of the features Birthday Buddy offered, and they were also nowhere near the number of downloads I have. After thinking about it some more and having some helpful conversations with very smart people, I gave myself the green light.
The plan of attack was to fix Birthday Buddy to work with the new version of Facebook and, in parallel, make a paid version which offered additional automation features, along with the promise of a fully automated version of Birthday Buddy, my vision was to be capable of sending birthday wishes while I was asleep. Shortly after I released the working version of Birthday Buddy, along with the further enhancements for the subscribers, something miraculous happened. I started to make money. People were excited, and they were ready for the next level of fully automated Birthday Buddy. So I set forth and began working on the new version.
This is when the devastating news came. It turns out there was a good reason why nobody else had ever created such a birthday wishing technology. It was impossible. Well, in retrospect, I should just say really, really, really difficult. As I was contemplating my creation as a lost cause and hitting my head against the desk over and over asking myself why I didn't do this research beforehand, people kept continuing to subscribe and paying the monthly fee.
Instead of crafting an obituary email and letting everybody know that Birthday Buddy had sent its final birthday wishes, I decided I just could not give up. After months and months of failed attempts, weeks of sleepless nights, and days where I gave Birthday Buddy not a single thought, I finally had a eureka moment and figured out how my vision was going to come to life. I spent the next couple months testing and putting in all the necessary mechanisms that would allow subscribers to fully automate their birthday wishes. After just over a year of promising the subscribers the fully automated version of Birthday Buddy, it was finally here. During the year of development, I was making under $500 each month.
Once I silently launched the new version, I suddenly jumped up to $1,000 a month and it's been steadily increasing since. I hear a lot that having a buddy hold you accountable for keeping you to your goals goes a long way. It turns out that this concept extends beyond just fitness goals. In this case, when a bunch of people start giving you money, the impossible suddenly turns into a doable income generating side hustle. If you have a really good idea, but you don't have the product yet, just put a button up and say buy now.
You don't necessarily need to take anyone's money, but if you track how many people are clicking it, it'll give you a good idea of whether your idea is worth it. By pivoting my project into a crowdfunding project, and because the interest was there and the subscriptions kept rolling in, I had no choice but to go onwards. Thinking back, it was probably my best interest that I had not done the initial investigation to see just how unlikely it was that I was going to succeed in my endeavor. One more tip, during the development phase where I spent months of failing and weeks of no sleeping, the days that I took away from the project actually helped clear my mind and brought in some really helpful ideas that actually helped shape birthday buddy to work. So if you're stuck with a problem, giving it more time is sometimes less helpful.
Take a step back, maybe do some other chores, go for a run, and you may find the answer pops in when you're not thinking about it. [Music]
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That is the theme of failure Friday. I really like some of the things that Steven said, talked about how he contemplated his creation as a lost cause. I like that line.
But then something miraculous happened, I started making money. That line is even better, perhaps. Well, I have to say, I'm glad he didn't craft that obituary email and give up. Also, I hope you didn't miss the great advice. Just put a button up that says pay now and see what happens.
You know, when you do that, when you commit, whether it's through that or some other method, just as he said, you have no choice but to go onwards. So thank you, Steven, for sharing that transparent and truthful story. Listeners, check out birthdaybuddy, bdaybud.com, bdaybud.com. If you've got a question for us or an update about your side hustle, let me know, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Otherwise, subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.
More is coming up, new episode every single day. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You are listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
