Martin Capodici

Software Developer

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@forgebitz Imperial uuids have this problem. We use metric now, I recommend you do too.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@CtrlAltDwayne @cayce89297 @karpathy You made the claim that actually writing code would get you fired from a programming job. Not Andrej.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@CtrlAltDwayne @karpathy The person who knows what they are doing is clearly more valuable. Having AI produce code you don't understand is a liability. If you use AI you need to read every line carefully. Takes just as long. Oh unless we are talking cowboy coding and shipping broken software.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@deedydas @tunguz I would guess is about the social connections, probable family wealth etc. This class doesn't look insanely hard. Most decent CS, Maths or Physics degrees would be at this level of difficulty at some point and there are thousands of universities teaching at that level.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@oisyn @that_one_nerdy_ @FOSSPenguin @deedydas That said rewriting that in words or code is probably a good learning exercise. You are not forced to read it like that. This is what you have to do with legacy code in real life.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@WifiMoneyPlant @levelsio There are AI's that can talk, reason, send emails. Jobs are so cooked.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@robert_shaw https://t.co/JMMXzYigbA - Easier Tailwind CSS using AI

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@upen946 https://t.co/JMMXzYigbA - Easier Tailwind CSS using AI

[Nico @nico_jeannen]

I just sold my startup Talknotes for $200,000 on @acquiredotcom 💸🤯🤩💰🥳🎉

I launched it last August when I was looking for an idea I could grow with paid ads, and made a MVP in one week.

I took it from $0 to $7500 MRR in just 11 months.

👉 Here is how I grew it from zero:

💡 Idea:
I got the idea when I tried to write a tweet using Google Doc's transcription tool, but it was terrible.

And I was pretty sure I wasn't the one too lazy to type.
So I made my own solution, and Talknotes was created.

The audience is pretty broad so it was a perfect fit for Meta ads

However…

✅ Validation:
My rule is to only reinvest what the project generates, so, no ads until I make enough cashflow ❌

Listing on startup directories + a few Twitter sales generated $700 after 10 days.
Yes, it's not much, but more than enough to show there is interest in the product and tell me to keep working on it 🤩
https://t.co/JmUM4vLP8C

I started adding the features users requested, but the launch effect started to wear off and daily revenues quickly went to $0 after a few weeks 🫥

I got depressed and almost gave up on the app... 😔

But luckily, my friends @marclou and @DanKulkov pushed me to continue

And I'm glad they did because In October, I launched on @ProductHunt and it blew up 🤯

It got Product of the Day and reached $1500 MRR thanks to the media coverage 🚀🚀

Until then, everything was done using vanilla JS/CSS/HTML + Node for back end.

It's simple and easy, but I saw the limitations, so I remade the app using @nuxt_js to make it easier in the future 🏗️
(thanks to @blackevilgoblin and @piotr_jura for the content/courses! @Timb03 as well for the basics!)

After that, I took a break and then launched ads on Facebook.

The strategy is simple:
Catch people's attention, and show them how the app can help them improve their life. No need to over-complicate 🙅‍♂️

Making good creatives is 80% of the job when doing ads on Facebook, most of the technical stuff is done by AI now.

Thanks to the boost in traffic, I implemented a feedback loop:
1) Get new users 👥
2) Learn to know them with the onboarding form 💬
3) Make more ads based on the data you get from onboarding 📝

And it completely blew up. MRR doubled in ~2 months

However...

In May, I had a bad burnout 🥵😩

Multiple bugs slipped into the app, and I had to spend 2 days fixing everything in an emergency while revenues plummeted.

This completely fucked me up mentally and had a hard time working on the app after that (https://t.co/ZjgyOQCv69) 💀💀

So I decided to list it on @acquiredotcom and made a Twitter post (https://t.co/2LreNtsceY)

I listed it for $200,000, a pretty low price considering the revenues and fast growth.

I could have gotten $300,000 if I accepted payment over time, but $200,000 today is better than $300,000 tomorrow for me.

🚨 The process went smoothly until we tried to use Escrow, which almost fucked up the whole deal.
(details: https://t.co/GaBAwYMqy9)

I got extremely lucky because the buyer really wanted to buy the app, but this could have ended the deal.

We had to wait over a week to get the money back from them, even tho they said they already refunded it.
But luckily, after threatening them, they sent it back the next day 🙃

The buyer finally got the money back, I transferred every asset to him, and he sent me the wire.

With the profit made from the app + the sale, and other projects, I'm 30% away from being a millionaire 🤯

With this amount, I can pretty much retire in Asia if I want to.
But that's just the beginning, I’m going to launch new projects soon! 🚀

But before that, I need to take a real vacation and detox. My brain is completely fucked up by those last 2 months.
I gained weight, and got brain rot from scrolling all day waiting for the acquisition to move forward 💀💀

Surprisingly, doing absolutely nothing is 10x more exhausting than working 15h per day 🥱

Now, all this might sound like an overnight success.

It is not ‼️

This is the result of 7 years of failure and working like a madman.

I launched over 40 projects in those 7 years, and most of them failed. But a few took off, and that’s all I needed

All those weeks working 15h/day without weekends and vacation feels soul-sucking when you don’t see the end, but this is what took me there

You only need to win once to snowball everything. Work hard, focus, fail a lot and keep shipping fast. 🚀🚀

Thanks to you for reading until here, and thanks to everyone who supported me 🤞

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@Shpigford As an aside ... that icon set would be a great product of it's own.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@romaindewolff @jeanpaulwilson Have they really failed yet? Maybe a bit more marketing is worth a go?

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@NielsBl85 Scratch, but use UI components and AI to help.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@amosbastian Vercel; https://t.co/l1HvHFLnEt; https://t.co/vgUV3BR4xw; https://t.co/8trs2DmmNX (select Digital Ocean)

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@andriotisnikos1 @valsopi 20% I think because you are paying it off over a year. Need a spreadsheet to work it out exactly. Clearly a bad deal.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@jackson_llk Have you tried calling companies that bid for tenders? Maybe they will buy or give you insight into why not.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@pianozack @weirwoodtreehug @theafroaussie It would be under the Wikipedia definition, and would be similar to Navajo (https://t.co/sNoBtlJz2E)

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@MorganFeeney @brianball I will try and find it. I don't remember the name, I looked at loads of them a while back.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@MorganFeeney @brianball People charge anything between $0 (open source) and $2000 for this kind of thing, so up to you :-)

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@CallumVass @davidfowl Was he right to pick Java then? I can't see how it would be much better in that regard. Both would require you to use a framework, and the UI is up to you to set up tooling for, there are many choices.

[Martin Capodici @mcapodici]

@ChrisChattin @davidfowl Check out: https://t.co/cPQUPlDcUR. It's not your dad's Microsoft.