How I Built A $1M Business From This Starbucks | Starter Story

In the summer of 2017, Pat Walls was a 26-year-old making six figures in New York City, living what looked like a dream life. But every day, he walked home past a Starbucks, telling himself he would stop in, order a drink, and start building a business. Every day, he walked past the door, went home, and watched six hours of Netflix instead. That Starbucks, he says, "represented the unknown, and it was too scary for me to confront it." This went on for months. Then he read Deep Work by Cal Newport, wrote a contract with himself, walked into the Starbucks, set a timer for two hours, and started working. Six years later, that business — Starter Story — was making over a million dollars a year.

The problem that became the product

Walls had a full-time job and only two hours a day to build something of his own. But his deeper problem was not time — it was paralysis. He had no idea where to start. "How do I find a good idea? How do I know it can make money? How do I take the first step?" He could not find answers online. So he turned his own questions into a product: he would research successful businesses, write about how they got started, and share his findings on a blog. He called it Starter Story. He did not expect it to become a big thing — he was just genuinely interested in the material. He bought the domain for $12 a year.

The two-hour ritual