I just sold my first-ever startup, Summify, for $30,000!I

Hey indie hackers, Ray here.

Summify started as my weekend project last October. I only knew how to code and nothing else. But I wanted to be a solopreneur.

The journey was long and hard, but the lessons I learned were invaluable.

The Beginning:
I didn’t do any validation ( I didn't know even what is validation )
I built Summify because I needed it myself - Scratching my own itch.

I just built it and ship it and posted it on Reddit hope for the best. ( this was my first post on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/indiehackers/comments/16xxxm9/i_made_a_youtube_video_summarizer_app_what_do_you )

Three days after launching, I sold my first subscription This was a good sign that people wanted my product.

But I quickly learned that knowing how to code wasn’t enough at all.

I had no marketing skills.
What are feedback channels?
Should I reply to all emails?
How do I deal with angry customers?
Churn rate? what is it?
How do I set up ads?
Where can I find customers?
And so much more…

I soon realized I had a lot to learn. I started reading articles, founder stories, technical documents and so many other things to learn all the basic details of how to do what.

I went with trial and error approach, Just read and test live in production with live users.

Every experience taught me something new, especially What I should not do.

It took Summify three months to reach $500 MRR. It might have been slow growth, but I didn’t mind. I was happy even making $5 MRR because I was learning so much.

After eight months, Summify hit $2,500 MRR and then settled around $1,500 MRR.
The End
11 months later:
Over 15 million minutes summarized for 29,000 users.

Summify got acquired!

Looking back, selling my first indie project was a dream I didn’t know I could achieve in the first year.

Bottom line:
Don't overthink it, Just ship it, ignore social comments.

I love Reddit, I read Reddit everyday, but with some caution. Reddit sometimes could be super negative on some topics. when you start to build something new, you are so fragile and unsure of what you are doing, reading some sort of negative comments will drain your motivation.

Now, I’m more eager than ever to keep building and learning new things, I'll do build in public for my next project, If you are interested, you could find me here

keep shipping!