Solopreneurship for Software Developers
How a Web Developer Made $27,031 in 4 Months
Florin Pop made $27,031 in 4 months with iCodeThis, a platform used by more than 30,000 developers to improve their coding skills.
Florin started learning HTML and CSS in 2013, he added JavaScript, React, Nodejs, MongoDB, Firebase, PHP, and WordPress to his skills.
He has been building amazing projects like the App Ideas Repo on GitHub and doing challenges like #100Days100Projects Challenge.
He has also been very active on platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Medium, Dev.to, FreeCodeCamp, LinkedIn, and Twitch.
In 2019, Florin quit his full-time job as a software engineer at SoftVision to focus on his blog and side hustles.
In Early 2023, Florin launched a platform called iCodeThis. iCodeThis helps developers to improve their coding skills in a fun and practical way.
iCodeThis provides daily coding challenges that are designed to improve your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills. The challenges are varied and range in difficulty levels.
HOW DOES ICODETHIS MAKE MONEY
iCodeThis made $27,031 in revenue in just 4 months (August – November 2023). From January to November of 2023, it brought in a revenue of $42,183.57.
Monthly revenue update for https://t.co/FkIc1zgJuy:
— Florin Pop 👨🏻💻 (@florinpop1705) December 1, 2023
– Nov: $7,493
– Oct: $7,165
– Sep: $3,141
– Aug: $9,286
– Jul: $5,135
– Jun: $4,230
– May: $3,684
– Apr: $1,935
– Mar: $344
Passed our $6k goal for November by 25%, thanks to our Purple Week event which brought in more than… pic.twitter.com/a0KW0Bw5ur
iCodeThis makes money by charging for Pro access. There are currently two packages, the Gold and Platinum package.
The Gold access is $99 (Pay once, access forever), and it is currently at a promotion for only $64.
The Platinum access is $299 (Pay once, access forever), and it is currently at a promotion for only $199.
iCodeThis currently has about 31,800 developers (as of December 2023), some of these developers are not paying developers as iCodeThis has a free starter access.
Ultimately, iCodeThis makes money from Gold or Platinum subscribers who pay a one-time fee to have access to pro features.
Some of these features include Project-Based Roadmaps, Private Webinars, PRO Badges, Private Discord Channels, Showcase Submission, mentoring, and more.
GROWTH STRATEGIES
Florin has been able to grow iCodeThis in various ways. The major ones been social media (Twitter, YouTube) and publication platforms.
Florin has about 138,600 followers on X, he frequently tweets about iCodeThis which has led to more exposure to his platform.
He also adds amazing seasonal features to keep developers engaged on the platform, then he shares these features on X.
For example, iCodeMas is a new challenge that is running on iCodeThis for 24 days leading up to Christmas Day.
Recently, he was running Purple Week on the platform and he shared it on X, this brought in a lot of users to iCodeThis.
Florin also makes amazing programming tutorials on his YouTube channel, he has about 170,000 subscribers on YouTube, and some of his videos have been featured on other YouTube channels, resulting in an increased reach.
Florin is widely known in the web development space, he has more than 71,000 stars on his App Ideas Repo on GitHub.
In 2019, he was awarded Top 100 Contributors for FreeCodeCamp. He made it to top 12 most liked projects on CodePen in the same year, and He was awarded Top 500 contributors of 2019 for Dev.to.
He also has about 8,000 Followers on LinkedIn. All these put together have been a springboard to grow a huge base of developers and channel some of them to iCodeThis.
TOOLS
iCodeThis is made using Next.js, Tailwind, Prisma, and Supabase. It also uses Stripe for Payments processing.
These tools make it very easy to build web applications. If you have an idea for a web app, these tools will help you to validate and ship your product quickly.
LESSONS FROM FLORIN POP AND ICODETHIS
Just reading on the surface that Florin made $27,031 in 4 months with iCodeThis may seem to be something that is easy to do, but it takes a lot of effort, hardwork, consistency, and sacrifice.
HARD WORK AND CONSISTENCY: From the time Florin learned to code in 2013, he has been consistently improving his coding skills, building projects, working on coding challenges, and writing about coding.
His hard work and consistency can be seen from his freelancing days on Freelancer and Upwork to his writings on platforms such as Medium, Dev.to, and his blog. All these take a lot of sacrifice and hard work.
BUILD AN AUDIENCE: It seems like it was so easy to build iCodeThis to 31,000 users in less than one year.
But Florin has been working hard behind the scenes on different platforms to build an audience that he has been able to leverage for growing iCodeThis.
He has a huge following on X, YouTube which he has built over the years, and a huge reader-base on Medium and Dev.to. Building an audience is as important if not more important than building a product.
NICHE DOWN: Many programmers often bother about knowing every programming language, framework, and tool to build everything and anything from web apps, mobile apps, desktop apps, AR, VR, Games, etc.
But Florin has excelled by focusing on simplicity. His tutorials are focused on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Even iCodeThis is focused on those front-end technologies.
This approach has separated him from other developers who do not have a specific area of focus.
Since everyone is not your customer, you have to understand your target audience and build a product that appeals to them specifically. Florin has done this remarkably with iCodeThis.
In the Jacobs Formula for Success, I explained how Jacob became very successful by focusing only on one thing and knowing it so well.
