Chapter 16

The Road to 10K

I opened the message from my developer, heart pounding. This could be it—the moment that decides whether our partnership and my business idea sink or swim.

To my relief, they were on board. They saw the potential in turning our custom tweaks into plugins we could sell. It felt like a virtual handshake, sealing the deal on our new adventure together.

We were both excited. I could feel it—this was the first step toward turning those one-off tweaks into something bigger, something that could keep making money without me having to be directly involved all the time.

So, we got to work. We picked a couple of the most common requests we’d gotten from clients and started there. The first was a "Product Color Photo Change" plugin, which let customers see different product photos when they selected different colors. The second was an image rollover effect for product blocks. Simple, but in demand.

The "Product Color Photo Change" plugin really stood out to me because it came from a client request just a week before we partnered up. It felt like a sign—we were on the right track.

By August 2017, we were ready to launch. I had something real to offer—plugins that people could actually use, and I wasn’t trading hours for dollars. I put them up on my site, SQSPThemes.com, and sent an email to my list of 212 subscribers.

But... crickets. The sales didn’t exactly pour in like I’d imagined. It was a wake-up call. Just having a good product wasn’t enough—I needed to figure out how to connect it with the right people at the right time.

I realized that people don’t buy solutions until they’re actively looking for them. So, I had to get more strategic. I needed to create awareness, show people why they needed our plugins before they even knew they had a problem.

Still, I didn’t let that stop me. I kept pushing, refining my approach. Every time a client asked for something, I thought, "Who else could use this?" I started to see the bigger picture—how to turn our work into something that could scale.

This is where reverse engineering came into play. I’d put myself in the client’s shoes—what were they searching for when they hit that roadblock? I’d jump on Google and type in something like, "change Squarespace variant image" to see what was out there. If I found a gap, I’d fill it. I’d create the solution, document it, and then make sure it was visible to the next person who had the same problem. It wasn’t just about solving the issue; it was about making sure people could find the solution when they needed it.

That’s when I started seeing the power of SEO. It wasn’t just about putting a product out there—it was about getting it in front of the right eyes. I made it a point to optimize my site, my product pages, even the content I was creating around those plugins. If someone was searching for a solution we had, I wanted to be the first result they clicked on.

By the end of 2017, our plugins had brought in nearly $10,000. It wasn’t life-changing money, but after where I’d been six months earlier, it felt like a lifeline. For the first time, I wasn’t just scrambling to survive every day—I could actually start thinking ahead.

With every new client project, we added to our arsenal. I kept documenting everything, turning each challenge into a blog post or a shareable resource. It wasn’t just about getting through the day anymore—it was about building something that could last.

And then, by 2018, things really started to click. I knew that balancing plugin development and client work was key. Each project was a chance to find a new problem to solve, a new plugin to create. I started focusing on SEO, making sure people could find our solutions when they needed them.

As I look back on that time, I realize that the process of reverse engineering and mastering SEO wasn’t just about building a business—it was about laying the foundation for everything that would come next. It taught me how to think like my clients, anticipate their needs, and meet them where they were searching. It showed me the importance of persistence, even when the results weren’t immediate.

The shift was happening. I could feel it. I wasn’t just stuck in the daily grind anymore—I was building something real, something that could grow beyond me. And as the business grew, so did my confidence in what was possible. This chapter of my journey wasn’t just about hitting $10K—it was about realizing that I had the tools, the mindset, and the resilience to create the life I’d been dreaming of.