From $0 to $1K MRR in 8 Months: Bootstrapping Habit Pixel as a Solo Dev
Hey Indie Hackers,
It's January 2026, and as everyone dives into their New Year's resolutions, I wanted to share the story of Habit Pixel—my habit tracker app that's grown from a modest May 2025 launch to $1K in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) in just eight months. Bootstrapped solo, no funding or team, it's been a rollercoaster of slow starts, user feedback, and seasonal wins. If you're building a consumer app and hitting walls, hopefully this shows persistence pays off.
The Spark: Solving My Own Habit Struggles
I'm Hirvesh, a self-taught developer from Mauritius who's always battled with sticking to routines like working out or reading. Most trackers felt like dull checklists, so I created Habit Pixel to make it visual and engaging—like building a pixel art canvas with your daily progress. Built as a cross-platform mobile app, it lets users track habits in a fun, streak-based way.
The Launch: May 2025's Humble Beginnings
I launched on the App Store and Google Play in early May 2025, announcing it on X and Reddit around May 10-17. By May 19, I had about 1,000 active users and my first subscription sale. Downloads reached ~1,300 by late May. I went freemium with monthly ($1.99) and yearly ($33.99) plans, but early revenue was tiny—MRR hit just $28 by June due to onboarding issues that scared off users.June brought ~800 more users, but growth stalled. I focused on small fixes and planning features like better calendars and categories, but without much marketing, it was a quiet grind.
Steady Progress: June to October 2025
The summer months were about iteration without fanfare. Revenue slowly climbed to around $208 MRR by early November as the core product started resonating. I listened to user feedback, adding things like negative habit tracking (e.g., for sobriety) and smoother integrations. It was validating to see organic growth, but I knew I needed to build momentum.
In late October, I implemented purchasing power parity (PPP) pricing across all countries on both app stores. This adjusted subscription costs based on local economies—using indexes like Netflix for guidance—making premium features more affordable in emerging markets. Almost immediately, I saw purchases from countries I'd never reached before, like those in Southeast Asia and Latin America, proving how PPP opened doors to a truly global audience.
The Turning Point: November 2025's Surge
November changed everything. I ramped up building in public on X, sharing updates and engaging with the community. Highlights:
- Black Friday Boost (Nov 20–Dec 1): Offered 40% off lifetime deals, promoted in-app and on deal sites. This led to my first $2K revenue month—users jumped on it, and word spread.
- Key Milestones: Hit 10K installs on Google Play by Nov 25. MRR jumped to $407 (+96% from $208), active subs to 341 (+99% from 171), and total revenue to $3,600 (+298% from $904).
- Community Feedback: Started crediting users in changelogs for their ideas, which sparked more engagement.
Someone even asked about acquiring the app—that was a huge morale boost. This kind of made me realize that others saw potential in the app as well and that I was on the right track.
December 2025: Polish and Preparation
As New Year's approached, I doubled down on making the app rock-solid. Focused on performance tweaks, bug fixes, and additions like lock screen widgets and automations. To further expand reach, I localized the app into 12 languages on December 30, just in time for global resolutions. This not only helped non-English speakers feel at home but also improved app store visibility in those regions, driving more organic downloads from Europe and beyond. December crushed it: subs to 697 (+104%), MRR to $840 (+106%), revenue to $4,743 (+32%).
January 2026: Resolution Season Explosion
The real magic hit in early January in the last few days. I launched on Uneed on Jan 1, snagging 2nd Product of the Day. With resolution hype in full swing, I've seen over 200 sales in the first two days alone. Active subs have jumped to around 900, pushing us past $1K MRR already. It's mind-blowing—habit apps thrive this time of year, and the combo of PPP and localization has supercharged its international growth.
Lessons from the Ride
- Listen to Users: Features like negative tracking and automations came straight from feedback—it's turned users into advocates.
- Time Your Moves: Black Friday and New Year's were game-changers; align launches with seasons.
- Build in Public: Sharing progress on X from November built a community and drove organic growth.
- Global Accessibility Matters: PPP pricing made the app affordable worldwide, unlocking sales from new countries. Pairing it with localization amplified that, making Habit Pixel truly inclusive.
- Fix Fundamentals First: Early onboarding tweaks fixed churn—test everything.
If I'd changed anything? More consistent public updates and track everything to understand what works v/s what doesn't.
Looking Ahead
Aiming for $5K MRR by mid-2026 with expansions like more languages and smarter insights. If you're into habit tracking, check out Habit Pixel on iOS or Android—your feedback could shape the next update!
Thanks for reading. Here's to building habits that last in 2026 🥳
Ask me any questions you have and say hi to me on X if you are there!
