My side project hit $10K MRR!
It took 2+ years of bootstrapping solo on nights and weekends, and frankly I did not believe I would get this far.
I remember an old tweet from Jon Yongfook about the idea of a community for $10k+ MRR founders. At the time, I felt like that would apply to me in approximately... never in a million years!
I marveled at what life might be like for guys like him, Pieter Levels, Danny Postma, Damon Chen, Dan Rowden, and Arvid Kahl, and admired the blend of skill and scrappiness they applied to build and scale real businesses.
But for me? No, that didn't feel like it was in the cards. The voice in my head would say I'm just a guy that likes to make stuff, not a "real entrepreneur" or startup founder.
And yet, here I am drafting THE UPDATE. The one on reaching the mythical $10k MRR milestone of indiehacking lore.
Initially I built https://projectionlab.com simply because I wanted a better plan for my own financial future. And the fact that so many others wanted that too came as a bit of a surprise! But when people signed up and started asking for new features, I put my nose to the grindstone. And kept it there for the past two years.
This is not a viral growth chart like you're used to seeing with all these new AI products, but here is a look at my journey so far:
→ 9 months to get to $1,000
→ 4 months to get to $2,000
→ 7 months to get to $5,000
→ 2 months to get to $6,000
→ 2 months to get to $8,500
→ 2 months to get to $10,000
Building PL as a side project has been a double-edged sword. It meant not worrying about survival, but it also meant making sacrifices and prioritizing my time ruthlessly.
It forced me to focus on tasks that actually moved the needle, but also came with some side effects I am not as proud of:
- Less and worse sleep
- Rarely have time to visit family
- Have not been to the gym in months (just bike + calisthenics at home)
Still, nothing matches watching a passion project blossom into something real that can make a small impact in the lives of people you've never met. And it may come at a price, but it does feel good to put those early feelings of imposter syndrome to rest. (well, mostly)
As I look ahead to what's next, I wonder if now is the moment I should start dedicating a more formal percentage of my time. e.g. if I could drop to 75% or 50% at my day job, how many of you think that sounds like a good idea? Let me know in the comments!
Let me just say this: you're awesome for being so kind, sharing your journey, and being "this person" for so many others in our community right now :D
Thanks so much Arvid! There have been a lot of ups and downs along the way, and at times it has felt like a real grind. But being able to take something that's just an idea and manifest it as a real thing that makes a small impact in the world is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything :)
Thanks so much for sharing this post, I really needed to hear a story like this to help keep me motivated. I've been sloooowly chipping away at a side project for 2 years, we are getting there but little reads like this are really needed.
Looks like a great product, huge congrats on tour success! Keep pushing to the next milestone 💪🕺
Congrats! Your landing page and product look really cool.
Also, the achievement is huge! Remember to also take care of yourself and reward yourself for the amazing results!
Thanks for sharing your story, it's inspiring to see what you've achieved.
You mention ProjectionLab being something you wanted to use yourself, and I'd be interested to know if the personal desire to see this project had much of an impact. Have you found it easier to motivate yourself? Has it helped or hindered when thinking about how other people might want to use the product? If you were to start again would you look to find/interact with potential users earlier?
I'd also love to know how you've managed to be so productive. Any tips for choosing technology, workflows, etc that allow you to iterate quickly whilst ensuring costs don't snowball?
Thanks Adie! Honestly, if I didn't have the burning desire to use the tool for my own life planning, there's no way I could have mustered the motivation, consistency, (and obsession) required to get it to this stage.
Something I definitely should have done earlier is build a community and audience. I didn't even have an email list you could sign up for until like version 2 or 3 😅
Choosing a tech stack that played to my existing strengths helped a lot with efficiency and kept me from tripping over architecture / technical scaffolding.
Congratulations! Which did you find the hardest jump out of interest (e.g. $0 - $1,000 or $1,000 to $2,000 etc.?)
Probably the 1k-3k time frame, since that's when I spent several months (with nearly flat growth) working to transition from MVP stage to something more robust.
Given that hindsight is a wonderful thing, do you think you would've done anything massively different to what you did in that phase?
I think that work was necessary to support scaling up further, so maybe not(?) But of course if I could clone myself and have the clone work on growth/marketing in parallel, that would be nice 😂
amazing! congrats man!
Any top 3 advices for someone who started several months ago on side project?
You did it the right way. Self-funding side-hustle with 9-5 job until your Revenue per Employee is right. $10K MRR is a great starting point to start growing!
Congrats and much luck Kyle!
Thanks man! Not sure yet what the next stage really looks like, but I guess overall that's a good problem to have 😂
Huge congrats!
I’d ask myself if more time is actually going to result in better product/growth. Something I’ve come to appreciate about some side projects is that they actually get elegance and simplicity correct.
What is behind making the growth go faster?
Well there is an overflowing backlog of feature requests 😅
But I think the big thing PL needs at this point is a more consistent growth engine. Not yet sure what the best strategy is there.
You're obsessed, and it's beautiful!
Sometimes I wonder if it's even possible to bootstrap a profitable solo business without a little obsession and paranoia 😅
Congrats, and thanks a lot for sharing your experience with such humble writing :) The only question I have is that have you considered quitting your daily job and work on full-time on your side project - considering the growth rate and potential.
I think if I was already financially independent or was planning to never have kids, then that would be a no-brainer. But as it is, I'm a little hesitant to take that plunge too early. Might try to phase into it more gradually by reducing hrs to part-time and seeing how that balance feels.
Congrats!
Landing page looks beautiful! How did you make it? did you use any specific templates?
