How to Build a Digital Product When You Work 9 to 5

I Built a "Financial Co-Pilot" in less than 3 days

 My new product is a one-page financial dashboard. You give it your numbers ( income, expenses, debt) and it gives you back three things: your Debt-Free Date, your True Savings Rate, and a "Scenario Planner" to model your future. You can ask it "what if I earn an extra $100 this month?" and it will instantly show you how that changes your future.

 It started as a private tool. It became a public product in intense 3 days, carved out from early mornings, lunch breaks, and late nights, while working a 9-to-5. This is the blueprint of how I did it:

The Pivot: From Excel to a Product

 The idea started in Excel/VBA. I am an engineer; I build systems and automate reports for a living. Prototyping a personal finance tool was not that complicated. It solved my problem. It gave me clarity.

 Then I had a better thought. Not everyone owns Microsoft Office. A Google Sheet is free and lives in the cloud. I could rebuild it there.. I could sell it!

 This decision changed everything. A personal tool only needs to be functional. A product needs to be beautiful. It must have good form. A product must respect the user's time and intelligence. I began meticulously designing the user interface, focusing on simplicity and intuitiveness.

The Grind: From Idea to Live Product in less than 72 Hours

 This was a sprint. I worked my full 9-to-5 job. The project was built around a full-time job in the gaps.

 The final hurdle was setting up the shop on Gumroad. I hit a few technical bugs in the checkout flow. At that point, I made a simple rule: I would not sleep until it was live and I had successfully completed a test purchase. The final "purchase successful" notification came through at 3 AM.

The Next Step: Finding Customers

 The product is built. The shop is open. Now, it needs to find the people it can help. My audience is small, so I will not spam my link. Spam is a bad system.

 My strategy is to provide value first. I will share insights and smaller tools for free. I believe if people find the free work valuable, they will be interested in the premium tool. This is a better system. I will report the results.

 For now, the tool is live. It's called "The Financial Freedom Forecaster."

To my first 20 supporters, here’s a 60% launch discount (auto-applied) → .

 A simple rule for selling any digital product: use a "template" link. Don't share the direct link to your Google Sheet. You modify the URL by replacing "/edit" with "/template/preview". This forces users to make their own private copy. It is the correct and professional way to deliver the product.