📌 Chapter 1: The Corporate Trap (Pre-2020)

"I aimed for a FAANG title by 30. That title never landed on my desk. Thank God it didn’t."

Damon Chen arrived on a jet from China, marched through Penn State, and landed a coveted badge at Cisco Systems. The blueprint was clear: snag a marquee tech job by the time he hit the big 3-0.

Life didn’t read the blueprint.

Instead, the years dripped by at Cisco. His paycheck inched from $100k to $150k, a crawl dressed in stock option glitter. Chen stapled the word "mediocre" to his engineering badge. Each promotion cycle felt like watching a parade he was never invited to.

What he couldn’t see was that this “failure” was actually him getting signed for the right game.

💥 Chapter 2: Everything Falls Apart (2020)

"COVID arrived. I unwrapped fatherhood. I chose bedtime stories over the corporate ladder."

March 2020 flipped every calendar. Lockdowns muted boardrooms and Chen's newborn learned to crawl. The Cisco playbook suddenly didn’t include midnight diaper changes and virtual school for a toddler.

He handed in the badge. Family first, paycheck second.

Income tanked. Clarity evaporated. Panic slid into the corners of his laptop. While the baby napped on his chest, he enrolled in a web dev bootcamp, then watched a stack of YouTube playlists. HTML, CSS, then React: he coded like his family depended on it—and it felt like it. One side project became a second. Another became a paycheck.

Nothing did.

• Influenswer.com: $0 revenue

• Backlogs.co: $0 revenue

• Indielog.com: $1.99 total

• Ashleyhindle.com: $3,025 in 10 days, then died

Four projects. Four misses. Still, Chen kept building. He figured, “Just keep shipping.” Each flop taught him something he needed to learn.

💡 Chapter 3: The First Dollar (December 2020)

“December 23, 2020. I made my first dollar online. Couldn’t sleep all night.”

On that date Chen shipped his fifth project: Testimonial.to. Simple idea: help businesses gather customer testimonials and show them on their websites.

When the first dollar landed, Chen felt like lightning. Months of crashes, and someone finally paid for something he’d made.

The product wasn’t fancy. No VC cash. No grand team. Just Chen in a small home office, coding while the family snored.

By March 2021, Testimonial.to was pulling in $1,000 each month. Chen finally saw it: this was more than a hobby. This was a real, live business.

📈 Chapter 4: The Growth Phase (2021)

“From $0 to $100K in 9 months. Finally, I was building something that mattered.”

I did something most folks wouldn’t. I shared every revenue number I made. It was called “open startup.” Each month, I posted Testimonial.to’s latest earnings for everyone to see.

People ate it up. The raw transparency moved the needle. Customers spotted the growth curve and saw their future product was already winning.

The numbers kept climbing month after month:

• Month 1: $0

• Month 3: $1,000 per month

• Month 9: $100,000 per year

Running the business solo—while juggling two kids (my second was born in the middle of it all)—I proved you don’t have to trade family for growth.

I also whipped up a tiny side project called Embed.so. Built it in 2.5 days. Launched it just to scratch the “what-if” itch. It never blew up, but it proved the point: launch fast, learn, repeat.

💰 Chapter 5: The Big Decision (2022)

“Someone dropped a seven-figure offer on my desk. I said no.”

April 2022. A buyer walked in with a stack of cash that’s life-changing for a kid who bootstrapped while diaper-changing. The number was eight zeroes.

I closed the laptop, smiled, and sent the polite decline.

The business felt too young, too me. Instead of leaving, I started fueling the next chapter.

That choice turned out to be a good one. Testimonial.to kept climbing:

• $200k a year

• $300k a year

• $400k a year by October

But with growth came new headaches. Chen’s public revenue sharing started drawing copycats. Rivals began mirroring his features and playbook.

So, in October 2022, Chen switched gears. He withdrew his public numbers. The “open startup” chapter closed. There are times when sharing everything helps you scale; there are times when guarding the numbers keeps the edge you’ve earned.

