My husband and I just launched 13-Virtues: A character tracker with a "Lifetime" model (Laravel/Vue)
Hi Indie Hackers đź‘‹
I’m Hélène. My husband and I (builders from Belgium) have spent the last few months building a side project called 13 Virtues, and we’re launching it today.
The concept:
The idea comes from Benjamin Franklin’s personal character system. Instead of tracking many habits at once, he focused on one virtue per week (Temperance, Silence, Order, etc.), cycling through 13 virtues over 13 weeks, then repeating the cycle. He documented this practice over many years.
We wanted an app that follows this structure strictly, not another flexible habit tracker. One virtue at a time. One day at a time. Repeat.
Trying it without friction:
We didn’t want people to sign up just to “peek”, so the ledger is interactive directly on the homepage. You can mark faults for today and see the current virtue with Franklin’s original quotes without creating an account:
Business model:
We deliberately avoided subscriptions. Franklin’s system predates SaaS by a few centuries, and a monthly fee felt wrong for something meant to be practiced quietly over years.
- Free tier: the full 13-week cycle and daily ledger
- Lifetime upgrade ($79 launch price): long-term history, guided reflections, data export, and a downloadable Modern Virtue Guide (PDF)
The guide is something we wrote ourselves to modernize Franklin’s original 1791 definitions and turn them into a usable daily reflection framework today.
Tech & build:
- Backend: Laravel 11
- Frontend: Vue + Inertia
- CSS: Tailwind
- Delivered as a PWA
Built over ~12 weekends. My husband handled the engineering; I focused on product and design.
We’d love feedback, especially on:
- Would you personally choose lifetime pricing over a subscription for a tool like this?
- Does being able to try the core interaction without signing up make you more likely to explore?
Happy to answer questions about the build, the business model, or what it’s like building a product together as a couple.
