How I got 2 sales after a week ?
As someone who loves experimenting with projects, I’ve built a handful of websites over the years. Some were side hustles, others just fun experiments. None of them had ever made much money, though. But with my latest project, MassInvoices, something different happened—I made 2 sales in just one week (~$98). Here’s how it happened.
1. Leveraging Traffic From My Other Sites
I currently run about 20 websites, which collectively get around 100,000 page views per year. These websites are in various niches, and while none of them are massive traffic generators on their own, together, they’ve become a valuable asset.
When I launched MassInvoices, I decided to add a link to it on all of my sites. Whether it was in the footer, a sidebar widget, or a dedicated blog post, I made sure visitors to my other projects could discover it. That’s how my first customer found me! It turns out that leveraging existing traffic—even if it’s modest—can work wonders when you’re just starting out.
If you’re running a new project, don’t underestimate the power of cross-promoting to an audience you already own. Those small streams of traffic add up.
2. Solving a Real Problem
The second sale came after a realization that’s been a game-changer for me: this is the first tool I’ve built that solves a real, painful problem.
As someone who uses Stripe to manage payments, I’ve always been frustrated with how tedious it is to download invoices—one by one. It’s a process that wastes hours of time for businesses that need to keep their records in order. When I looked for a tool to bulk-download Stripe invoices, I couldn’t find any. So, I built MassInvoices to do exactly that.
MassInvoices lets Stripe users download all their invoices in bulk, saving them hours of work. The feedback I’ve received so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and that’s because it genuinely addresses a pain point that people are desperate to solve. Plus, as far as I can tell, there aren’t any alternatives out there. I might not be the only one who’s thought of this, but for now, I seem to be the first to bring it to market.
Lessons Learned
Here’s what I’ve learned from these early results:
If you have traffic, use it. Even if your audience isn’t perfectly aligned with your new project, you never know who might need your solution.
Solve a real problem. Tools that save time or money, or eliminate frustration, practically sell themselves.
Look for underserved niches. Finding a gap in the market where no one else is competing is a huge advantage.
I’m excited to see where this goes. It’s still early days, but these small wins are incredibly motivating. If you’re working on your own indie project, I hope this story inspires you to keep building and experimenting. You never know what might work until you try!