Thanks! And no templates, custom built with Vue.js and Vuetify. Plus prerendering with vite-plugin-ssr
This is awesome and super inspiring for someone starting their journey to build a profitable side project.
In terms of reducing day job hours, I think that sounds like a good idea, as you seem to have found some product market fit and it would be just about finding 1 or 2 scalable growth channels.
Can I ask what your main growth channel has been so far?
Thanks man! Mostly just posts to HN / Reddit and word-of-mouth growth so far. A little more detail here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/building-marketing-kyle-nolan-of-projectionlab-5k-mo-on-focusing-on-product-over-marketing-3b38edfe22
Nice - cool getting shout outs from pretty huge personal finance blogs definitely plenty more of them out there.
I weirdly thought there’s kinda a B2B element here as an employee benefit, I’ve been offered financial advice/planning as part of employee benefits. Either going direct to the companies or partnering with employee benefit companies like PerkBox or Ben. Might make acquiring customers easier…ignore me if it's a silly idea.
Does sound like potentially a good idea. Currently no clue how to get after it though. I've always imagined enterprise partnerships as being the kind of thing you might need a sales team for(?)
Yep maybe - all about prioritising I guess
Congratulations on hitting $10K MRR! I have a question. Your prices are $9 and $45. Have you always used these prices during your journey or have there been any changes to your pricing?
Thanks! Initially I had no idea how to price a product and started out way too low. Over the past two years, I've increased prices a few times, but always kept existing users grandfathered in to their original rates.
Thank you! You just confirmed that I am on the right path.
I can say the same thing to you guys
Congrats on the milestone! I appreciate that you gave us a breakdown of the financial journey along the way to show how long it took to hit new milestones. Also, checked out ProjectionLab... great product + priceless value to customers. Keep going!
Congrats, Kyle! This looks hard earned and like the tool we don't deserve :), how are you celebrating?
It looks like you definitely got more efficient over time, especially in the last few months. ...Do you feel like you had to escalate what you did each month to move the needle up?
To your other question, in the beginning, did you have a # after which you could quit your day job or scale back? If 10K hits that mark, then I'd say maybe give it a month or so to see if you can do less and still hit the 10K, then start to drop some of your day job. If you can, you could probably use a 100% break to recalibrate, even if it's just a few weeks.
Amazing!!! Well done!
How did you validate the product? How did you market it?
Thanks.
Thanks! A little more detail here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/building-marketing-kyle-nolan-of-projectionlab-5k-mo-on-focusing-on-product-over-marketing-3b38edfe22
Thanks, man! Very helpful.
Thanks for sharing your journey. Im currently building Pivotlar a platform to manage WP hosting and Im curious to know some of the strategies you have used in the validation stage of your product. Thanks in advance
Congrats man.. super impressive. Site is so clean, tidy, and performant. Is your 9-5 in finance?
I’ve been curious since joining a few weeks ago if anyone here was working on (non-ai) b2c apps, esp finance. Seems like most are building tooling for other entrepreneurs.
hey thanks! day job is software engineering, unrelated to finance. had to pick that up on my own.
Congrats Kyle on the rev milestone ! Respect the slow but genuine organic growth you've had with PL between 0-2k MRR and the features from the couple of finance blogs. Inspired !
thanks David!
Wow, congratulations on reaching the incredible milestone of $10k MRR with Projection Lab! Your journey is truly inspiring and a testament to your hard work and dedication. It's amazing how your side project has grown into something that resonates with people and addresses a real need.
Actually, I still have a question, What challenges did you face during the two years of bootstrapping and working on Projection Lab as a side project? How did you manage to overcome those challenges and stay motivated?
Congrats on this milestone!!! Throughout your journey of building Projection Lab, what has been the most unexpected or rewarding moment for you so far? Would love to hear about any surprising insights or moments of personal growth that stood out along the way!
The tool you created and the story behind it, pretty amazing. Now you are an inspiration for all of wannabe indie hacker. Strength to you.
Congratulations on the big milestone. This is great inspiration for me and I'm sure many others on here. This is something I really want to do as well, to start a side project, bootstrap it and grow it until I can start tapering off my hours at my day job and put more and more time into the side project and eventually making the side project my full time project.
I'm only in the idea phase right now but I still love seeing success stories like this. Helps keep me going. Keep up the great work.
Congrats man and thanks for sharing. This is really inspiring.
Landing pages are awesome. Could you plzzz help me out to make such leading pages for my website
I coded these from scratch in Vue.js, but sounds like you might want to check out Framer.
I see I'm not the only one inspired by Jon Yongfook success story, despite not liking him too much.
You are really inspiring me. And when I opened PL site, it felt like I hit a gem. Very pleasant&clean looking landing page and something I could use by myself. I'll have a look at it, thanks.
To answer your question, you did a good job. Now start prioritising your own life and health :)
Thanks Martin!
Congratulation and more power to you
Inspired! Thank you for sharing!
Congratulations, Kyle!
Congrats! Less time definitely means more prioritization and a more ROI business-oriented mindset. Well done Kyle
Congrats!!
Congrats. That is awesome!
Congrats mate ✌️
thanks Stefan!
Congrats
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This is so very cool! Congratulations on your growth!
If I might add my 2 cents here - have you thought of opening up an affiliate marketing program for your product to do a little bit more marketing? You can do a small beta run with those members who've been with you for a while.
Just a thought. Ignore me if it's not in line with what you're building. :)
Thanks! I did actually spin one up recently (in the footer on the landing page).
Congrats
Congrats!
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