One year of Indie Making, starting from zero: 18 apps, $100k+ revenues. My learnings
I generated over $100,000 from my apps in my first year.
I learned to code in May 2022 and shipped my first app in September 2022 (the 1st in the list). I had only one year of savings in front of me.
👉 In total, I shipped 18 apps in the last 12 months, some failed, some succeed.
Here is a list of each app I made, and the reason why each succeeded or failed. (I also added some general tips at the end).
App 1: Moli-R
An AI blog writing tool. Launched ads on Reddit and got 2 customers ($30 MRR), but then ads tanked. I shut it down a couple of months ago after the last customer churned.
App 2: Galeby
Customer service AI chatbots before ChatGPT was even a thing.
I gave up too quickly and people didn't know the whole AI stuff, so they didn't understand the project. Fun to see "AI chatbots" are mainstream
App 3: Kursus
More a fun project, didn't promote it that much, and people didn't use it.
App 4: MyAIPainting
Wanted to mix e-commerce with generative AI, Launched with a waitlist only, big mistake. Always do pre-sales instead of waitlist.
App 5: MyAIPortrait
The AI avatar hype blew up so I tweaked the previous project. Same mistake launched with waitlist only, terrible idea.
I tried to run ads but the general population wasn't familiar with AI avatar back then, so it completely flopped.
App 6: DnD AI
Was supposed to be a Twitch AI game, but never launched.
App 7: PhotoRestore
Made my first pure organic sales from it, literally by making an app someone asked in Twitter comments. It was just an app to restore old pictures using AI (new back then).
However, the pricing was too cheap to be worth anything. Made something like $100 from it & moved on after.
App 8: Open For Ads
Still active but not really updated, got lots of users but no monetization model yet. I'm pretty sure that if I kept doing manual outreach I could have made it work. But opportunity cost.
App 9: MakeLogoAI (big success)
Made $20,000 in 3 months then sold it for $65,000 because I didn't have the skills to improve it. It was successful because of timing.
Back then no one was doing AI logos, AI was new, so it generated a massive hype. I got the product at the right time.
And this is a completely underrated way of getting traction. Timing is HUGE.
App 10: The Indie Marketer
Free marketing course, got some users but received almost no feedback after people took the course so I moved on.
App 11: Ads Profit Calculator
Still active, it's a free tool but doesn't get much traffic.
App 12: Galeby v2
Customer Service app using pre-made templates with a Chrome extension. Got a couple of customers ($100 MRR) but churn was high, and the product provided little value so I dropped it.
App 13: Who Is The AI
Small online game, no one used it.
App 14: Brand Kit
Didn't launched
App 15: CoworkMaps
Just a list of coworkings using Google Maps + community to get ratings on stuff like internet speed, etc. Was hoping to rank it with SEO, didn't rank properly, still active but not touching it.
App 16: Scrap
Ai Webscrapper, lots of issues but still making a couple of sales
App 17: Undisclosed app
Planned to run it using ads only, didn't really work out, then moved on when the account on FB got blocked.
App 18: TalkNotes.io
Making a couple of sales, and trying long-term strategies for it this time.
As you can see, most of the revenues come from one single app that I sold. $80k is enough to survive a few years where I live.
You can fail as many times as you want, but you only need to win once.
When you're starting out, don't get attached to your product, it likely won't generate any $. Try everything you can to promote it, then move on if it doesn't work.
If you made $0 online, your only focus should be to make $1. Then $10. Then $100.
Forget SEO and all the other long-term stuff, you'll give up before you see any $ from it.
Instead, focus on getting small wins fast, it creates momentum and will give you the motivation to continue.
Send cold emails. Post on Twitter. Launch ads if you have enough $ for it. Underprice your product.
Do whatever you need to make those first few bucks, and it will become easier and easier.
Additional links/resources:
- My Twitter (link)
- How I made my first organic sales with PhotoRestore, written in real time (blog post)
- The story of how I made MakeLogoAI and sold it, written in real-time (blog post)
- How I made $1500 of sales in 20 days with TalkNotes.io (Indie Hacker post)
- My process to ship app fast (twitter post)
