Esc
My Coding Game Makes $1M Per Month
Starter Story
Apr 30, 2025
This is how Lane Wagner went from working 9-5 as a developer to building his own $1M/month learning platform.
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This video is an educational case study of one founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.
Chapters
Stack
Transcript
Chapters
Stack
I
built
an
online
learning
platform
for
software
engineers
to
almost
one
million
dollars
in
monthly
revenue
sitting
usually
around
30k
a
day
at
the
moment
How
does
this
guy
make
a
million
dollars
a
month
when
he
has
hundreds
of
competitors
in
a
saturated
market
And
a
lot
of
that
growth
is
due
to
something
I
call
the
purple
cow
strategy
Lane
is
a
software
engineer
who
decided
to
start
a
side
project
called
boot
dev
It
started
to
make
a
little
money
until
one
day
he
came
across
a
marketing
channel
that
would
explode
his
business
The
big
shift
was
going
from
just
blogging
to
starting
boot
I
sat
down
with
Lane
for
a
couple
hours
to
learn
about
his
story
and
figure
out
what
it
really
takes
to
build
an
eight
figure
business
as
a
developer
And
good
news
is
he
shared
everything
including
why
you
should
never
copy
someone
else's
business
idea
what
most
people
get
wrong
about
MVPs
and
a
full
breakdown
of
his
revenue
costs
and
everything
you
want
to
know
about
his
million
dollar
per
month
business
Now
let's
get
into
it
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
All
right
Welcome
Lane
Welcome
to
the
channel
Tell
me
a
little
about
who
you
are
and
what
you
built
Yeah
my
name
is
Lane
Wagoner
I'm
the
founder
of
boot
dev
It's
an
online
learning
platform
for
software
engineers
and
it's
very
interactive
That's
kind
of
the
defining
unique
trait
of
it
Really
we're
just
trying
to
get
you
doing
as
close
to
what
you
would
be
doing
in
the
So
we're
trying
to
like
un
sandbox
the
experience
and
have
you
go
through
the
courses
like
you
would
in
the
real
world
And
we're
making
almost
a
million
dollars
a
month
at
the
moment
Can
you
give
me
a
further
breakdown
of
how
this
works
as
a
business
What's
the
business
model
here
So
it's
a
coding
first
platform
where
you
write
a
ton
of
code
both
on
your
local
machine
and
in
the
browser
and
all
of
our
content
is
free
There's
about
30
courses
but
you
lose
interactivity
after
a
certain
point
if
you're
not
a
paying
member
And
we're
currently
sitting
at
25
332
active
paying
members
You
built
this
website
to
almost
a
million
dollars
a
month
There's
a
lot
of
coding
courses
and
a
lot
of
stuff
out
there
What
did
you
do
differently
What
is
your
secret
ingredient
for
this
business
In
this
market
online
learning
you've
got
to
differentiate
pretty
hard
because
there's
a
lot
of
competition
in
the
space
We
kind
of
had
different
differentiators
along
the
way
as
we
grew
the
business
over
the
last
four
years
The
first
was
a
content
differentiation
So
we're
serving
this
market
of
people
that
want
to
learn
back
end
technologies
and
just
aren't
finding
the
resources
because
front
end
is
so
dominant
in
the
online
learning
space
The
next
differentiator
was
you
should
make
your
thing
feel
totally
different
totally
unique
And
I
really
was
inspired
by
Seth
Godin's
book
The
Purple
Cow
fantastic
marketing
book
But
the
basic
idea
is
when
someone
lands
on
your
site
as
a
new
entrepreneur
it
can
be
really
tempting
to
go
look
at
a
bunch
of
competitors
websites
and
like
oh
man
they're
so
beautiful
They're
so
well
designed
I
should
make
my
website
look
like
theirs
Absolutely
you
should
not
do
that
Let's
go
back
If
you
can
give
me
a
little
bit
of
a
timeline
of
what
it
looked
like
how
you
came
up
with
the
idea
for
this
and
what
were
you
doing
before
you're
running
this
huge
business
Yeah
So
I
was
making
about
200K
total
comp
at
the
time
leading
just
a
small
team
of
three
at
that
time
time
I've
always
wanted
to
build
a
business
