I built W-9 Crafter, a very tiny app that made $300 on day 1, and here's how I shipped it!

Hey y'all!

I just shipped an app called W-9 Crafter that generates Form W-9s for U.S. contractors and freelancers in a single click.

I first “pitched” this app in Discord way back in 2021 when I was complaining about how I have to make W-9s for all of my various contracting clients and newsletter sponsors, and the form information is always the same except for the date.

I stewed on that for a while, and then learned that the Form W-9s in the U.S. were being updated March 2024, and figured it was prime time to actually build a generator for Form W-9s!

I very much built this app in public. It started as a web app, and then an Electron app, and then I converted it to Tauri (on my livestream!) for space efficiency.

After that, actually launching it was on my livestream as well! On my stream I released:

What was cool about doing it all on the livestream was that I asked the chat what discounts each platform should be given, and everyone was quite engaged! I think it was motivating for people to see it happen live, and also encouraged customers as well.

I know $300 isn't a huge amount for day 1 sales, but this is the first time I've ever actually sold an app I've built myself after giving my software away for free for over a decade, so this is really exciting for me.

If you'd like to check out W-9 Crafter, you can see those links above, or go straight to the sales page and use code INDIELOVE for an IH discount!