The myth of overnight success

March 23, 2022

This is my personal testimony against overnight success and all those marketing stories that people try to sell — most of the time literally with e-books or other products —.

In 2019, I sold Thread Reader App, and that is some success in my point of view.

I started to develop the project as a side project, or to be more correct as a support for my videos tutorials, which was the side project. Then it went viral, and I had the chance to make it work.

For some, it looks like an overnight success, but it was not. Before having that lucky shoot, I made, or participated in, plenty of projects.

Most of it failed.

This list is here to show you that it needed numerous tries.
Then you can understand that, before getting somewhere, you may have to try very hard.

This list only contain projects that I wanted to make money with.
Note, when I say "made 0€" it really means, cost me a bunch of money + my own time.

  • Randomkiss (2007): Facebook app to meet random new people, made 0€
  • Shypic (2008): Event-based picture sharing website, did not make it to product
  • Allobars (2010): see dedicated page, made 0€
  • Notes.git (2011): Note-taking app, made 0€
  • Citroon (2011): see dedicated page, made 0€
  • Coffret cadeau addict (2011): Gift box comparator, made 0€
  • Cosmoz (2012): see dedicated page, made 0€
  • Drink different (2012): Get good wine monthly subscription, did not make it to product
  • Ping url (2012): Check if a given URL is live, did not make it to product
  • Dailymood (2013): Every day, enter your mood and get yearly statistics, did not make it to product
  • What to buy with bitcoins (2013): Blog about bitcoin, made 0€
  • Newsbid (2013): Crowdfunding for journalists, did not make it to product
  • Creamly (2013): Snapchat clone, made 0€
  • My laboratory (2013): see dedicated page
    → 300k downloads, made some bucks, not much.
  • Chkthatprice (2014): Price change alert for any web shop, made 0€
  • Coloriage (2014): App to allow kids to coloriage, did not make it to product
  • Patience (2014): Casual spelling game, did not make it to product
  • A bunch of casual games (2014): made with the collective weheartprojects
    → made few bucks in ads.
  • Budeal (2014): see dedicated page
    → Spent almost a year full-time, got some traction, made a few euros but costed twice more.
  • ilovepromo (2014): see dedicated page.
    → Made some bucks, not much.
  • Bonne Nouvelle (2015): Connected photo frame, did not make it to product
  • Coach Sportif Video (2015): Create a video montage for your own sport coaching, did not make it to product
  • Newswipe (2015): Newsreader with swiping like tinder, made 0€
  • Mr. Smartphone (2015): see dedicated page
    → Good call but a bit late, I was burning out.
  • RSS Offline (2015): RSS reader with offline capability, made 0€
  • Filter for Slack (2017): see dedicated page, made 0€
  • Android VR Webview (2017): see dedicated page.
    → Made some euros, not worth the trouble
  • Thread Reader App (2017): At least something happened!

And then after I started a bunch of new failures projects, namely: snooze.me, Glitch App, toFeed, Artillery Royale (the latter cost me 10k€, and I got nothing from it).

Ten years, about 33 projects, only one lucky shoot…

There is no overnight success.