Hi, this is Kevin Henrique creator of Suki Desu, and in this article I would like to tell you a little about the history of our Site. Where did this idea come from, how did it grow, etc.
It all started many years ago when I got addicted to computers, I had the dream of programming games, and I spent every day creating games in RPG Maker. Until things changed a little bit and I started developing websites.
My goal since I was young has always been to work online; I hated the thought of having to work 8 hours a day doing something boring and repetitive. I thought the career of Web Designer would be a good fit for me. Before getting there, I had many attempts, such as creating private servers for Dofus, creating a gaming site called backerst, and another one called kyaneko, both of which were unsuccessful.
At the same time, I was bored of working making websites for people, they were slow to pay, they didn't want to pay for additional services, besides wanting to pay too cheap, I was hating working as a Web Designer. At the time, I was addicted to anime and games, and one thing that caught my attention was the language and the environment where the animations take place, until I started to delve into the language and culture.
Table of Content
The beginning of Suki Desu
I was determined to learn Japanese, however, I am terrible at studying, procrastinate, and can't follow routines. Thinking about this, I decided to create a website focused on learning Japanese, I started on Blogger and then migrated to WordPress, and thus, I created the site skdesu.com at the end of 2014.
At first it wasn't easy, my Portuguese was horrible, I had finished high school through a supplementary course and I never liked reading... I wrote articles that no one accessed, until one day I decided to write a rant about the lies people tell about Japan. For some reason, this article went viral, especially because someone shared it on the page Brasileiros no Japão.
It was this article that motivated me to keep going, despite all the criticism due to my exaggerations and mistakes in Portuguese. The article exceeded 3,000 shares in a single day, even Lohgann from Japan, nosso de Cada dia commented, and this made me even more motivated.
I spent the whole year of 2015 dedicating myself to the website while doing freelance work as a web designer and being supported by my father. Unfortunately, websites, even receiving 5,000 visits a day, cannot generate any profit from Google ads because Google is stingy... I was running out of time, my father couldn't support me for the rest of my life, and I was dedicating all my time to the website, but I couldn't see any profit. Web design jobs were boring and hard to come by.
The growth of Suki Desu
The site is only functioning today thanks to someone who came to help me during this crisis. Luiz Rafael, a great entrepreneur and teacher, noticed me and gave me several tips on how to organize and grow the site. At the same time, I became a great partner of his, and I was finally able to generate profit from the site, allowing me to stop worrying about other jobs and dedicate myself 100% to Suki Desu.
From the end of 2015 to the end of 2016 we grew rapidly from 1,000 visits per day to 5,000 visits per day. The Facebook page also grew from under 10,000 likes to over 45,000 likes. All this was possible thanks to you who visit and share our articles every day.
In the meantime, I found several other partners who help me with the site, like Marcelo and Hiro from the Sushi course and the konbini store. Additionally, I made several friends with whom I can exchange ideas, such as Leandro from the site You Knew Anime and Giuliano from Jwave. And I was able to find support in creating articles with Leonardo and several other supporters who show up from time to time.
Thanks to Suki Desu, I was able to achieve many dreams, such as visiting Japan, working from home, and deepening my study of Japanese. Many things are still to come; various projects like the Japanese RPG and the VIP area of the site are in development. All of this is thanks to the support of all of you!