After 20 Years, my First Sale

In September 2003 after stopping my previous job, I decided to go full time on writing a new software: a file manager named Ant Commander.

After a few months of full time working on it, I released the first version in May 2004 as shareware.
It got a few downloads but no sales. Nevertheless, I still continue in week-ends and evenings to work on it and improve it regularly. 9 releases including 2 majors in about 10 years. Still no sales.

My focus then shifted in writing and improving other software that also don't sale that much. See japplis.com for the list.

After many year as freelance Java developer, I decided 4 years ago to either stop doing this on the side of my work or go full time of it. I decided for the later. So I created a desktop application framework, migrated most of my software to this framework, created even more software and still no sales (< $ 200 a year).

After this, 1,5 year ago, I went to pick up my biggest software: Ant Commander file manager. Here is why:

• It's the software that I created that I use the most often (almost daily) in the last 20 years. So I'll have at least the 1 customer (me).
• Being proud of the software I create is important for me and I can control it (unlike sales)
• It can bring a lot of time saving/value for many companies
• Competition is also indie hackers (not counting the default Apple & Microsoft file managers as competition)
  So in June 2023, I released the major refactoring with version 4.0 and since then many changes in each release almost monthly.

Finally today someone bought a license of Ant Commander Pro, making it my first sale.