Month 1: 4 customers, $60 revenue, and everything I learned launching a $15 QR code tool

I launched OwnQR in early March. Here are the real numbers after one month.

The problem: Small businesses pay $30-40/month for dynamic QR codes. Cancel the subscription and your printed QR codes die. I thought that was broken.

The solution: Pay $15 once, own your QR code forever. Change the URL anytime, get scan analytics, custom design. No subscriptions.

Month 1 results:
- 4 paying customers ($60 total revenue)
- 11 registered users
- 80% free-to-paid conversion (4 out of 5 users who created a free QR code ended up paying)
- $0 spent on marketing

Who is buying:
- A transport company
- A candle business
- A Google searcher who made 4 free codes before upgrading
- A student using it for personal links

What worked:
- Organic Google search (even with DR 0)
- The free-to-paid funnel. Let people make free static QR codes, then offer the $15 upgrade when they need to edit the URL later.

What did NOT work:
- SEO is painfully slow. 264 blog posts published, only 10 keywords ranking, all on page 4+
- Reddit post got auto-filtered (new account, low karma)
- Zero AI citations (competitor has 363)

Biggest lesson: I spent 80% of my time building features. But 80% of the results came from the one thing I did NOT build — distribution.

Next month goal: 20 orders. Plan: technical articles for backlinks, directory listings, community engagement, and GSC URL submissions.

Happy to answer any questions about the pricing model, tech stack, or anything else.