[cyberferret]

Echoes my experience as well! Frankly, I am getting tired of all the spruikers who tout the "Just get an email list together to make a bazillion dollars a day" type rubbish. Or the "just work really really hard and it will rain money" type posts.

Truth is, the grind (especially in the early days) is incredibly difficult and soul wearing. This article does a good job of articulating that.

[dvt]

Early last year, I was very actively working on http://www.gameref.io/ and I had never done any kind of early-stage marketing before. I remember sending literally hundreds upon hundreds of (hand-crafted) emails to bloggers, influencers, magazines, shows etc.

Even though the project is basically dead now, those few months of absolutely intense grind were very formative. I had always had the "business-y" co-founder before, and this was my first solo flight so to speak. It was SO MUCH WORK[1], but it was absolutely awesome getting interviewed by PCGamer, or Polygon, or having hardware manufacturers reach out for meetings, or being asked to speak at conferences.

Don't get me wrong, I love my day job as a typical run-of-the-mill engineer, but I'll always be addicted to that kind of start-up high :)

[1] I can't emphasize this enough!