My friend and I made an online course for User Experience Design, and sold it on Udemy. So far we have about $40,000 in enrollment revenue, which yields about $20,000 in profit that we split. We are looking into doing more courses, but aren't sure yet what to teach. If anyone wants to collaborate on a project, we have a full studio and all of the equipment.
In addition to that project, I also launched an online store for design patent artwork. To do this, I downloaded images of patents from the US Patent Office Database, paid a virtual assistant $1/hour to clean them and standardize the proportions, then using a Photoshop Action applied in Batch, I generated all of the images. After getting all of the images, I built an online store and integrated with printing and fulfillment service using Woocommerce and a Restful API - so when orders are placed, it triggers the artwork to be printed, and shipped, automatically. I now make about $300/month from that project and spend about 10 minutes/week managing it.
Here is a link to that website:
www.PatentArtStore.com
This week we a TON of new openings for online education startup Udemy. Here is a link to the openings: https://www.udemy.com/about#jobs
If anyone is interested in any of the positions (whether they are devs or not, feel free to email me and I can walk you through the process to get the best chance for the position you like.
Side Note: I do NOT get a bonus for finding new employees.
Aside from the positions - the company is pretty legit w/ tons of free startup swag and all of the stereotypical San Francisco & startup perks like free food, activities, and lots of beer/whiskey (bourbon is the offices' personal fav).
I don't read this post as celebritizing an industry that rewards self abuse - I read it as a cautionary description that while one is ABLE to abuse themselves within a startup, it is not REQUIRED.
At the same time, he is not suggesting that one is correct and the other is wrong - he is saying that glorifying either is wrong. People should stop seeking encouragement.