The changelog + feedback button was a master stroke — you solved the "is this app maintained?" clarity problem that kills so many products. But I'm curious: before users got to the changelog (i.e., when they first landed on your site), how did you make the value obvious enough to convert them to download?
Most products have this gap: users land → don't understand value → bounce. Your changelog solves post-download clarity, but there's still that critical moment of first contact.
We're building voice agents that guide users through products in real-time (demogod.me) — basically bringing your "Send Feedback" loop forward to the moment of curiosity, not after download.
Did you face the "landing page doesn't convert" problem early on? How did you bridge that gap?
To be honest, for a mobile app, which Habit Pixel is, I am not convinced that a landing page is needed at all - I feel it's just another layer ontop of the App Store listings.
What I've done instead is build a dynamic link habitpixel.com/get which redirects to the Play Store or App Store based on your browser user agent. If it detects you are on desktop, only then it sends to the main website landing page at habitpixel.com.
Once they are on the stores, there's much less friction to download as opposed to driving them to a landing page -> app store -> download.
It's a bit different from regular SaaS product landing page I would say.
The process of gradually improving the product while valuing dialogue with users was very informative. Thank you for this wonderful article.
Thank you! The single most important thing I did was implementing a changelog inside the app + slapping a "Send Feedback" button on it.
The changelog opens when the app updates + also convince new users that the app is being maintained and users are being listened to! 😄
The "listen to users" point hits hard. I just launched a dev tool this week and the feedback from skeptics has been more useful than any planning I did beforehand they're basically doing free consulting.
Curious about the PPP pricing, did you see any increase in refunds or abuse from lower-priced regions, or was it pretty clean?
It was pretty clean! I started getting sales from country which I never got sales from - so in my books, that’s a win!
Re. the listen to users part, my whole backlog is now feedback driven. The biggest change I made was putting a changelog inside the app which pops up on each version upgrade + crediting users for reporting bugs and asking for features.
Other users see people asking and getting what they requested and they hesitate less to email me 😁
It was a master stroke 😅
Love the transparency here. The slow early growth part is very real. We’re seeing similar patterns while building a small tool—feedback and small UX fixes seem to matter way more than big launches.
Totally, at the start MRR growth was very very slow. There have been days where I asked myself why am I investing so much time into the product with no visible progress for weeks, but then bang, there’s a jump.
Progress is not linear, it more short bursts of activity which causes a jump rather than steady progress 👌
Great write-up. I especially liked how you emphasized small habits and consistency over big hacks. It’s often the little incremental decisions — the ones that don’t feel exciting — that actually compound into real results.
One thing I’ve noticed in my own experiments is that the projects that stick long-term are the ones where the creator already enjoys the problem, not just the potential reward. That aligns with how you framed the process here.
Curious if there were moments when you almost pivoted entirely to something different, and what kept you going back to this idea?
Thank you! I haven't really had the thought of pivoting to something different at any point in time. At the start of this initiative, I told myself if I can't make some money off a habit tracker, then I would simply stop this indie hacking stuff 😅
The bit about marketing having delayed feedback loops vs the instant feedback in coding really hits home. Six months into building my own fintech SaaS and the hardest adjustment has been exactly that - you push a code fix, you see results in seconds. You write a post or send an email, you wait weeks to know if it moved the needle.
The in-app changelog with user credits is clever too. Turns your most vocal users into advocates basically for free.
The in-app changelog was one of the best moves I made. Firstly it allowed user to shape the app by providing suggestions. Secondly, new users tend to be more convinced that this isn't a dead app and the founder actually listens to users when they first download the app and check out the changelog history 😄
Congrats on the milestone — this is a great write-up and a really solid journey. Hitting $1K MRR solo in under a year, especially in a crowded consumer space, is no small feat.
The PPP pricing + localization combo is particularly interesting, and the way you timed Black Friday and January resolutions clearly paid off.
Quick question, if you don’t mind sharing:
looking back, which channels ended up being the most effective for you in terms of sustained growth? Was it mostly X/building in public, app store optimization, deal sites, or something else that surprised you?
Thanks for sharing such a detailed breakdown — super motivating to read.
Marc
Thank you! It wasn't a single channel - I would say you have to spread your luck surface area as much as you can. Having said that, X/building in public + cross posting to BlueSky + Threads + ASO (the app is ranked in the top 15 currently on the Play Store) + a good Black Friday strategy (planning in advance) + some small ad budget on Meta ($10/day)
The localization timing right before New Year's was a smart move. I'm building something similar but in reverse — aggregating Japanese tech blogs (Zenn, Qiita) and translating/summarizing them for English-speaking devs.
Your point about PPP pricing resonates. For content products, "accessibility" isn't just about price — it's also about language barriers. Japanese dev content rarely gets exposure outside Japan, even when it's high quality.
