Blogger: 5 Scrappy Lessons on how a farm boy turned an almost sure-to-fail business into multiple millions

Hey rebel solopreneurs

Ever wanted to quit because no one believes in your idea?

That's what Evan Williams faced before he sold Blogger.com to Google for a whopping $30+ million!

Feeling stuck with your digital product right now?

Maybe no one's buying your course, your templates are collecting digital dust, or your newsletter subscribers aren't opening their wallets.

Don't give up! You might miss your own $30 million moment.

Your awesome digital business dreams could stay just dreams forever.

Evan went from being the last man standing (everyone else quit!), fighting lawsuits, and getting trash-talked online... to selling to Google for life-changing money.

Blogger.com was a super simple tool that let normal people post their thoughts online without needing to be tech wizards.

His wild journey can help you build your own mini-empire without all the headaches he went through!

Ready to make your digital dreams come true?

Let's jump in!

1. Simplify your big vision into something people can use now

🔥 Problem

• Evan and his team started with a crazy complicated idea – a huge web tool that would change how people organize stuff online.

• It was way too big and unfocused. They wasted months building stuff nobody asked for.

🌈 How they solved it

• They noticed their tiny internal tool called "Stuff" was actually super useful! It let team members post updates quickly.

• Evan and a teammate built a public version in just one week (while his co-founder was on vacation!) and called it Blogger.

• The magic wasn't fancy tech – it was that Blogger let normal people share their thoughts online instantly without needing to be computer geniuses.

💎 Your game plan:

• Look at your big complicated idea and find the smallest, most useful piece you could launch in a week – that's the thing real people will actually pay for.

2. Make money fast with "too simple" offers

🔥 Problem

• After building Blogger, they faced a tough choice: focus on their original complicated product or this simple new tool?

• While users loved Blogger, they weren't sure how to make money from something so basic compared to their "real" product.

🌈 How they solved it

• Evan made a dead-simple offer: "Pay just $12 a year and the ads go away." Nothing fancy, but people actually paid!

• This small cash kept the servers running and let him hire a programmer named Jason to build cooler features.

• In 2002, they launched Blogger Pro with extra goodies plus scored some licensing deals (including a big one in Brazil) that turned Blogger from a money pit into a real business.

💎 Your game plan:

• Launch a ridiculously simple paid offer alongside your free product right now – something so basic you might be embarrassed by it – but will generate immediate cash flow while you build more complex offerings.

3. When money's tight, be super honest with your fans

🔥 Problem

• Even with their simple paid plan, the dot-com crash hit them hard. Money dried up, and everyone left, leaving only Evan to run Blogger.

• More and more people used the service, but it was super slow because their servers couldn't handle it, and Evan couldn't afford new ones.

🌈 How they solved it

• Evan got super honest with users: "Hey, we know Blogger is really slow. It's because we need more hardware. We don't have the money to buy it. So give us money and we'll make Blogger faster."

• He used PayPal and suggested giving just $10-$20 – nothing crazy.

• The response was amazing! Thousands of people sent money, about 100 folks gave bigger amounts, and one company even bought them a $4,000 server outright.

💎 Your game plan:

• Stop hiding your struggles from your audience – instead, turn them into authentic connection points by being transparent about challenges and involving your community in your journey.

4. Ignore the haters when you're building something new

🔥 Problem

• After his honest fundraising worked, Evan faced a new challenge: his reputation took a hit.

• Former employees spread rumors about him, industry magazines mocked him as "The Idealist," and former friends looked at him like he was crazy for continuing with Blogger.

🌈 How they solved it

• Evan developed what he called "hallucinogenic optimism" – a crazy strong belief that tomorrow would be better no matter what.

• He stopped hanging out with negative people and "went underground," pouring all his energy into making Blogger better.

• When disaster struck (like servers getting hacked on Christmas Day!), he jumped into action instead of giving up – he even spent his Christmas at a copy shop working on a tiny laptop to fix thousands of broken user passwords!

💎 Your game plan:

• Create a "criticism shield" by writing down your core vision and referring to it daily – use this to filter which feedback deserves your attention and which is just noise from people who don't share your vision.

5. Trust your gut on the big decisions

🔥 Problem

• Just as Blogger started gaining traction again, Evan constantly faced people telling him what to do with it: his team wanted him to focus on big corporate clients, companies tried to buy Blogger for almost nothing, and investors pushed their own ideas.

• When Google offered $30 million, he still worried about losing control of the business he built from scratch.

🌈 How they solved it

• Evan followed his gut even when everyone disagreed – like when he rejected focusing on corporate clients because he wanted to "give everyone a voice" online.

• When a company offered to buy Blogger for peanuts, everyone wanted to sell except Evan. Luckily, the deal fell through!

• Even with Google's huge $30 million offer, he didn't jump right away – he weighed losing control against growing big with Google's help before deciding it was right.

💎 Your game plan:

• For your next major business decision, create two lists: "What everyone says I should do" and "What my gut tells me to do" – then have the courage to follow the second list when it really matters.

That's it, my fellow rebels!

Remember that even when everything looks like it's falling apart, your super simple idea might be worth millions.

"If you see something others don't see, it might be because it's that powerful and different.

If everyone agrees with your idea, you're probably not doing anything original."

Today, pick ONE feature of your digital product that you can launch this week – even if it seems too simple or "not ready."

Your $30 million idea might be hiding in that "too simple" solution sitting on your computer right now!

Keep rocking 🚀 🍩

Yours "anti-stress-enjoy-life-while building a biz" vijay peduru