Refactoring the Collections

Adam Wadden's path into building his own business was long and winding. He learned to program on HyperCard and Cubasic as a kid, dropped out of university after one semester, and came back to software through a recording studio project and a two-year college program. What changed his trajectory was a growing frustration with the material he had been learning from. He had spent years following advice that, in practice, "just like make me hate my code," and he wanted to share a better path with other developers.

The idea of writing a book sat in the back of his mind for a long time. What finally pushed him was a coffee with a former mentor who had started creating courses. The mentor suggested starting with a small "tripwire" product priced around $10, something that would prove people would pay and give Adam practice selling.

Adam's first plan was a 40 or 50 page PDF on refactoring nested for loops into list transformations in PHP. He had already been sharing refactoring examples on Twitter, and developers kept messaging him asking how he would refactor their code. He started a landing page and collected emails, then sent updates to subscribers as he worked. The introduction grew into a 150 page book.

He decided to structure the project as tiers. He recorded roughly 15 screencasts covering the practical chapters, and he planned to include the full codebase of his earlier SaaS app, NitPixie, as a third tier.

The book launched in May with three tiers priced around $29, $59, and $109 or $108. Adam describes the first day as far beyond his expectations: "I did like 25 grand in the first day." A three-day launch sale brought in "65 grand in the first three days." He credits the result to following a launch process he had learned from Nathan Barry's content, and to the weekly email and Twitter contact that kept subscribers engaged.

The NitPixie SaaS had earlier shown him that building silently and launching to no audience does not work. He had built the tool to prove he could finish a product, and the first people to pay him were the few who found it on their own.

What worked was consistent contact with the audience. Adam's rule was never to let a landing page sit for a year and a half without talking to the people who signed up. Weekly updates created anticipation and kept him accountable. He also relied on a reputation built from talks, meetups, conferences, blog posts, and screencasts, which he describes as "building up a lot of goodwill."

The bigger lesson was about scope. He only finished the book because he believed it was a 40 page PDF he could finish in two weeks. Had he known how large it would become, he thinks he would have been intimidated and never started.

He was also honest that the approach isn't for everyone. He noted that he "barely even tweets" in some contexts, and that many successful businesses are not personality driven.

Adam quit his job two weeks after the launch to build the next course, a test-driven development course for PHP developers. He says the business is now launch focused, with most revenue coming from large launches. He reports that his courses and books have generated "two and a half million dollars in sales," and that he now works on what he wants, with his evenings and weekends back for his family.