My First Public Software Tool, $120 in 3 Seconds
Tags: react, javascript, beginners, emailmarketing
Published: 2021-03-03 12:01:58

At the beginning 2021 I decided I wanted to start building things that people could use. Something that I wish I had in the past, things that make people’s lives a little easier or make boring things a little faster. It then dawned on me that I never have any good ideas…..so, end of story.

But to break the writer’s block, I thought back to a time before I knew how to write any form of code, I was looking for a time when a piece of automation would have made my life a lot easier and possibly more profitable (I’ve done a lot of monotonous things in exchange for a salary), so that’s where [wp2email.com](https://wp2email.com/) was born.

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ftyacr2xj6y454cdba2n.png)

It’s a simple tool that creates a mobile ready email newsletter of your latest wordpress articles. You get to customise your logo, change a few CTA’s and copy the entire code to your clipboard ready for sending via your favourite email service provider.

### $120 in 3 seconds:

I freelanced for a while, but was terrible at sales, so during a client “dry spell” I was tired of eating the same meal 3 times a day for 6 months and decided to get a job.

But, when things were good – I was charging around $120 for email templates for a variety of industries. I would hand code them all, test them over and over on all devices and mail clients.

It took a long time and got boring pretty quickly.

Having a tool like [wp2email.com](https://wp2email.com/) with a handful more features, I would have been able to churn out dozens of these templates a day, make a few tweaks and send them off to the clients so they could rake in profits from their email lists.

[wp2email.com](https://wp2email.com/) gives WordPress designers the opportunity to add a one-click solution to their arsenal as an added service / retainer service to their clients and it takes like 3 seconds to do.

There seems to be a divide between WordPress professionals, there’s those that can code already and use WordPress / PHP to build for their clients and then there are the people that can’t code but use drag and drop builders. [wp2email.com](https://wp2email.com/) would probably suit the latter, especially during tough times, additional income streams are helpful for all of us.

### Speed Publishing:

One thing I realised while building this tool was that I spent more time wondering if I could even make something like this, if anybody would care and how long it would take.

I could have published this tool a lot faster if I spent less time “wondering” and more time doing.

A million-dollar idea is worthless without execution and I’m never going to think of a million-dollar idea if I don’t practice executing the $50 ideas.

### Keeping Things Simple:
Instead of building every single feature that I wanted in this tool, I kept it down to it’s most basic purpose.

This helped with speed and publishing.

The more complications I introduced, the longer it would take to get out there or the possibility that it wouldn’t be published at all.

### Building the idea up:

If anybody cares to use the tool and even finds it useful, I’m sure there will be requests for features that

* 1: I already had planned,
* 2: Features that I had never thought of.

Instead of spending all of my time hidden away building features that wouldn’t be used, I’ll wait for users to request things that would actually be useful to them.

To do this, I simply added a modal and a google form to capture the ideas or bugs found by users – NO doubt there will be bugs 😀

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/874fnmiuft9rqds8e4mz.png)

### Profit:
The main reason I built this was to make money. Something that [Swizec Teller](https://swizec.com/blog/how-to-recession-proof-your-career) wrote about, struck a chord with me.

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/pr67k1husglk8wsw9bi1.png)

Assets are not just Stocks or Property. Online assets can increase your bottom line and “work for you” while you’re busy doing something else.

**Software Engineers build assets for the companies that employ them.**

**Software Engineers can also build their own assets.**

Just like owning multiple properties, we can own multiple web properties. They don’t have to be million-dollar ideas, but 10 x $50 ideas can make a considerable change to someone’s life.

Over time, if and only if, my $50 idea [wp2email.com](https://wp2email.com/) becomes useful enough, I can add paid features – who knows.

### Next Ideas:

Speaking with my partner, she recommended an idea for a reminder app to help her track certain things for her clients.

“Why would you not create a reminder on google calendar or Microsoft365?”

“Because I forget”

“So you want me to destroy the last 3 brain cells I have trying to build something that you would also forget to use?”

“Hey, I’m giving you ideas!”

The key to generating profit is to solve a problem. Help enough people solve their problems and you’ll be rewarded, but what are problems worth solving?

So now’s the time where I waste another 2 months looking for some problem to solve and pondering if it’s even really a problem.

Who knows, by then maybe I would have added a feature to [wp2email.com](https://wp2email.com/) and made $50. Fingers Crossed.

What problems are you solving?