I've
always
wanted
to
get
out
of
the
nine
to
five
employee
work
The
business
BootDev
had
just
started
making
about
2
000
a
month
So
multiply
that
by
12
it's
like
24K
right
And
then
take
into
account
any
expenses
like
you're
basically
not
making
any
money
So
I'm
talking
to
my
wife
about
this
I'm
like
you
know
it's
making
2K
a
month
like
that's
that's
not
so
bad
And
I
really
like
it
And
I
feel
like
if
I
put
more
time
into
it
we
could
grow
this
thing
She
was
incredibly
nervous
about
that
idea
because
obviously
I'm
earning
200K
a
month
We've
got
our
second
child
on
the
way
She
did
not
like
the
risk
Frankly
I
didn't
even
really
like
the
idea
of
taking
that
much
risk
So
as
it
happens
the
CFO
of
the
company
I
was
working
at
went
to
go
work
with
an
ex
CEO
of
mine
So
a
mutual
friend
And
I
went
and
pitched
him
and
his
partner
on
the
idea
of
investing
in
BootDev
And
so
he
gave
me
the
angel
funding
it
was
330K
But
it
gave
me
enough
of
like
assurance
that
okay
we
could
at
least
have
a
couple
of
years
of
runway
to
try
this
new
business
Okay
Let's
talk
about
ideas
How'd
you
find
this
idea
Yeah
So
I
was
a
backend
engineering
manager
and
the
impetus
for
the
whole
thing
was
I
was
trying
to
hire
Go
developers
This
is
back
in
2020
I
was
having
a
hard
time
Like
I'd
open
up
you
know
a
job
position
and
I'd
get
like
five
six
seven
people
applying
for
the
job
And
so
it
really
just
seemed
to
be
that
people
getting
into
coding
were
gravitating
towards
the
front
end
side
and
almost
being
pushed
to
the
front
end
side
by
online
learning
platforms
So
it
just
seemed
to
me
like
there's
this
huge
vacuum
in
the
market
where
if
you
wanted
to
learn
backend
stuff
you
want
to
learn
databases
infrastructure
it's
very
hard
to
do
it
online
All
right
Let's
talk
about
building
As
a
developer
how
did
you
take
this
idea
from
zero
to
one
So
you
should
have
a
very
good
idea
of
who
you're
building
for
and
what
problem
you're
solving
solving
and
you
should
just
solve
that
problem
but
you
should
solve
it
really
fucking
well
Because
if
you
don't
have
a
great
solution
you're
not
going
to
break
into
the
space
but
you
should
tightly
scope
what
you're
building
I
see
this
mistake
all
the
time
too
The
idea
of
just
packing
on
new
features
solving
different
problems
You
should
only
be
listening
to
what
problems
your
customers
have
and
then
you
should
be
filtering
out
any
problems
from
customers
that
aren't
exactly
the
type
of
customer
that
you
want
to
serve
In
my
opinion
the
most
dangerous
thing
you
can
do
is
try
to
serve
multiple
customer
personas
What's
your
take
on
building
MVPs
So
I
think
a
lot
of
people
even
I
mean
myself
as
I
launched
BootDev
think
about
this
incorrectly
MVP
doesn't
mean
shitty
product
and
it
can't
mean
that
If
it
does
mean
that
for
you
your
product
is
going
to
flop
pretty
hard
You
should
shoot
for
minimum
quantity
not
minimum
quality
Okay
so
before
we
get
into
growth
there's
one
thing
that
I
wanted
to
ask
you
because
I
was
looking
at
the
notes
I
noticed
that
you
use
PostHog
for
analytics
the
software
tool
PostHog
And
I
just
think
that's
super
cool
that
both
of
us
use
this
tool
love
this
tool
but
I
just
want
to
hear
specifically
how
you
use
PostHog
and
how
it
helps
grow
your
business
PostHog
is
great
I
was
super
happy
when
we
switched
over
because
I
was
using
a
different
product
analytics
tool
We
realized
that
PostHog
is
way
cheaper
PostHog's
feature
set
is
way
more
expansive
integrating
with
PostHog
was
super
easy
right
Their
pricing
model
makes
sense
from
a
data
usage
standpoint
And
to
me
the
biggest
thing
was
that
PostHog
feels
like
it's
run
by
developers
who
know
marketing
not
non
technical
marketers
Anyways
yeah
I
highly
recommend
PostHog
for
product
analytics
Man
I
completely
agree
PostHog
is
today's
sponsor
and
I'm
just
going
to
go
on
their
website
real
quick
This
is
PostHog
And
by
the
way
how
freaking
