Upfront concession, because the smart crowd catches it instantly: this isn't passive income. Building a digital product is active work for 30 days. But the outcome, a product that pays you while you sleep, sometimes for years, is what most of us are here for. You do one active push first.

I've spent about ten years as a software engineer, and the last few shipping my own products on the side. Five SaaS now, roughly €5k/mo combined and mostly passive: a desktop Postgres GUI, a markdown publishing tool, a habit tracker, a minimalist dashboard. Here's the thing nobody warns you about. None of them ever got hard at the code. The build was always a weekend. They got hard at the parts in between: deciding what was actually worth selling, writing the landing page, wiring up payments, and then the unglamorous daily grind of telling people the thing exists. That's where I stalled, every single time. Months lost not to engineering, but to the steps around it.

That gap is the entire reason I built Let Me Cook It. It's the layer between "I have an idea" and "someone paid me." You answer 4 plain-English questions, it tells you whether the idea will actually sell (real competitors, a price, a 30-day range), and then it does the parts that always stalled me: drafts the landing page, the Stripe checkout, the email list, and the marketing (TikTok carousels, Reddit drops, a weekly newsletter, daily "post this today" prompts). You review the words and hit publish. Digital products only: Notion templates, ebooks, prompt packs, courses, printables. No physical, no services.

The part I care about most is the deadline. $129 once, and if you don't make a single sale in 30 days, you get it back, automatically. No support call, no "what did you try." I added that because every course I ever bought sold me a dream with no clock attached. I wanted the opposite: a real attempt, a hard date, and a refund if the idea-channel-price combination wasn't there. Better to find out in 30 days than 6 months.

Honest current state: the platform is in finishing touches. Sign up today and you land on a waitlist while I cook the first cohort by hand. Once the wedge proves out, the dashboard opens. I'd rather say that than fake a "fully live" badge.

A few honest asks, especially from anyone who's shipped something:

1. What was the step that actually stalled you between idea and first sale? I want to make sure this kills the right one.

2. "First sale in 30 days or full refund" from someone with real receipts: does it read as honest, or still like a guru promise?

3. What's the one side-hustle tool that burned you badly enough you'd never buy again? Trying to make sure v1 doesn't repeat it.

Happy to talk shop in the comments, teardown your setup, compare notes. That's why I'm here.

Florent