Buy A Pixel: The Win We Needed
After a long year with lots of burdens, and the positive news it seems our year is going to end with a banger and a high note.
Not some crazy unicorn or SaaS build but something that has far more meaning (to me) than a million dollar startup.
Meet: Buy A Pixel.
Look at this piece of art. It’s engraved to the web (forever) and we want to thank everyone that bought pixel(s) to secure their spot in the history of stupid builds and funny prizes. (more on that later)
How did we get there?
Let me give you the backstory from A to Z.
I run a private paid Discord group, called FocusX.
A group filled with genuine people, different skills that I would pick over a 100K Twitter follower count (if I had that).
Two of them, Kris and Constantin were always present since the early days and they are also mods in my Land of Oos channel.
It’s safe to say that between them and me, there is a closer relationship than usual and we often discuss progress or the future of FocusX.
But recently, it was a different discussion.
Here’s how that went down:
October 10:
Kris: Constantin, how about we build a similar version of the OG million dollar homepage?
Constantin: Nah, might not work.
October 13:
Spends 8 hours building it.
See X timeline HERE
Pieter (me): Ok, cool shit. let’s now reply in every Tweet to buy pixels. And goes on a mission
Kris: Six bananas
Constantin: I want to go home coz it’s 1AM and I am still at UNI.
Kris & Pieter: No.
October 15:
Kris & Constantin bombard themselves as pixel managers.
Pieter: Well, I am just going to throw random replies online.
Kris: make it an NFT.
No Kris. No
October 20
Constantin: Should we launch on Producthunt? I am worried we are not going to fill in the grid.
Pieter: Relax.
Kris: Six flamethrowers on TikTok maybe?
No Kris. Just no.
Pieter thinking: What the fuck am I even doing here? I am like the 5th wheel in a project because… I add no value except being the cashier and promoted to ‘field marketing’ (read, replies on X)
October 26
Constantin: Fuck it, let’s go Producthunt and just launch on Oct 28.
Deploying to PH.
Konstantin (with a K) enters the room:
1 day before the actual launch and even hours:
Assets deployed, thanks to Konstantin @thinkcly.
October 28
Pieter: I am off playing PLO and NLHE. Because… became 26739th wheel in this project. Even tho I am the best developer and designer in the world.
7 hours into launch:
Getting featured on the homepage.
Final results:
Amazingly done.
Conclusion:
BUILD STUPID SHIT, WIN AMAZING PRIZES.
Alright, it’s NOT that stupid. But you get the idea.
However, there was a global consensus amongst us that we had a lot of fun working on it and that alone was a win.
What we learned:
Well I can deffo say I did not learn how to code or how to design.
We learned that fun builds can be a nice thing to break patterns from actual serious projects or builds.
You don’t need to prepare centuries in advance, but granted that if we did prep a bit, we might have reached the top 3.
People appreciate something so ridiculous and yet useful (because the pixels are there forever) in a landscape where everyone is making attempts to build the next unicorn.
It helped us to get closer together (Kris, Konstantin, Constantin and myself) and we are contemplating something new and fresh that will be equally fun to launch and to build.
It was never money driven, and it turns the motivation of doing so differently.
We obtained plenty of visibility on each of our Twitter accounts, and other projects such as Buildstreak and Useless Newsletter.
Final note
We won.
And by winning I mean. We won for a short moment on the web. Ending 4th on a big platform like this with little to no preparation there was nothing but upside.
The moment we got our first dollar from a random user via X, we already won. And it’s the win we all agree we needed.
Looking back, this was definitely one of the most fun parts for me this year to be a part of a project.
But all credit goes to Constantin, massive props for him doing the majority of the build.
Big thanks to Konstantin (with a K) to build assets for the PH launch and to jump onboard last minute.
Thanks Kris for always having the most fun ideas.
And I am going to thank myself because that day, I finally reached the first place in a live PLO tournament after being at final tables for almost 2 years in poker tournaments and that first place has always been denied for some obscure reason.
Follow us?
Constantin – @constantout
Kris – @krisbuildsstuff
Konstantin – @thinkcly
Pieter – @outofsigma
This was never possible without the internal dynamics and strength within FocusX.
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