When I turned 30, I wanted a new challenge in my life.
I was building things, but without a clear direction, so I set myself a crazy challenge:

“Make $1,000,000 while documenting the entire journey online!”

One of the reasons I did that was to get out of my comfort zone and build real skills: shipping, building, marketing, selling, writing, video creation, storytelling - all things that’ll eventually lead to that $1M.

“But why $1M?”

Well, this is the amount we* need to invest to earn $40k per year passively, based on the 4% safe withdrawal rate - enough to cover our yearly expenses.

So basically, FREEDOM: the freedom to do whatever we want, whenever we want.

*By we, I mean me and my lovely wife. 🫶

At the time of writing this, I’m 1.5 years into the challenge, and so far I’ve made $151,974 in revenue from 10 different income sources.

This is the $1M grid from my website, where you can follow the journey live. Each square represents $1000 in revenue. Each color represents a different income stream.

I created this grid to have a visual representation of my journey. Whenever I earn money, it gets added to the grid. Pretty cool, eh? 😄

Over these 1.5 years, I’ve experimented with multiple income streams.

My first SaaS, iCodeThis, brought a decent chunk of revenue during this time ($12k) before I sold it for $50k to focus on other projects.

My coding course, launched back in 2020, still earns passively every month. The revenue went down over the years, but considering that I’m not doing anything on it, it’s all passive income. During this time, it made $19.4k.

I’ve also launched an Unlimited Consulting service, which has sold 7 slots so far → $8.7k.

Remember the $1M grid above? One day, I got an idea to allow companies to purchase squares as ad spaces. In return, they get a slot in the grid, a mention on the page, and a permanent link to their website for as long as I’m doing the challenge. 5 companies bought spots already → $6k.

Lately, a good chunk of my income ($48k) came from sponsorships on X and YouTube - I get paid to feature company tools to my audience. Also, since I’m active on these platforms, I get paid ad revenue → $3k.

Along the way, I’ve also sold a domain name in a Dutch Auction and launched 5 new projects as I’m always learning and experimenting until I find the “next big thing” → $4.1k.

The plan is to continue to build and ship more apps and develop new revenue streams.

I’ll also focus on documenting everything through this newsletter, and I’m planning to create more vlogs on my YouTube channel. I want to get better at writing, making videos, and storytelling.

And long-term, I want to bring others on board. Be it as part of a partnership or be it as employment. The future will tell. 😄

Thanks for reading this far!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!

See you in the next one.

— Florin Pop

P.S. If you’re enjoying this and want to support my journey, share this newsletter with a friend who’s also building online.