Why did a four-year-old web site achieve the perfect growth curve?

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Editor's note: Can you believe that this data is from a website that hasn't been maintained for four years? exactly 1532 days. Growth curve Abnormal Hue, although the data is not much, but if you know that there is no propaganda and promotion, it is enough to express your surprise, like a deserted garden quietly out of beautiful flowers.

Ryan Detzel, who developed the site "Invoice Journal" four years ago, to make it easier for merchants to document their customers, but it looks more like a beta project, and he has no plans to commercialize it, so he just quietly runs it on the server. But a phone call four years later revived his memory of the "Forgotten Project".

One day, I got a call on my way home from vacation. This is a New York number, not in my communications, I usually don't answer the phone, but because my brother is in New York, I think maybe one of his friends got it wrong, so I answered. The other end of the phone was a very timid voice, and she asked very carefully, "Hello, is this the invoice journal website?" (a website that holds documents) ".

I hesitated, in the invoice journal on-line 4 years of time, I have never received a telephone, instantaneous time, in my hesitant to say "yes" before, tens of thousands of thoughts poured into my mind. "Well, yes, can you tell me when the website will be restored?" All My Documents are in it, I can't live without it. "she said. "I really need these documents, if the website can't be restored, can you send me the documents in my system?"

Well, yes, can you tell me when the website will be restored? All My Documents are in it, I can't live without it.

Well, at first I hesitated a little, because I had never managed invoice Journal for four years. I forgot it, lost it in my head, removed it from my memory, but this soft voice let me know that although I forgot it, she didn't, in fact, her life depended on it. I'm amazed. was found not due diligence, and not sure what is the reason for the site strike, I told her I am in the car, but I will be at home immediately after checking, so that the site to restore, so that she can use. The call was over, and in the next 2 hours, Invoice journal constantly jumping in my head.

Invoice Journal is a website that I did when I was free, and developed it to fill the time of my daily commute to do the subway. Every day on the subway I have two hours of free time, so I think why not do something, I can use, and the process can learn something new. Because I did a lot of part-time work at that time, and is a very easy person, I do not like freshbooks such a need to pay the system of management documents, I decided to develop a own. From the beginning to the end, it only took me a few months in the subway time, the development process, I decided to make it very fashionable, completed so that everyone can use it. I never thought that things would really go that way, and I don't know if anyone would actually put the documents in there. I was wrong.

When I got home that night, I checked the server, and for some reason Apache stopped. Maybe it was last week I messed up the config file without correcting an error inside. After a few keyboard moves, it runs again. To end the incident, I sent a short email to the woman who thanked me. I went to bed because of the fatigue of the long holiday trip.

The next day in the shower I think again invoice Journal. I wonder how many people are still using the system? Do you still have a new account registered? I set up a reminder (thanks to Siri) to check the stats at night. After several SQL queries, let me surprise, I saw this:

Not only have people been using it to open documents to customers, but there are more than 130 new registrations per month--no publicity, no mail promotions, no effort. Is it amazing? I haven't touched the code for 4 years (exactly, 4, 2, 12 days), how can someone still register and use it all the time? There will certainly be some serious bugs inside, there will be a lack of some other service features ... I wonder if I should continue to develop it, and if I hadn't forgotten it, it would have been a very successful project, perhaps a lucrative project?

Now, for the reason why, my guess is that I'm offering a lot of budget-savvy people (freelancers) looking for something. I am curious to add some statistical function to see who has the most documents, who is the most loyal user, the amount of money involved in the document, but I can't do it today.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to tidy it up. I haven't touched it in a long time and I'm not using Perl anymore (I'm using Python now). I'm afraid to look at the code, modify the code, and be afraid to change what people are using. What I'm trying to say at the moment is that I have two options: Let it run like this, or find someone with an enthusiastic person to take over it ... Does anyone want to?

Bianhouyu: If you think of every product or project as a movie, Ryan Detzel's "Invoice Journal" is no doubt an inspirational piece, and if you do it, someone will use it and do something to change it.

For entrepreneurs, more inspiration is, stick to it, always meet their own spring. Interested friends can visit Ryan Detzel's blog, thanks to the foreign periodicals it comments on the original version of the compilation.