¥10 Million in Cumulative Sales on Coconala Over 4 Years: A Video Creator's Pricing Strategy That Started with a ¥780 First Order

Skill-marketplace success stories tend to get consumed via their “¥X million in cumulative sales” headlines, but the value of this record lies in the transparency of the numbers. Behind the ¥10 million received sits roughly ¥13 million in gross sales and roughly ¥2.82 million in Coconala fees; the first order netted ¥780. And there was a five-month dead zone right after starting. Matsuume Take, a video creator who switched careers from teaching high-school physics, has disclosed four years of actual figures.

The Published Numbers

He jokes that the ¥2.82 million in fees was his “tax paid to Coconala,” but this is platform commission, not tax. The gap between roughly ¥13 million gross and ¥10 million received is almost exactly ¥3 million, consistent with his estimate.

From 15 Years as a Physics Teacher, Through 5 Months of Silence

Matsuume’s previous career was high-school physics teacher. He went freelance after 15 years. He had no professional experience in video production. He started on Coconala at the end of March 2021, and about three weeks later, on April 14, landed his first order, reading a 1,500-character narration script aloud, delivering it split into 11 files, for a sale price of ¥1,000 and ¥780 net. A completely different genre from his current core business.

After a few orders in April, sales stopped. From late April to September 2021, about five months, there was almost nothing, and some early orders were taken at a loss. The turning point was specializing in video production: about a year in, on March 28, 2022, he won a video project worth ¥89,774 (about ¥70,000 net), got on track from there, and built up to ¥10 million under a policy of “raise prices rather than chase volume.”

The Logic of “Raising Prices Is the Only Option”

Revenue decomposes only into price × volume. Faced with the choice of “sell more or charge more,” he states flatly that raising prices is the only option. The reason: the volume side is out of his control. Since the platform holds both exposure and search ranking, stacking up order volume cannot be planned. The only things in his own hands are the price and the content of his listings.

His lever for raising prices is perceived value. People do not buy after scrutinizing performance differences. They decide based on an impression of “this seems good”, so he prioritizes building perceived value through presentation and positioning. He also states plainly that he “never intended to earn from Coconala alone”: the pricing strategy and channel diversification are discussed as a set.

Four Years of Progress: The “Price Staircase”

First order at ¥780 → a ¥70,000 project about a year later → high-priced video production thereafter. This staircase cannot be skipped. Coconala’s search results sort heavily by track record and reviews, so a high-priced listing with zero history is invisible to everyone. Conversely, staying cheap after building a track record melts your time into volume work. Periodically reassess and raise “the highest price my current track record can win”, that, sustained with discipline for four years, is what this record is. As with the “build a shelf” strategy in Kindle publishing, the silent first half-year is a feature of the system, not grounds for quitting.

The specialization call also mattered. He moved from listings that displayed everything he could do, narration and more, to a single focus on video production. A jack-of-all-trades listing gets buried in every category’s search. Specialization pushes you up the rankings within one category. If the niche-down case that generated ¥740,000 in 30 days is the short-term burst version of this principle, this is its long-term compounding version.

What the ¥2.82 Million in Fees Bought

¥2.82 million in fees over 4 years is heavy if you look only at the amount. But he writes that he “treats it as a sales-and-marketing expense”. The right comparison is the cost of independently acquiring ¥13 million worth of video-production clients: sales, advertising, payments, and trust. It is rare data where both the cost and the benefit of platform dependence are visible in real figures.

The ¥89,774 project netting about ¥70,000 shows the roughly 22% deduction operating consistently at the individual-project level. When setting a listing price, you are quoting customers a figure with 20-plus percent stacked on top, in practice, pricing strategy and the fee rate are the same problem, inseparable.

Let’s also decompose the ¥10 million received. ¥10 million over roughly 4 years (49 months) averages about ¥200,000 per month. But the recent pace exceeds the average: from ¥10 million in April 2025 to about ¥12 million in November of the same year, just under ¥2 million in 7 months, over ¥250,000 per month, clearly above the 4-year average. The structure whereby compounding track record accelerates in the later years shows up directly in the recent-pace numbers. From there, taxes and expenses like equipment come out, and months fluctuate. As a full-time pillar it is thin, as a side-income pillar it is thick. That positioning is what the actual figures suggest. Only when you restate a success story into net-of-fees, net-of-tax, net-of-time terms does this kind of record become comparable.

Inside the Period When It Wasn’t Working

The five silent months, and the early loss-making orders. And the genre of the first order (narration) had nothing to do with his current core business. The entry-level work never needed to be the main event. Its only meaning was creating the “starting inventory” of track record and reviews. Had he quit during that stretch because of the revenue, the price staircase of year two onward would never have existed. Since skill-marketplace growth accelerates in the later period through compounding track record, early numbers barely function as evidence about business viability.

Conditions for Reproducing This

What generalizes is the structure. In marketplaces where track record and reviews drive search ranking, the early silence and low prices are an entry cost everyone pays. The logic of “volume is held by the platform; the only thing you control is price” also applies to everyone selling on a marketplace with 20%+ fees.

On the other hand, the speed, ¥10 million in 4 years, is inseparable from specializing in video production, a genre with a high per-project price ceiling. Climb the same staircase in a genre with a low ceiling and the destination changes. Note also that this article’s evidence is limited to figures verifiable in the free portion of his note post (partially paywalled). Order counts and profitability per hour worked are not disclosed. Evaluating the business including hourly rates would require variables that remain unpublished.

Further Reading

• ¥700,000/month in Coconala’s licensed-professional category — the high-price specialist analogue
• 24 Kindle books, ¥750,000 cumulative — another marketplace-type field