First SaaS revenue: March 23, 2026 (27 years maintenance → founder)

**The Background:**
- 27 years as a maintenance supervisor
- Not a career developer
- Saw AI transforming our field
- API costs were crushing exploration

**The Build:**
- Started: ~February 2026
- Built: Nights after work (over a month)
- Tech: Node.js, Express, Electron, SQLite, Stripe
- Deployed: Fly.io (backend), GitHub Releases (desktop)

**The Launch:**
- First live payment: March 23, 2026, 10:10 PM EDT
- First customer: Me (testing live flow)
- First license: SAAS-72F9E12F8A885C90 (email delivered!)
- Current status: Live, 60% cache hit rate proven

**The Numbers:**
- Pricing: $4.99/month, 14-day free trial
- Plan: Starter (3-device limit)
- Savings: 20-40% typical (60%+ on repetitive workloads)
- Goal: 1% of OpenAI customers (~1,000 = ~$5K MRR)

**The Product:**
- Smart caching proxy for OpenAI API
- Mac + Linux builds
- License protection
- Real-time analytics

**What's Next:**
- Product Hunt launch (today!)
- Social media push (today!)
- v2.0.1: Total saved calculation, enhanced analytics
- v2.1.0: Multi-model caching, social media automation agent

**Live:** https://github.com/adamday75/ai-optimizer-app/releases/tag/v2.0.0
**Product Hunt:** https://www.producthunt.com/posts/ai-optimizer-v2-0-0