Launching countless apps until one gained momentum and hit $3.3.k MRR

The most common trap I see is founders treating the 'countless failed apps' phase as a waste of time. Looking at your path, the pivot isn't just in the product, but in how you frame your own capacity. When you're working a 9-to-5, every hour spent building a feature that doesn't solve a burning pain is a tax on your mental bandwidth. I learned the hard way that moving to $3k MRR usually requires killing the 'developer' mindset where you ship for the sake of shipping, and moving to a 'validator' mindset where you stop building the moment the feedback loop suggests low intent. How did you distinguish between a product that needed more time versus one that was simply a non-starter for your target audience?

Six tries before one clicked really resonates — I just shipped my first small tool and already feel the pull to second-guess it. What made you keep going after the ones that didn't gain traction, instead of walking away?

This is inspiring for me as I am going through your initial experience where I am building and turning out some solid products and ideas but really haven't just focused enough on one as I get too excited and come up with other ideas. I need to get your focus to buckle down and put energy into one project rather than between my 20+. Getting traffic to my sites has also been extremely difficult. I've tried reddit a few times but posts can get banned so easily, even when following rules or many require you make a ton of posts first.

Love this. The grind is real. Countless apps making $0 before something finally clicks. That's the part people don't see. They just see the $3.3k MRR and think it happened overnight. Building on nights and weekends with a newborn? That's insane dedication.

The Reddit idea hunting approach is underrated - communities there are literally telling you exactly what they pain about. Curious how long you sat on that idea before actually building it out?

I can relate to this. There’s something different about building your own product and seeing real people use it. Even the failed projects teach you what eventually makes the right idea click.

Cool.

Great breakdown. Growth rarely comes from one magic tactic.

It usually comes from testing the right business model, pricing, landing page, trust signals, and distribution until the whole system starts working.

The Reddit part is interesting too: organic works best when there is already real intent.

I really enjoyed reading this. I think the most interesting part is that the breakthrough didn't come from the first idea, but from continuously building and learning from the previous attempts.

I'm especially curious about the AI side — since LLM costs became 90% of your expenses, what was the biggest optimization that helped you reduce costs while keeping the lead quality?

The volume approach can work sometimes as in this case. Other times it can be an impediment to success where the founder doesn't fully engage with each idea before abandoning them or cannot give each idea the maximum attention and effort they require. Kudos to Jakub

The custom plan detail is the buried lede: 30 buyers designing their own package is the market telling you there is a higher tier you have not priced yet. I would interview those 30 before touching anything else, they are your roadmap and your next price point. Price acting as a trust signal is a pattern I have watched for two decades, it filters out the wrong customers before revenue ever enters the picture.

nice, very informational

Inspiring and informational for me because I've recently launched a new product and facing issues in getting the clients. But this stuff is really helpful

good writing

I love how your own product became part of your customer acquisition strategy. Finding people who are already actively looking for a solution feels so much smarter than simply increasing the volume of cold outreach. Very interesting business, and even more impressive that you're building it alongside a full-time job and a family. Congrats! <3

I've read his reddit post 1 year back. He was telling like he got 3 or 4 paying customer that month. Really happy to see the progress he made. Appreciate his consistency and transperancy.

Really I liked your workflow. Additionally i learned something very important thing which is pricing. Specially by " If you price it too cheaply, there's a certain threshold where trust decreases, and it feels low quality. People bounce before even trying it.".

Interesting journey. The validation process behind this caught my attention. Getting revenue quickly usually means the problem discovery phase was strong. Curious: what signal made you confident this was the right problem to pursue? I'm exploring how founders discover opportunities before building.

Great work keep consistent

I think in the world of indie hacking nowadays distribution is far more important than developing. You can develop a great product but if you dont focus on distribution you will get stuck.

And I think that was the main reason your initial apps would have failed too.

Great reminder that consistency and experimentation can eventually pay off. Launching repeatedly and learning from each attempt is a powerful way to find what works.

cool stuff!

Really inspiring journey. What stood out to me most is that the breakthrough didn’t come from endlessly polishing one idea — it came from shipping repeatedly, learning from each attempt, and recognizing when something finally showed real momentum.

$3.3K MRR is impressive, but the bigger lesson is the persistence and speed of iteration behind it. Curious: looking back, were there any early signals that made you realize this app was different from the previous ones?

This is a great reminder that momentum often comes from volume and iteration, not from nailing the first idea. The Reddit-native "help people who are already asking" approach for lead gen makes a lot of sense, since it skips the cold outreach problem entirely. The landing page iteration list is also genuinely useful for other builders to reference. Wishing you a smooth transition out of the 9-to-5.

Great article!

What's most fascinating to me is that it was momentum gained from sending out a lot of ideas — not momentum gained from getting the first idea right.

It's a good difference between creating a lot of things and jumping from idea to idea. When each firing provides you with a better idea of the market, pricing, acquisition or positioning, the unsuccessful products do a valuable job.

I also liked the emphasis on business model and pricing based on actual use, as well as business model, when I saw the real usage.

One could get so caught up in the decision making process that one spends too much time getting it right before anyone has even used the product.

After that many experiments, it is worth noting that a volume of $3.3k MRR is a pretty good example of how shipping volume can lead to better judgments.

Really appreciate how transparent this is, especially the pricing section. The point about cheap pricing lowering trust rather than boosting conversion is something a lot of early founders learn the hard way I've seen the same pattern with SaaS products where dropping the price actually increased churn instead of reducing it.

The shift from freemium to a 7-day paid trial with CC upfront is the real unlock here though. It's a good reminder that "more signups" isn't the goal "the right signups" is. Curious how you're thinking about scaling the Reddit channel without it becoming saturated as more people copy the same post format. Are you diversifying distribution yet, or doubling down on Reddit since it's still converting well?

Congrats on crossing $20k gross solid proof that shipping many small bets eventually compounds into one that works.

The useful lesson here is that the winning product was not the first idea—it was the one with a clear trigger and a reachable audience. I like that you treated the seven-day trial and pricing changes as experiments rather than beliefs. For a side project with limited hours, I’d track one activation event before optimizing conversion: the moment a user sees a lead that is specific enough to contact. That should tell you whether the product is creating value before trial length or price muddies the signal. The Reddit distribution loop is also unusually strong because the channel contains the pain, not just attention. As you move toward leaving the 9–5, which metric gives you more confidence: recurring revenue, the number of customers who would notice if Leadverse disappeared, or the repeatability of acquiring the next ten customers?