Curious about your localization workflow: did you use AI translation and then manual review, or go straight to professional translators? Trying to figure out the right balance for my own summaries.
Congrats on the $1K milestone — the "progress is not linear" insight is something every solo builder needs to hear.
Thank you!
For the localization workflow - I spent a LOT of time making sure the first alternative language was well implemented. The app was originally in English and the first language I decided to translate into was French since I speak it and I used Claude Code to have it extract everything into localizable strings.
I made sure not to miss anything. Once satisfied, I asked Claude Code to simply translate the key values in the localization files (JSON) into different languages while making sure it understands the context of where the words are being used and the app we are using those words in - it does an amazing job!
Adding a new language now is approximately 10 mins of work now with my workflow - I have a checklist which Claude Code mantains for where it needs to ensure translations are properly implemented (main app, widgets, etc.)
I hope it helps! 😄
This is incredibly helpful — thank you for the detailed breakdown!
The "context-aware translation" approach makes a lot of sense. For UI strings, context is everything. "Save" could mean different things depending on whether it's a button or a confirmation message.
The 10-minute workflow for new languages is impressive. I'm dealing with the opposite direction (Japanese → English), where the challenge is less about string extraction and more about preserving technical nuance. Japanese dev blogs often have a very specific tone — humble, step-by-step, lots of implicit context — that doesn't translate well with naive AI approaches.
Will definitely try Claude Code's checklist approach for maintaining consistency across content types. Thanks again! 🙏
This was really helpful to read — thanks for sharing it so openly.
I’m still very early and trying to understand what actually moves the needle, so the part about fixing onboarding before thinking about growth stood out to me a lot. It’s easy to assume marketing is the problem when clarity might be the real issue.
Also liked the honesty around tracking what works vs what doesn’t — I’m realizing how important that feedback loop is.
Quick question if you don’t mind: early on, what helped you more — improving retention first or seeing small revenue come in consistently?
Wishing you the best for the $5K MRR goal
Revenue coming in beats everything else while building the app. Once you have revenue you can actually determine if that revenue is staying and recurring and fix your retention.
It's a bit premature optimization to fix something (rentention) if you don't see any revenue coming in 😅
Congrats on hitting $1K MRR! The timing strategy here is gold.
A few things stood out to me:
PPP pricing was smart - Most indie devs overlook this. You essentially unlocked markets that would never pay US prices. The fact you saw immediate purchases from new regions proves there's demand everywhere, just at different price points.
Localization right before Jan 1 - Perfect timing. People searching "habit tracker" in their native language on New Year's Eve found you instead of competitors.
The "build in public" inflection point - You had 8 months of slow growth, then November exploded after you started sharing consistently on X. This pattern shows up again and again in indie success stories.
One question: How did you prioritize which 12 languages to localize first? Did you look at existing user data, or just pick the largest markets?
Thanks for the detailed breakdown - this is the kind of real data that helps other builders.
I choose to implement latin character based languages first based on countries I already got sales from with the goal of capturing more of the local market + also did extensive research on market size and purchase willingness on Play Store and App Store.
There’s languages like Korean, Japanese etc which I still need to implement but the font I choose for the app doesn’t support it - so there’s going to be some work here.
Even for the latin based one, I had to extend the font (Silkscreen) I use to include some Polish characters 😅
Smart approach! Starting with latin-based languages from existing markets makes total sense - you're essentially doubling down on what's already working.
The font limitation for Korean/Japanese is interesting. That's a detail most people don't think about until they hit it.
Thanks for sharing the specifics - this is really helpful for anyone planning to localize their app.😊
Super cool!
Thank you! 😊
Huge congrats on hitting the $1k mark! As a solo dev currently building my first tool, it's really inspiring to see realistic timelines like this (8 months) rather than the "overnight success" myths.
What was the hardest part for you: the coding or the initial marketing?
I have been a developer for a long time, so for sure the marketing part was hardest.
As a dev, you are used to immediate feedback loops when developing and debugging. It’s a hard mentality change to do marketing and possibly see your results after weeks or months. Takes some getting used to 😅
I am also a solo start-up entrepreneur, and I understand you very well. I have everything ahead of me! Thank you for the article! I like what you write about and the concept itself! You are doing a great job!
Thank so much! I’m glad you like it. I hope it brings some perspective on how long it takes to get anything meaningful out of a project when we are constantly bombarded by wins on social media from other founders 😅
That's for sure! 😅😅😅
I read this and immediately thought that I needed something like this. I installed and subscribed the app because I too am a developer and I like the Github like pixel visualisation of habits. Great work on the app!
Thank you so much! If you have feedback, do send me an email via the app feedback button 😉