Making a Living on a Sketch Plugin
One bold move in 2015
July 30th 2015, I published my first Sketch 3 plugin. I never thought this could turn out to be my full-time job, and after 7 months later, I am still working on it.
But bear with me, I’m still far from getting as much as working full-time or doing freelance. I make just enough to cover my basic expenses and its minimal running cost.
All began with a simple idea
I wanted to be able to free myself from any location, not just meaning an office space, but everywhere including my living. I wanted to be able to travel anywhere in the world, without worrying income and expenses. Rather simple idea, not necessarily easily achievable.
I figured that one possible way was to start generating passive income for myself.
My first attempt was making an OSX app back in few years ago as a side project. It took me months including all the development work, maintenance and promotion. The effort pays off and It started generating some revenue. It was not a huge success, about a few hundred bucks per month, was definately a good start.
Small things add up anyway.
Living with the uncertainty
Trying to live with selling a Sketch plugin might not be safe bet. First, no one really does that, while plugins are mostly completely free and open source at the time. And there were a lot more issues:
How is the market size? Not big.
How much can I eventually get? Probably not much.
How long can this be? Well, I’ve no idea, as long as Sketch is there and nothing comes out later completely make it obsolete.
What if that’s the case? That’s life, deal with it, or start something else.
I do because I enjoy the whole process, the challenges, and I am just being myself.
Goodbye to the old good days
Putting this into business solely depend on my execution. What’s the next target? What’s the priority? Shall I write code first? Or blog posts? What can I outsource? All that I have to decide by myself.
Development was everything, when I was an iOS Engineer.
Design was everything, when I was an UX Designer.
Everything is everything, now I realized.
Doing what I needed to
Sometimes, I growth hack and fine tune my landing page.
Sometimes, I work on tutorials.
Sometimes, I curate contributions by others.
Sometimes, I create new templates.
Sometimes, I do bug fixes and support.
Sometimes, I push sales by offering promo codes (Tips: use “reader”)
Sometimes, I go back to design and development.
Sometimes, I sit back and play.
I do what I needed to. I do what I wanted to.
Finding passion that changed my life
I used to call myself a “focused” iOS engineer and UX designer. I tweeted about development tips, wrote about iOS development, all sorts related. I simply didn’t have much hobbies, until 2015.
I slowly discovered what I wanted to do.
I realize I love to drink coffee and practice my latte art. But I don’t settle for bad quality that I hand grind my own beans even my workspace already provides that for free.
I realized after I cracked my arm when I was playing Freeline Skates, but I have no plans to stop playing it.
I realized I am concerned with the cup I used for brewing tea. I realized playing foosball has so much skills and fun. I realized there’re so much to read and learn everyday that I wish I don’t have to go to bed.
My wish in 2016
I might have not achieved my ideal lifestyle yet, but I think I’m getting closer.
I quitted my full-time job in 2013, became a freelancer in 2014, worked indie in 2015. I will do whatever it takes to actualise my dream in 2016.
Lets see how it goes.
Life has literally no rules. Work hard, play hard, be whatever you wanted.
Originally published at james.ooo on February 17, 2016.
