1st year of indie hacking (and $48,919.17 later)

A year ago, I decided to leave my CTO role at Lex and embark on a solo journey. Equipped with a bit of savings and a strong determination to put my world upside down, I started hacking away. And here’s how that one year went:

• I’ve built, announced, pre-launched, launched, pivoted, or generally dabbled with at least 10 products (nope, it’s not a failed attempt at 12/12).

• I launched one of them, Chatwith, on AppSumo. Launching there is a true blessing and a curse, that only one who went through will truly understand.

• With another, Gobble Bot, went semi-viral. The beauty of indie hacking is that the line between work and fun can be very blurry.

• I almost gave up on plugin surf, just to make a comeback as a GPT directory. OpenAI superseding plugins with GPTs was a blessing in disguise: more GPTs means more SEO keywords to rank for 🤑

• Did a ton of product experiments and made even more mistakes. Over a decade of experience in building software pays off (mostly in extreme patience).

• Picked up innumerable skills in email marketing, keyword research, Google Ads, video production, cold emailing, automation, copywriting, sales - not to mention technical skills of building software.

• Juried for the Yearly X Shitpost Awards, got my product copied, reached 4.6k Twitter followers, created the IDEA framework and did a ton of DM brainstorming with amazing makers.

• In a year made $48,919.17 in total revenue that is well over my original goal of making $1 on the internet.

What now? What’s next?

My biggest learning from the last 12 months: one day it may look like you’re in a pit, only to see yourself soar on the next. I had a truly tough period in Q4 2023 where nothing seemed to work and I thought never will. Today, I think it’s going to be alright, things are looking up.

On the chart below, I think I’m somewhere on the winding road of the “Starts Working” phase:

I wish the chart gave at least some indication of time!

At the moment, all revenue (all apps, MRR, AppSumo etc) stays in my holding co and is dedicated to growing it. I’m spending a lot on ads (eg. Google search) and on outsourcing some work. Which means, that I’m still living off my savings. I feel like there is no time to waste: my head is full of ideas and the tech landscape is changing fast.

My current goal: to sustainably and independently keep doing what I like: making cool products.

Right now, each day of being a solo maker is a goal and challenge in itself. My wish is to be able to do this another 1, 5, 10 years, but my tactical horizon is short: just a 2-4 months ahead. Enough to plan SEO and one/two products - and to allow some flexibility for what the dynamic AI tech landscape brings.

Ideas that guide me:
😍: AI, programmatic SEO, niching down, vending machine products, outsourcing
🙅‍♂️: building before marketing, trying Twitter too hard, paradigm fads, single product

See you next time!

Rafal

originally posted on my newsletter: https://rafalzawadzki.substack.com

Special thanks

While it’s a solo journey, it’s surprisingly full of other humans! I’ve found X to be filled with talented and supportive makers who I’m now incredibly lucky to be friendly with - even though we’ve never met in person. Special thanks (in no particular order & amongst many others): @poppacalypse, @andrei_terteci, @d4m1n, @hermanschutte, @illyism, @father_mihai, @s_chiriac, @0xPaulius, @NayanJagtap21