From full-time job to full-time maker and back to a job again — with a side hustle

Mattia Righetti went from full-time job to freelancing to building products, and now he's back to a full-time job — with a side hustle. He launched BlackTwist last year and is currently bringing in $2k MRR.

Here's Mattia on how he's doing it. 

Scratching his own itch

I'm an indie maker from Italy. I studied IT back at school, then worked as a graphic designer for a while, turned freelance marketer for six years, and finally took the leap and started building little projects on the internet.

Over the years, I've built and launched several projects; some flopped, some paid the bills, but all of them taught me something.

I started small with info products related to Twitter because I knew a SaaS would take a while to make money. I marketed them on Twitter, and sold them through Gumroad, which made me about $2.5k, but burned out three months in and spent most of 2023 off recovering.

After that, I tried a newsletter and sold sponsorships. Then I built an AI tool which I recently discontinued (it made about $1k total before shutting it down).

Finally, in 2024, I started BlackTwist out of personal frustration — that's always the case with my ideas and projects. My cofounder and I noticed Threads creators were flying blind. Meta’s own analytics were broken and nobody really knew what was working. So we decided to fix it and help creators manage and grow their Threads accounts. We basically built the tool that we wished existed.

I was living off savings for a while to make it happen, and was about to launch an MVP service, when I got approached for a Product Manager position and I took it. Removing the money pressure off my shoulders was a good choice because we've more than doubled our MRR since then.

Today, BlackTwist is currently at about $2k MRR.

Validating via pre-sale

We validated the need for BlackTwist with a simple pre-sale on Threads.

We announced the product and opened a waiting list in mid-May 2024. By the end of May, we added proper branding with domain, name, and logo. By mid-June, we opened a private pre-sale to people on the waiting list. And one week later, we went public with increased prices and limited spots.

By July 1st, we officially launched the product with 38 customers already on board. It still blows my mind what we did in just two weeks and four emails. To give you some numbers:

• 120 subscribers on the waiting list

• 70%+ average open rate across all emails

• 18 "early" lifetime deals + 1 agency plan ($199)

• 38 customers total

• $3.7k in pre-sales before writing a single line of code

That initial momentum made all the difference! Here's the full pre-launch story.

Building the MVP

We built the MVP with NextJS, Prisma, and shadcn/ui: simple, fast, and nothing fancy.

The first version had just two things:

• A basic writing editor to draft posts

• A calendar to see all the posts scheduled

A few weeks later, we added a dashboard with the limited data that the Threads API gave us.

The goal was to get it in front of people fast and see if they cared.

Early users gave tons of feedback that shaped what we built next, mostly on improving the scheduling, UX, and what metrics to show. They were really just requesting what other social media tools already had, but it improved their experience and helped us to get a foot in the door.

Today, our stack is NextJS, TypeScript, Prisma, PostgreSQL, Vercel, shadcn/ui, and Claude. Still lightweight, just more refined.

Visibility is make-or-break

I'd say distribution is always the hardest part of building a product. It might seem obvious, but visibility is what makes or breaks your journey.

You can build the best product ever, but if nobody sees it, it doesn’t matter.

For BlackTwist, we grew mainly by showing up on Threads itself. We already had a 30k+ following on X (combined), so we kinda knew what we had to do there.

"Building in public" is not a post-and-they-come strategy. It means:

• Sharing sneak peeks and videos of your product

• Asking questions to understand your audience's needs

• Showing your progress — for example, in finding the name and domain, or building the features

• Being transparent about your numbers, successes, and also failures

• Being part of the community every day

Word of mouth helped too. Creators started recommending us to each other. We haven't done much to push that, we made something people loved enough to share it organically. And I guess that's the trick: Make a really good product.

We also share revenue with affiliates, both free and paid users, who bring others in.

Overengineering

If I had to sum it up with one lesson: Don’t overthink it.

It's easy to get stuck planning the perfect feature, UX, messaging, or launch. But none of that matters if no one finds value in what you've built.

Keep things light, and ship even if it feels half-baked or crappy.

As a perfectionist, I find it super challenging. But you’ll learn more from ten real users than from ten days (or ten weeks) of planning.

I procrastinated and "planned" this life for 6 years before starting, and I regret not doing it earlier.

Now, I'm moving quickly. And for BlackTwist, I could say that shipping fast, even if imperfectly, has been our biggest advantage.

Parting advice

Two things I’d tell anyone starting out:

1. It’s cliché, but talk to your users. Every single call, DM, or email has taught me something that moved the product forward.

2. Don’t underestimate momentum: Even small projects that go nowhere help you learn and compound over time.

What's next?

Our goal with BlackTwist is to become the go-to tool for Threads creators. Right now, we're focused on reaching $5k MRR, and longer term, we'd love to achieve $500k ARR within the next 2-3 years.

Personally, my goal is pretty indie: to grow sustainable, profitable products that give me the freedom to keep building.

You can follow along on my personal Threads or the BlackTwist Threads account and my personal blog. And check out BlackTwist!