cool
is
their
website
They
got
this
crazy
dinosaur
shooting
flames
right
here
But
for
anyone
that's
launching
anything
and
wants
to
track
how
their
customers
are
using
their
product
you
can
install
PostHog
on
your
site
with
one
line
of
code
and
they
have
a
very
generous
free
plan
so
it's
free
to
start
And
once
it's
installed
you'll
have
really
good
product
analytics
web
analytics
session
replay
where
you
can
see
what
people
are
actually
doing
on
your
website
or
in
your
product
They
have
A
B
testing
they
got
surveys
and
they
got
more
One
of
my
personal
favorite
features
is
the
A
B
testing
And
I'm
going
to
show
you
an
A
B
test
for
Starter
Story
right
now
in
PostHog
And
this
A
B
test
increased
our
conversion
rate
by
over
300
You
can
see
it
right
there
That's
an
insane
number
And
what
I
think
is
even
cooler
is
that
you
can
track
the
entire
funnel
of
how
this
A
B
B
test
affects
the
entire
conversion
flow
and
you
can
see
that
right
here
A
B
tests
like
these
are
super
important
to
our
business
and
there's
really
just
not
like
another
tool
that
really
can
do
it
this
well
So
if
you
want
to
install
PostHog
just
click
the
first
link
in
the
description
You
can
install
it
for
free
Just
please
let
them
know
that
you
came
from
Starter
Story
All
right
back
to
the
video
Let's
get
into
how
Lane
grew
this
business
Marketing
and
distribution
How
did
you
get
users
to
boot
dev
and
how
did
you
grow
this
business
So
from
zero
to
about
2k
a
month
we
really
grew
from
my
blog
It
was
great
for
finding
people
that
were
really
interested
in
the
product
And
we
did
a
ton
of
product
development
over
those
first
year
to
12
months
But
then
we
weren't
growing
right
We
started
to
feel
a
lot
more
confident
in
what
we
were
building
but
we
just
weren't
getting
enough
people
in
the
door
for
it
to
make
sense
as
a
business
And
what
we
quickly
found
was
that
trust
building
especially
in
the
education
space
is
extremely
important
So
working
with
influencers
was
like
a
cheat
code
because
the
influencers
are
already
trusted
by
their
audience
So
if
you
can
get
an
influencer
to
try
your
thing
and
like
it
you
kind
of
unlock
a
new
little
section
of
the
market
because
now
their
followers
will
naturally
trust
you
a
lot
more
So
then
from
10k
to
30k
we
really
grew
a
lot
off
the
back
of
these
free
code
camp
collabs
which
was
basically
me
recording
an
eight
hour
course
giving
it
to
free
code
camp
for
free
so
they
can
publish
it
on
their
YouTube
channel
and
us
getting
some
exposure
through
that
So
going
from
30k
up
to
where
we're
at
now
which
is
almost
a
million
a
month
we
had
to
scale
what
we
were
doing
Like
I
wasn't
going
to
be
able
to
create
all
this
video
content
that
was
going
to
drive
that
amount
of
traffic
YouTube
integrations
YouTube
marketing
We've
been
able
to
scale
that
with
other
creators
And
the
unique
kind
of
cheat
code
that
we
have
as
boot
dev
is
that
we
have
such
strong
affinity
with
a
gaming
audience
So
we've
actually
done
most
of
our
YouTube
influencer
marketing
to
gaming
audiences
rather
than
coding
audiences
Yeah
If
you
had
advice
for
someone
to
go
do
their
first
influencer
collab
what
would
be
like
a
couple
of
bullet
points
on
that
So
the
most
important
thing
is
finding
the
right
several
influencers
to
test
with
And
the
easiest
way
to
find
the
right
ones
is
to
talk
to
your
existing
customers
Hopefully
you
have
some
go
ask
them
who
they
watch
right
Who
they
listen
to
This
has
been
the
best
way
for
us
to
source
new
influencers
to
work
with
Also
if
you're
going
to
work
with
influencers
there's
one
giant
exploit
that
you
can
take
advantage
of
that
doesn't
work
in
most
other
channels
which
is
if
you're
incredibly
easy
to
work
with
and
you
do
a
lot
of
work
for
the
influencer
you
can
get
better
deals
You
can
shoot
your
own
B
roll
for
the
influencer
There's
a
lot
more
room
for
arbitrage
when
doing
one
off
deals
with
