From $1M income to Employee, and back.
I had an interesting experience with employment and I want to tell you about it.
Brief
I have been a full-time entrepreneur since 2015 and have tried different ways to make money. I built over 100 mobile apps for iOS, Android, Blackberry, Tizen, and other operating systems. I had my outsource software development company, where we helped startups build their mobile and web applications, and I exchanged devs hours for $.
Danger Valley
Two years ago, I founded a Danger Valley - Solana-based dev team & community, where we build different tools and games on the Solana blockchain. That was my first significant income. I made over $1M. Well, that was not my money because they belonged to Danger Valley, and we had to build a lot of stuff and increase the value of our Danger Valley Ducks NFT collection. But anyway, I had them in my crypto wallet.
It was in 2021, and since then, we have built many products and, of course, spent a lot of money on devs, server infrastructure, marketing, rewards for holders, sweeping floor, etc. And we got out of DV money at the beginning of 2023.
Employment
I was happy that I still had some MRR from my mobile games, outsourcing agency, and other revenue streams, so I could still cover the expenses. But a few months ago, I decided to find a job to be able to pay for my personal expenses (rent, food, child’s toys/clothing/diapers, etc). It was a great decision because it helped me make life-changing decisions about my future.
The plan was to work around 5 hours a day “on a full-time job“, and another 5 hours a day on Danger Valley. I work seven days a week without weekends, so the plan seemed good.
But I didn’t predict that I hadn’t worked for someone since 2015 and was not ready to follow someone’s orders. I had to work on tasks that my manager gave me. I had to answer many calls daily because they didn’t know that remote work should be async. I had to work on Windows because of their policy, even though I had never used Windows since 2013 when I bought my first Macbook. And so on.
Damn, that’s so different from what I love to do. I understood that I work not because of money but because of passion. I love to build and launch products and earn on them (even though it’s not too high income for now).
I resigned on a second day, lol 🤣
Decisions I made
So, what about life-changing decisions? I decided that I would be an entrepreneur for life. No more employment in any company. Just business, entrepreneurship, product development, and generating income on it.
Entrepreneurship, for me, is Freedom. Freedom to choose when and where to work (by the way, I usually work much more than any of my devs). Freedom to decide what to build, which technologies to select, what tools to use, etc.
I am trying to generate new revenue streams all the time. For example, I am growing my Twitter, believing it will pay off one day. Also, I’ve just added the Ukrainian language to the Alias game for iOS and Android, and I plan to add more languages by the end of the year. I am also trying to grow this newsletter, so subscribe if you have not yet subscribed.
And, of course, building new products for Danger Valley is my full-time job. We’ll launch a new product next week 😉
That’s my passion, and this company helped me to understand this. I am grateful to them, they reminded me about what I love in software development, and why I am here.
One more thing
I need a few minutes of your time. Please review the following resources, rate them in the AppStore, and share them on your socials. It will take just a few minutes, but it will help me.
Danger Valley
Twitter: https://twitter.com/danger_valley
Website: https://dangervalley.com/
MagicEden: https://magiceden.io/marketplace/danger_valley_ducks
Tensor: https://www.tensor.trade/trade/danger_valley_ducks
Mobile Games
Alias for iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1434309264
Alias for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5628953384314675479
1010: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1052607388
Eggy: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1013597626
Socials
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/heymike_sol
My newsletter:
Thank you for reading. That’s important for me to share what’s on my mind.
I am writing this article while my 1-year-old son is sleeping on me, and he is so cute now 🥹