Scaling to $5k MRR as a solo developer

Deploying an effective tech stack is always harder than it seems.

It's even more challenging as a solo indie founder.

We interviewed indie hacker Harvey from GrowForm - a multi step form builder optimised for lead generation - about their tech stack and the challenges they overcame on their journey to $5k MRR.

Below are some of the key takeaways

GrowForm’s Tech stack

• Heroku - Harvey considered going with AWS but chose Heroku because, as a solo developer, time is more precious than money - "paying for simplicity". Harvey would like to move away from Heroku in the long run, but only once he feels confident on the DevOps side.
• React - widely supported. So far been Harvey has been very happy with it, and hiring won't be a problem.
• Node.js - Harvey knew a little JavaScript and as a bonus there is not much context switching between frontend and backend.
• MongoDB
• RabbitMQ
• Better Uptime - they call Harvey when GrowForm goes down

What could GrowFrom have done differently?

Harvey would have focused on bundle size from day one. Since GrowForm is optimised for lead generation, GrowFrom must be as fast as possible, and bundle size is now a critical aspect.

Were GrowForm affected by Heroku's recent issues?

Yes. Previously GrowForm had a nice connection between GitHub and Heroku. Heroku maintained the OAuth tokens - all Harvey had to was merge into main branch, and Heroku put GrowForm live.

But because of the security incident, Heroku broke the connection - and still haven't turned it back on yet (as of interview time).

It's not hard to navigate around it - Harvey put together a GitHub action. But it did take some time to struggle with how to fix it. Harvey suspects others have also had this issue.

In Harvey’s words, “to find yourself paying for Heroku but writing YAML files is not really where you want to be”.

Plan for downtime

Every company has downtime - even if you're Facebook or Amazon. GrowForm's customers rely on GrowForm to earn money via lead generation, so when things go down, for Harvey it can be "so stressful it makes you feel like you want to sell the business and be done with it".

But when in an emotional state, Harvey has some advice:

• Don't panic; take a breath - imagine you are breathing through a straw. Get yourself in the right state of mind to solve problems.
• Don't start changing things when you're freaking out. E.g. don't attempt to move your whole app from AWS to GCP on a whim.
• Go on Twitter and see if anyone else is having issues with Heroku, AWS etc.
• Look into the logs to figure out what's going on - it might be something outside your control completely

Additionally, Harvey advises that founders prepare themselves for when things go wrong in advance.

GrowForm uses BetterUptime to monitor its services. BetterUptime calls Harvey's mobile - bypassing aeroplane mode etc., so Harvey knows quickly when things go wrong.

Did GrowForm face any bad actors?

Yes, even at an early stage.

One example is when spammers exploited an endpoint to send emails from GrowForm’s server.

Harvey was quick to shut down the 'change email' endpoint, implement email authentication, and quickly solve the problem. Indie hackers have an advantage in being nimble.

If you enjoyed this, listen to the full interview with Harvey