Interview: Jake Manger

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I have been building little websites and apps for about 10 years now. All of them failed until recently. Mainly this was because they were over complicated and didn't solve a big enough problem for people.

This changed only a few months ago. In February, I found out that my scholarship funding for my PhD was changed to end not in 8 months but in 5 weeks. There was a HR mistake when recording my end date earlier in the degree.

I needed to make money to pay rent and I needed it quick. That's when I rapidly started getting a little project I made over the Christmas break ready to launch.

It was a little universal file converter app (How to Convert). I had to convert a lot of document and image files for my research work and for generating images and videos for little side projects.

I hated the thought of sending my private files to random sites I found on Google. I wanted to convert things on my computer.

There are local command-line tools, but I didn't want to pull out the command-line and lookup commands every time I used them.

That's why I built my app, so I can use these tools from a simple drag and drop app.

I've changed from spending years on building features no one wants, to building a simple prototype in a couple months. Then, making sure I validate my idea and see if people are willing to spend money on it before I spend years on it.

I hit the $10k mark in 2 months

But it wasn’t easy

I spent the last 10 years coding, the last 2 years working on other $0 side projects & met lots of critique and failure

What worked?

1. Making something useful that solves a problem I have. Then, making sure it’s a problem others search for frequently.

2. When my last project failed, I didn’t quit. I started working on the next one that weekend.

3. Built and tested fast. Built it in a month and tested with a simple MVP. Don’t spend time on new features until you know people will use the essential features that solve the problem.

4. Base new features on user feedback. I’ve encouraged feature requests from users as much as possible. That way, I know I’m building things people actually want.

Making something useful that solves a problem I have. Then, making sure it’s a problem others search for frequently.