🤖 Chapter 6: The AI Wave (2023)

“PDF.ai raked in $200,000 in just three months. Sometimes, the right moment is all you need.”

When the ChatGPT craze kicked off in late 2022, the demand for AI-driven tools shot through the roof. Chen spotted the gap.

He dropped $30,000 into PDF.ai, his latest venture. The pitch was straightforward: let users chat with any PDF through AI. The cash broke down like this: $20,000 for coding and $10,000 for the domain.

The moment couldn’t have been better. PDF.ai shot forward like a rocket:

• Testimonial.to took 9 months to reach a $100,000 annual run rate.

• PDF.ai took just 3 months to zoooom past $200,000.

Chen stopped butting heads with the market. Instead, he climbed onto its wave. When AI was the buzz, he launched AI products.

He fine-tuned his game, too. First, he sold lifetime deals to cash up fast and test the waters. When he felt solid, he switched to monthly subscriptions for that reliable cash flow. He brought on a video creator and a developer to help carry the load.

By September 2023, his whole business stable was humming at around $130,000 a month. Chen was now the proud owner of several winning products that just kept printing cash.

🌍 Chapter 7: The Great Move (2024)

"I earn in dollars and spend in yuan. Best decision I ever made."

Chen made a surprising choice. Even pulling in over $130,000 a month, he traded the pricey San Francisco Bay Area for a sunny apartment in Shanghai, China.

The math sang. He kept raking in dollars, but his costs dove:

• A household helper ran $840 a month in the U.S. and $450 in Shanghai.

• He flipped his Tesla and parked a $300 e-scooter outside.

• Groceries, utilities—everything—fell into the green.

There was a loop, though. As a U.S. green-card holder, Chen still paid U.S. taxes on every penny. He joked it was a “subscription fee” for America. He mulled dropping the card but held on for business perks.

2024 brought fireworks. Testimonial.to shot past $2 million in total revenue four years after launch. The domain he grabbed for $35,000 has already spun out $200,000.

Chen proved smart moves and patience make the math work.

🪞 Chapter 8: The Honest Truth (2025)

“I just turned 40. It took me 4 years to hit $1M a year. It’s not a flex, but it’s honest."

By 2025, Chen’s whole portfolio was moving $1.3 million a year. He never tried to prettify it.

In May, he tweeted a bit of truth: Coming up on 40, hitting $1M a year after four years felt slow. He watched younger founders raise more in a week, then sprint past him.

The AI wave that pushed PDF.ai was already settling. The market was now crowded with copycat tools. Monthly cash was down. Chen was sketching another pivot.

Yet he felt calm. Living in China with his family, a full American salary turned cokes into pocket change and paid for a life he liked.

His spending lately told the story: a new tablet for him, a carton of cigarettes for the handyman (a small way to be polite in China), and a little more in college savings.

His post-whistle was the same: “Craft your life, your way. There are no wrong blueprints."

📚 The Lessons

“Four bombs. One takeoff. Keep swinging, don’t polish.”

Damon Chen’s run shows a few simple things:

1. Launch before you feel ready. His first four apps hit the ground, then forgot how to bounce. Every crash still taught him a new way to jump.

2. Share your journey. For Chen, choosing open revenue sharing meant customers saw the real numbers, built trust, and kept coming back.

3. Experiment. One product can flop, yet the next could fly. Chen kept trying, learning, and pivoting.

4. Choose your spot carefully. Earning dollars while living somewhere rent is cheap lets you invest and save more.

5. Family fuels you. Chen's kids didn’t slow him down; they pushed him to hustle for their future.

6. Get the timing right, but don’t stop. Chen didn’t hit the market first, but he kept showing up every day.

7. Keep sharing. Chen still launches new tools and tells his story. His path proves that successful launches don’t need a giant check or a flashy exit.