Bootstrapped to 100 Million drawings processed with a .NET monolith (Solo Founder)

Hey Hackers! 👋

I wanted to share a massive milestone that took 8 years in the making. My bootstrapped web game Drawize just processed its 100,000,000th drawing.

The Backstory: I built this in 2017 initially for a developer contest (Tizen). I didn't win. I almost abandoned the project. But I saw some organic traction, so I kept it running on the side.

The "Covid Spike": In 2020, traffic exploded by 600% overnight. I was a solo dev with a "boring" tech stack, watching my analytics map turn green as countries entered lockdown.

The Stack (Cost: ~$300/mo): Everyone told me I needed microservices to scale. I ignored them.

Backend: .NET Framework 4.8 Monolith (Legacy!)

Realtime: SuperSocket (Raw WebSockets, no SignalR overhead)

Database: MongoDB + PostgreSQL

Infra: 2 Bare metal servers (Contabo)

The Business: This project has been my primary source of income for the last 5 years. It’s not a unicorn, but it’s a profitable, sustainable lifestyle business that allows me full freedom.

The Chart: The visualization of the journey from a hobby project -> global viral spike -> sustainable business.

Happy to answer any questions about handling high concurrency on a low budget or sticking with "boring" tech!

Cheers, Tomislav