influencers
Do
everything
you
can
to
make
their
life
as
easy
as
possible
Let's
talk
about
product
We
can
talk
about
growth
channels
all
day
but
nothing's
going
to
work
unless
you
have
a
truly
great
product
that
people
love
So
tell
me
what
you
think
about
that
I
think
the
right
way
to
think
about
where
you
should
be
spending
your
time
whether
whether
it's
on
the
product
or
marketing
assuming
you're
a
small
team
is
that
the
product
is
the
thing
that
really
is
non
negotiable
You
need
the
product
to
be
good
and
you
need
to
have
confidence
in
the
product
before
you
spend
a
lot
of
time
and
money
marketing
the
product
There's
a
minimal
amount
of
marketing
you
do
need
to
do
to
get
some
initial
users
to
get
product
feedback
but
in
that
first
pre
product
market
fit
cycle
all
your
focus
should
be
on
the
product
and
making
the
product
solve
the
very
specific
problem
for
a
very
specific
person
that
you're
trying
to
get
it
to
solve
That's
great
Let's
talk
about
monetization
What
I
think
is
cool
about
your
site
is
that
you
kind
of
give
away
your
stuff
for
free
and
then
you
charge
a
small
percentage
of
people
who
want
that
extra
feature
Can
you
walk
through
how
your
business
is
monetized
and
what
the
customer
journey
typically
looks
like
It
was
really
kind
of
an
experiment
at
first
of
like
could
we
just
make
all
the
content
free
And
you
lose
interactivity
after
a
certain
point
if
you're
not
a
paying
member
It
worked
And
I
think
the
right
business
takeaway
was
let
people
really
understand
the
product
before
we
ask
them
to
pay
for
it
It
was
resonating
enough
with
them
So
that's
again
comes
back
to
the
like
you
do
need
to
spend
all
this
time
iterating
on
the
product
and
making
sure
that
you're
actually
solving
the
problem
And
you
need
to
be
able
to
convince
people
that
your
product
solves
the
problem
before
the
purchasing
decision
happens
which
just
so
happens
in
our
case
to
be
a
longer
free
trial
or
free
demo
of
the
interactive
features
Well
that's
cool
And
that
brings
me
to
my
next
topic
which
is
you
can
just
break
down
what
kind
of
tools
and
languages
you
use
to
build
boot
dev
and
also
what
tools
you
use
to
run
the
business
So
for
the
tech
nerds
out
there
it
is
a
fully
custom
built
web
app
So
we
use
Golang
on
the
back
end
Postgres
is
our
database
We
host
everything
on
Google
Cloud
and
Cloudflare
We
use
Kubernetes
Docker
Vue
Nuxt
JavaScript
TypeScript
Again
very
very
custom
tech
stack
For
the
marketing
nerds
out
there
of
course
we
use
PostHog
for
all
of
our
product
analytics
and
we
use
SendGrid
for
all
of
our
email
stuff
We
use
their
email
API
and
using
both
together
has
I
mean
it
eliminates
another
bill
but
it
also
just
makes
integration
easier
And
then
for
the
fintech
nerds
we're
just
using
Stripe
Stripe
is
great
I
can't
imagine
using
anything
else
at
this
point
On
that
same
topic
these
tools
cost
money
I'd
love
to
get
a
little
bit
more
details
on
the
actual
costs
of
this
business
not
just
the
tools
but
just
the
cost
as
a
whole
What
are
the
costs
and
margins
look
like
for
boot
def
So
our
total
revenue
for
2024
was
5
7
million
The
cost
of
goods
sold
on
that
revenue
was
only
300k
So
we
spent
around
600
000
to
700
000
last
year
on
salaries
and
like
full
time
contractors
And
then
the
bulk
of
our
expenses
were
marketing
expenses
We
spent
almost
2
million
on
marketing
leaving
us
an
actual
profit
at
the
end
of
the
year
of
around
2
5
million
Cool
All
right
Well
that
kind
of
ends
the
technical
section
of
the
interview
I'd
just
love
to
hear
a
little
bit
more
about
your
personal
life
or
just
your
regular
life
What
does
a
day
in
the
life
look
like
for
you
You
work
from
an
office
or
you
work
from
home
or
what
does
that
look
like
I've
been
working
from
home
since
the
pandemic
So
most
days
I
have
one
meeting
And
when
I
say
meeting
I
actually
often
mean
something
like
this
like
something
on
where
I'm
hopping
on
