Today was one of those days where the work wasn’t just technical — it was psychological.
I spent close to fifteen hours building, refining, questioning, undoing, and rebuilding a product I’ve been circling for years: Profit From Prints.
On the surface, it’s a private reference library about running a print-based eBay business.
Underneath, it turned into something else entirely — a reckoning with how I work, how I price, how I take responsibility, and why I’ve felt stuck more often than I should have.
This post is a record of that day.
Not because everything went smoothly, but because it didn’t.
I’ve Never Liked Hype — But I’ve Still Been Shaped by It
I’ve worked in internet marketing for a long time.
Long enough to know how launches work, how sales pages are structured, how urgency is manufactured, how bonuses are stacked, and how outcomes are implied without being promised.
I’ve also never liked it.
Even when I’ve used those techniques myself, something always felt off.
Not morally wrong — just heavy.
Like I was carrying responsibility that didn’t belong to me.
Responsibility for other people’s motivation, results, and satisfaction.
Responsibility that payment somehow created a contract I could never quite fulfil.
That tension has followed me for years.
- I can make things
- I can explain things
- I can build systems.
But every time I tried to sell knowledge or guidance, I felt a quiet anxiety afterward:
“I hope they’re happy.”
“I hope they think it was worth it.”
That’s not a great place to build from.
What I Actually Do Well (And What I Don’t)
One thing that became very clear today is this:
I’m good at building calm, repeatable businesses.
I’m not good at selling certainty.
The print business worked not because it was clever, but because it was boring in the right ways.
- I listed things consistently
- I waited
- I didn’t panic
- I didn’t optimise everything to death.
- Over time, patterns emerged.
When I looked at my own sales data — hundreds of small, unglamorous transactions across eBay, Vinted, and Etsy — it finally clicked:
- This wasn’t luck.
- This wasn’t theory.
- This was lived repetition.
That matters more than screenshots or growth curves.
The Shift: From “Teaching” to “Recording”
The biggest change today was conceptual.
I stopped trying to make Profit From Prints a course, even accidentally. No lessons. No modules. No “start here”. No promise that watching or reading anything would lead to a specific outcome.
Instead, I framed it as what it actually is:
- a thinking record
- a decision log
- a documented trail
That one shift removed an enormous amount of pressure.
If this is a record, not a system, then I don’t have to persuade anyone. I don’t have to motivate them. I don’t have to keep updating it forever. I don’t even have to care whether someone uses all of it.
That’s not apathy — it’s honesty.
Pricing Without Guilt (For Once)
I’ve always underpriced my work.
- Partly generosity.
- Partly imposter syndrome.
- Partly not wanting anyone to feel disappointed.
Today, for the first time, pricing felt… neutral.
The library is priced at $39.
Not because it’s “worth more”.
Not because it’s a bargain.
But because at that price, I don’t feel watched.
If someone buys it and never opens it, I’m okay.
If they read one page and leave, I’m okay.
That emotional neutrality is new for me — and it’s valuable.
A Hard Realisation About Responsibility
One of the more uncomfortable moments today was admitting this to myself:
When someone buys from me, I feel more responsibility, not relief.
That’s backwards.
The solution wasn’t to toughen up or care less. It was to design products that end responsibility at delivery.
- Fixed artifacts
- Finished writing
- Archived explanations
- No implied outcomes.
Once I did that, everything got easier.
Why I’m Writing This
I’m documenting this day here on Steve Flips for a reason.
Not to celebrate productivity.
Not to announce a launch.
Not to position myself as an expert.
But because growth, for me, has never come from doing more. It’s come from removing weight — especially the invisible kind.
Today was about removing:
- hype I didn’t believe in
- pricing I felt guilty about
- responsibility that wasn’t mine
- products that never felt finished
And replacing them with something calmer, more honest, and more sustainable.
I’m tired now. In a good way.
Tomorrow, I’ll come back to this with fresh eyes. But tonight, it’s enough to say this:
For the first time in a long time, I feel confident in what I’ve built — not because it will succeed, but because it’s true.
That’s enough.
