On August 31 I posted a video with one question: what would you build if you only had one hour a day? That’s the challenge. One hour a day, minimum, until I replace my salary.
I have a full-time job, a wife, a son and a life I don’t want to sacrifice. I don’t want to stop working. I want to get to a point where working is my decision and not a necessity. For years my goal was to keep growing professionally, until one day I asked myself: growing toward what?
I’m on day 20. The monthly income I’ve created with the challenge is zero, and the total generated is zero too. I’m putting that first because I promised to share the numbers, the good ones and the others.
Where I’m coming from
I’ve been trying this for four years. I made money with some ideas, others didn’t work, and none of them gave me what I’m after: income that depends less and less on my time.
I also tried having three and four jobs at once. Working more can get you more money, but it didn’t get me freedom. I can make more money. I can’t make more time. One of the reasons we moved back from Sweden to the DR was to get back hours that were disappearing into the day-to-day stuff.
And I cancelled two races I had already paid for, after months of training. I didn’t stop training, but this stage has other priorities: my family, my job and this.
KASSO
What I’m working on now is KASSO. It uses artificial intelligence to help companies collect overdue payments and automate a good part of the collections follow-up.
This time we did it the opposite way I used to do things. Problem first, then people willing to pay, and only then build. We got our first two customers before writing a single line of code.
On day 5 we ran the first real test. With the first five customers, in five minutes we had one payment and three payment promises. Too small a sample to celebrate, but it looked promising.
Two weeks ago we were reviewing almost every conversation the bot had. Today it handles over 100 a day and only a few need us to step in. We’re still limiting it while we improve it.
By day 16 we had already hired our first employee. We’d spent three months doing everything ourselves and it was time to delegate. KASSO isn’t profitable yet, so it was a bet.
Most recent: KASSO collected RD$66,552 while my partner and I were busy with other things. The number isn’t what matters. I liked that it happened without us being on top of it, because that’s what I want to build.
What has stuck with me the most
The idea comes from the problem. If you’re looking for a business to start, start with the problems you or someone close to you has all the time.
And don’t build yet. The best validation is someone being willing to pay. Someone telling you they’d use it doesn’t count. If you can charge before you build, even better.
What’s next
Right now I’m focused on making KASSO deliver real value to our first customers before thinking about growth. We have two customers and getting twenty more isn’t the priority.
I’m keeping up my daily hour. The numbers and every Reel are on the challenge page. The day-to-day goes on Instagram.
We keep going.
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