a
call
with
somebody
Maybe
we're
recording
a
podcast
Maybe
we're
recording
something
for
YouTube
And
the
rest
of
my
time
I'm
spending
writing
courses
And
it
really
is
that
simple
I
wake
up
I
get
my
coffee
I
start
writing
courses
Later
in
the
day
I
have
a
meeting
Maybe
it's
an
internal
one
I
honestly
only
have
like
three
of
those
a
week
these
days
Maybe
it's
an
external
one
like
this
video
And
then
I'm
back
to
writing
courses
or
doing
product
design
type
work
maybe
working
on
a
new
ad
that
we're
running
At
some
point
during
the
day
taking
my
kids
to
the
gym
gym
I've
got
a
two
year
old
and
a
four
year
old
Third
one
on
the
way
next
month
So
writing
courses
and
trying
to
spend
time
with
the
kids
and
family
Nice
nice
So
yeah
working
on
the
product
exactly
where
you
should
be
Last
question
that
I
have
for
you
is
you
know
for
anyone
watching
this
it's
going
to
be
a
lot
of
people
a
lot
of
developers
watching
this
What
advice
would
you
have
to
someone
who
does
want
to
start
a
business
like
you
If
you
could
stand
on
Lane's
shoulder
when
you're
just
starting
out
what
would
be
your
advice
There's
really
two
mistakes
I
see
people
making
The
first
one
I
think
is
to
think
about
your
business
education
as
a
content
consumption
phase
and
then
an
action
phase
And
I
think
you
know
through
traditional
education
we're
kind
of
taught
to
think
this
way
right
I
go
to
college
for
four
years
and
then
I
do
stuff
I
think
that's
absolutely
the
wrong
way
to
approach
business
The
biggest
the
biggest
mistake
is
not
taking
action
early
not
starting
a
side
project
And
the
second
biggest
mistake
I
think
is
just
focusing
on
kind
of
of
general
content
consumption
about
business
and
not
digging
into
something
really
hard
and
specific
I
think
a
lot
of
founders
get
way
ahead
of
themselves
thinking
like
I'm
going
to
be
the
CEO
I'm
the
fucking
idea
guy
right
I'm
going
to
delegate
everything
I'm
going
to
hire
that
salesperson
hire
that
marketer
hire
that
developer
But
omitting
the
hard
skills
is
a
big
mistake
It's
important
yeah
If
you're
a
developer
it
may
be
you
know
really
important
to
go
and
learn
that
marketing
thing
Or
if
you're
a
marketer
it
may
be
really
important
to
go
and
learn
learn
that
developer
thing
depending
on
your
business
So
I
think
that's
great
advice
All
right
Lane
Thank
you
for
coming
on
The
business
you
built
is
amazing
Million
dollars
a
month
month
It's
just
so
impressive
It's
just
so
cool
Thanks
so
much
for
having
me
on
man
Okay
so
Lane
is
the
perfect
example
of
how
a
solo
developer
can
turn
a
side
project
into
thousands
of
dollars
while
still
keeping
his
nine
to
five
But
that
comes
with
knowing
the
right
information
and
finding
the
right
problem
that's
worth
solving
Now
imagine
there
is
a
place
that
gave
you
Problems
to
solve
blueprints
for
building
different
businesses
and
the
marketing
strategies
that
turn
side
projects
like
Lane's
into
million
dollar
life
changing
online
businesses
At
Starter
Story
we
have
a
library
of
over
4
000
case
studies
business
idea
breakdowns
and
a
ton
of
other
stuff
where
you
can
learn
this
And
it's
all
backed
by
data
by
real
entrepreneurs
just
like
Lane
Right
here
I'm
looking
at
Lane's
case
study
right
now
We
interviewed
him
a
long
time
ago
when
his
business
was
just
doing
a
few
thousand
bucks
a
month
I
just
think
it's
so
cool
that
we
were
able
to
talk
to
Lane
while
he
was
still
doing
this
as
a
side
project
This
is
the
type
of
stuff
that
you'll
get
inside
Starter
Story
So
if
you're
serious
about
building
a
profitable
side
project
like
Lane
head
to
that
link
in
the
description
and
you'll
be
able
to
download
52
micro
SaaS
ideas
for
free
and
get
started
on
your
own
journey
of
building
something
that
might
change
your
life
All
right
guys
thanks
for
watching
and
I'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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