Failure Friday: “Something miraculous happened: I started making money…”
In this week’s Failure Friday segment, we hear from the founder of Birthday Buddy, an app that sends automated birthday wishes to Facebook contacts. His free service ran into problems, but he regrouped to improve the app AND turn it into a moneymaker.
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What It's About
A failed prototype becomes a gift of this clever birthday reminder program.
Notes from Chris
Episode 1889
I believe we can learn as much from failure as we can from success, if not more. It’s with this principle in mind that I offer you a weekly segment called Failure Friday: a collection of short stories all about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure. Just like our Throwback Thursday segment, you’ll hear directly from side hustlers who have struggled to get something off the ground. They’ll tell you a short story of something that went very wrong. The stories will vary, but often it starts with an idea, what they thought would happen and what really happened—and of course, what they learned. Today’s short story features Steven Braverman. He’s the founder of Birthday Buddy, a service that helps users automatically post birthday messages for friends on Facebook—even if those users were asleep! We told Birthday Buddy’s story on Episode #1162. But as you’ll hear, an early free prototype stopped working, generating complaints—and also the inspiration for the paid version where Steven makes his money. Listen to today's episode to learn more...MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Thanks to Steven for sharing this transparent and truthful story. Check out Birthday Buddy at /BdayBud.com.
- Programmer Automates Profit With Birthday Reminders: A software developer celebrates when his automatic birthday greeting software gives him the ultimate present: extra monthly income.
- Party Lover Mixes Up Custom Confetti Business: A marketer and party lover starts her own side business making custom confetti mixes. After growing it to $70,000 a year, she goes back to work … before taking another look at the business.
- Host a Birthday Party, Drink Wine, Make $2,000: A birthday “paint and sip” celebration becomes an accidental side hustle, providing a sustainable income for an artist in between day jobs.
