Idea to First Sale in 4 weeks: My solopreneurship story

I can't wait to tell you all about how I came up with ShipThat.App and the ups and downs along the way. There's even a surprise happy dance at the end!

On September 14th, I decided to take the plunge and got myself access to Shipfa.st. A little over a week later, on September 23rd, I found my inspiration and came up with a great product idea to accelerate iOS developers shipping their apps. I even snagged a cool domain name for it, shipthat.app!

By October 1st, I was already showing the world a sneak peek of my idea with a landing page and began collecting names of interested iOS developers for my waitlist (got 24!)

A week later, I made my commit for the Xcode project. At least this is what git log is saying. 😅 Coding work had started a few days before that. I had a simple plan laid out in my Apple notes about the features I wanted and how I'd make them happen.

I was aiming to launch on Product Hunt by October 24th, giving myself a tight three weeks to build and launch the app.

Unfortunately, I hit a snag with Product Hunt because of some issues with the app's ownership and a mix-up with my custom email domain 🤪, so I had to push the launch date back a week to October 30th.

Juggling this project wasn't easy — I was working my regular 9 to 5 job, spending precious time with my family, like reading stories to my 5-year-old daughter before bedtime, and then staying up late to work on the app without turning into a zombie the next day.

The new launch date, October 30th, happened to fall during our family holiday in Italy 🇮🇹. I was adding final touches to the project while on a train from Venice to Rome. I wish someone had taken a 📸 of that moment!

I stepped up my marketing game compared to my first launch. I used a launch checklist, engaged with X followers (~70 at the time), emailed the waitlist, drafted first comment for ProductHunt, and really focused on the visuals to show how my product would solve problems for users

Launch day was a Tuesday morning, and it was exhilarating to see positive feedback and comments coming in on Product Hunt. 🥹 Funny enough, I totally forgot to share it on ProductHunters' Reddit. 🤦

The real icing on the cake came on a Friday evening after returning from Italy. I got a notification — my first sale. 🥳🥹🏆 Plus, I received a ton of helpful feedback which led to some emergency bug fixes to improve the experience for other customers

I was beyond excited about this first sale—I was literally dancing 🕺with joy at home!

Now, I'm focusing all my energy on marketing and selling this helpful tool to other developers, that is saving over 50hrs of development.