Hi! I’m Javier Montes, I’m 42 years old and I’ve dedicated all my life to programming (oh! and I love christmas 🎅 😍)

Javier Montes

I started when I was 12 with an Amstrad CPC 6128 like this, typing code of games written in basic from the user manual:

Amstrad CPC 6128

I also was the sysop of a BBS in the nineties, Gijon BBS, this was the intro that was included as a tiny executable file with all downloaded files from my BBS 🤩

I started in the instant messaging world with ICQ! and I made a lot of webpages just for fun and some trying to earn some money that were a dead end. I’ve been working as a programmer more than 20 years, the last 8 of them as a remote programmer, I work most days from my home in Barcelona’s center, also some days from coffee shops, from my camper van or another city I maybe visiting.

Like a year ago two events came to my life, I found Pieter Levels on twitter and I changed all my workday hours to the morning having the evening free for side projects. This two things made my Digital Maker Soul went back and it went back stronger than ever, not so young makers also can do it!

So now that 2019 is starting I want to begin a challenge that has been in my mind for some time, as this other digital makers, I want to make products online and I want to share the details on my blog.

Which is exactly the goal?

Start making money that come independently from if I’m working or not (passive?) and it must come from the things I do on internet. Just that.

Secondary goals

  • Learn to skate with my new longboard (I’m on that already!)
  • Do more in general, more posts, more tweets, more learning, new things… I started a podcast on December! (spanish language)
  • Learn SEO
  • Write more in english (my mother language is spanish)
  • Become a Shopify expert
  • Improve my existing site: acuestas.es
  • Start new projects (I have some ideas that already registered domains for and I want to launch it all on 2019)
  • Make a desktop app with Electron

The numbers

I will update this numbers each month.

January 2019 ———————

Total January earnings: 0€ (ouch!)

February 2019 ———————

In February I almost stopped everything else to speed up robotjim.com, I want to launch on April and I think I was doing too many different things, it has happened other times that I try to doo to many things and in the end I don’t complete any 🙈

  • 🎙️ No new podcast episodes, blog posts or youtube videos this month!
  • 💶 Amazon affiliates earnings: 0€ 🤕
  • 🐦 twitter followers: 613 (+5)
  • 👥 montesremotedev.com month unique users: 111 (+38)
  • 👥 acuestas.es month unique users: 26,949 (+1,543)
  • 💽 Migrated my server to a new better one from www.kimsufi.com to www.soyoustart.com (both from OVH)
  • ⌨️ Finished and published new acuestas.es version, with tons of fixes and changes, updated from Laravel 4.2 to 5.8 and with some React parts (like the new ads form)
  • ⌨️ Put A LOT of work on robotjim.com and learnt how to use d3js in the process robotjim

Total February earnings: 0€ (ouch!)

March 2019 ———————

In March I put again a lot of hours on Robot Jim while almost finished the first beta version. Also some hours to Acuestas fixing some bugs.

  • 🎙️ No new podcast episodes, blog posts or youtube videos this month!
  • 💶 Amazon affiliates earnings: 18.92€ 🤑
  • 🐦 twitter followers: 619 (+6)
  • 👥 montesremotedev.com month unique users: 125 (+14)
  • 👥 acuestas.es month unique users: 37,736 (+10,787)

Total March earnings: 18.92€

April 2019 ———————

In April I made a pause with Robot Jim and I have started putting hours to mejores.cc after realizing that it started making money. I’ve also made some fixes to acuestas.es

  • 🎙️ No new podcast episodes, blog posts or youtube videos this month!
  • 💶 Amazon affiliates earnings: 5.56€ 🤑
  • 🐦 twitter followers: 617 (-2)
  • 👥 montesremotedev.com month unique users: 130 (+5)
  • 👥 acuestas.es month unique users: 40,564 (+2,828)

Total April earnings: 5.56€

Total April spendings: 50.40€ (hosting, domains and proxies)

RESULT: -44.84€ 😭😭😭

May 2019 ———————

In May I was slowly adding hours to Robot Jim again and I continued putting a lot of hours to mejores.cc. Added paid VIP mode to acuestas.es ads as a try to start monetizing.

  • 🎙️ No new podcast episodes, blog posts or youtube videos this month!
  • 💶 Amazon affiliates earnings: 70.63€ 🤑
  • 🐦 twitter followers: 615 (-2)
  • 👥 montesremotedev.com month unique users: 354 (+224)
  • 👥 acuestas.es month unique users: 39,852 (-712)

Total May earnings: 70.63€

Total May spendings: 41.99€ (hosting, domains and proxies)

RESULT: +28.64€ 🤗

June, July, August and September 2019 ———————

So many things happened this 4 months!

We moved out from our flat in Barcelona

Barcelona move

We went to Colombia for three months

Colombia

And now we are in Asturias for one month.

I registered in nomadlist.com. I created some additional affiliate sites, I’ve put tons of hours trying to make them useful to users and I’ve got my first paid customer in acuestas.es. I earnt globally 1,339€!!! Not bad, taking into account these are my first euros! and I’m starting to believe this challenge of mine is possible 😍

I’m now more focused than ever, affiliate sites and robotjim.com are my bets.

  • 🎙️ No new podcast episodes, blog posts or youtube videos this months!
  • 💶 Amazon affiliates earnings: 1,329€ 🤑🤑🤑
  • 🐦 twitter followers (September): 616 (+1)
  • 👥 montesremotedev.com month unique users (September): 4,732 (+4,369)
  • 👥 acuestas.es month unique users (September): 58,002 (+19,950)
  • 👥 Affiliate sites month unique users (September): 11,185

Total earnings (4 months): 1,339€

Total spendings (4 months): 386€ (hosting, domains and proxies)

RESULT (4 months): +953€ 🤗🤗