People say that every cloud has a silver lining.

It’s also true about 2014: when the Russian ruble began to drop on 100% down, and I was a vendor of construction machinery equipment from abroad.

At that moment, I worked with the company which is engaged in delivery of special equipment, and I was responsible for the provision of requests and calls of customers, who would like to buy bulldozers and front loaders.

But the fall of the ruble made the cost of machinery purchased in China increase 2 times, respectively, so the sales weren’t profitable.

I paid for the advertisement myself as I was engaged to lead customers and get paid a percentage from sells. If you are wondering how to buy them, check this.

I invested a lot of money in advertising. I was very angry and offended by this crisis, as well as by the company, as they had mistakes in the offer, and sales managers says to customers nonsenses like “we have enough to deal with.” Its crazy! How does it possible to say this to potential customer?

It’s easier to blame someone than to admit making a mistake.

My mistake was that I didn’t check their sales system before starting to cooperate. I took their word on that!

By then, I was living abroad, in Thailand, so, my cost of living had increased two times.

The same amount of money provided me with two times worse quality of living.

I had to cut costs and save a lot, and many Russians in Thailand at that time went back to Russia.

I decided not to give up and started actively freelancing, contacting all the businessmen I knew, to take up any work.

I even drew up some business cards.

But I was really nervous, as well as angry and offended by the above-mentioned company.

It was a few months before the new year. I slept badly – only for 4-5 hours. I wasn’t able to work anymore, and I was suffering from insomnia.

Backstory

By the new year, I realized that I needed a more reliable and global business, so, if there was a crisis in one country, I could simply shift to another country, where the economy was fine.

So, I came to the conclusion that I need to work in the English market and began to learn English for 2-4 hours a day.

I learnt it by LinguoLeo service:

read some texts, learned songs, did crossword, did exercises on the translation of words.

At the same time, I actively worked and saved money.

I worked from dusk till dawn for 12-16 hours. I seldom had a day off.

I moved into a cheap bungalow which costed $230 a month and for 5 months, I saved a decent amount.

And in the early summer of 2015 I saved ~$18 000 so feel ready to action. I began to research for a market where I would start working and creating a project.

The search for ideas led me to the Australian market of templates for websites and WordPress – themeforest.net

The market has open sales statistics, so you can see which templates are sold how many times and for what amount.

And the amount impressed me, as the best templates were sold 20-40 thousand times at a cost of $49-59.

It’s not a widespread case, but they still exist.

By simple calculations I got an impressive amount at that moment and decided to create my own template and enter this market.

Started a battle

I had a lot of experience in creating websites, but I had no experience in creating universal templates with a lot of functions that different people needed for their websites.

It was a product similar to a construction set, in which you need to provide a lot of design options and functions to all kinds of tastes of different people to get a large number of sales.

I was excited and decided not to nickel-and-dime it and gathered a team of employees, hiring 6 people, as there was no understanding of the correct sequence of actions and the necessary resources.

In fact, most of the employees were not needed and were fired, but the budget for salaries was running out.

It was running out quickly.

I made it up only with a hell of a performance and efficiency in the first 4-5 months.

I should also notice that I had such a cool designer, she created the excellent designs.

For 5-6 months, I ran out of almost all the money. I completed the template, sent it to the market for verification, but I was refused with a fairly large list of errors that need to be corrected.

As the money ran out, I had to stop renting a house and ask to live with friends of dancers who rented a 3-bedroom house for the dance team.

They gave me a mattress that they put in the hallway, and I slept on it like a cat on a rug.

Waiting period

For a month and a half, I lived with dancers, and then other friends invited me to live with a cat in their house while they were gone for a month from Thailand.

I agreed, of course.

All these two months I was working on the template and sent for moderation, and moderation ruthlessly rejected and every 3-4 days I was refused and started a new round of fixes and improvements.

High quality requirements have led me to 13 rejects.

At the end of the second month of living in other people’s homes (that is the 7th month of development), I was exhausted and in the morning I had no desire to get out of bed.

I turned my head and looked at the phone, which lay on the bedside table next to the bed, saw a letter from the moderation of the market with another reject and trudged to finalize.

This is the end

In another morning, I lazily turned my head and looked at the phone. I saw an e-mail notification, which shows the sender and the first line of the letter.

Usually, letters started with the words: “Your uploaded item needs improvements”.

And this morning, I looked for these words and did not see, I didn’t get it as I was sleepy, but the letter began with the word Congratulations!

I’d been so fucked up these past few months, I wasn’t even happy; I didn’t care.

I got up slowly, reached the computer in the next room, opened the personal account of the market and the page with a template, saw 1 sale, and ignored it too.

I lazily staggered to prepare breakfast of porridge, tomato, cucumber and chicken, as I saved the money for the last 3 months and ate $100 per month. I ate porridge, chicken and tomatoes with cucumbers every day long.

I had breakfast while watching a TV serial.

It took 40-50 minutes, I returned to the computer, and there are already 3 sales for $59.

And there I burst; I was running and jumping around the house, shouting happily, and the cat shied away from me.

By the evening, the number of sales reached 6.

Time in Australia is different, so the second day began, and the Australian time was January 29th 3 sales, and January 30th was 8 sales, and 31^st, 4 more sales.

It was the end of my agony and depression!

When you release a new template on the market, sales are increased in the first month, as your template is high in the list of topics, and after the first month, the number of sales falls by half.

The market commission was 50% at the beginning and decreased to 30% in the next 6-8 months.

For the last 3 days of January and full February, the turnover was $7,935. My profit was a half.

I was excited about the future, imagining how I would make 10 more templates and start making $20,000 a month!

But that’s another story!