I probably just lost $2,500. Completely willingly.

Let me explain.

I’ve decided that, for the next 25 weeks, I am going to give away $100 to a random subscriber of this newsletter if I don’t gain 1,000 new users on my software projects during that week. That means that if I get 999 new users each week for the next 6 months, I’ll have to give 25 of you 2,500 dollars (total) in cold hard cash.

To clarify, by “users” I mean demonstrably engaged people who have signed up for a product I have built. Not page-views, impressions, or other decidedly less important metrics.

This isn’t a completely inconsequential amount of money for me- I’m an 18 (almost 19) year old grad student- 2,500 could pay for a month of housing in my hometown, SF.

So why am I doing this?

I have always had some fear when it comes to building in public. Something about launching a product that is not fully polished and rigorously tested has been a major block for me. These tendencies become very apparent when I look at my Github- I must have more than 50 half-finished projects that will never see the ligh