Staying close to customers and hitting $16k/mo

Phuc Le was tired of building products for other people, so he started building his own. Now, SEO Utils and Ring Tonicare bringing in a total of $15.8k/mo.

Here's Phuc on how he did it. 👇

Becoming a founder

I'm a full-stack developer turned indie founder. After years of building products for others, I started building my own.

I'm currently working on SEO Utils, a desktop-first SEO app focused on speed, privacy, and one-time pricing. I'm also building Ring Tonic, a subscription call-tracking and analytics platform that helps businesses understand where their phone calls come from.

I handle most things myself, from product and engineering to support. And I focus on shipping fast and building based on real user feedback.

Currently, SEO Utils is at ~$10.4k/mo and Ring Tonic is at $5.4k MRR.

Building based on demand

I built SEO Utils because I was frustrated with how expensive and subscription-heavy most SEO tools were. I only needed a subset of features for my internal team, so I built my own tool using the DataForSEO API. It worked well and solved our problems, so I eventually decided to polish it and release it publicly.

For Ring Tonic, the motivation came directly from SEO Utils users. Many of them asked for a call tracking tool built with the same philosophy: simple, affordable, and developer-friendly. Something where they could plug in their own Twilio API key instead of paying high monthly fees. I built it based on that demand.

Shipping fast and staying independent

I started by building the minimum I needed for my own use. No roadmap, no marketing — just solving real problems. I handled everything myself: backend, frontend, data processing, and UI.

Once the core features were stable, I shared them with some SEO groups on Facebook, listened closely to feedback, and iterated quickly. The product grew from real usage rather than assumptions, which helped keep it focused and practical.

Choosing a stack I know well has been a big advantage. It lets me ship fast, fix issues quickly, and stay fully in control as a solo founder.

Here's my stack for SEO Utils:

• Go

• Vue

• TailwindCSS

• Wails

• Python

And for Ring Tonic:

• Laravel

• InertiaJS

• TailwindCSS

• Vue

Build in public sooner

Building in public and staying close to users has been my biggest advantage.

I focus on Facebook groups, X, LinkedIn, and email lists from some free tools I built and shared with SEO communities.

The frequent updates and clear changelogs in my Facebook group, for example, have built trust and kept users engaged. And the direct feedback that I receive there and on my other socials has helped me prioritize the right features.

Most of all, though, it drives word of mouth, which is my biggest driver of growth. Over time, happy users recommended the product to others.

If I were starting over, I would build my audiences first, talk to users sooner, and invest in marketing much earlier instead of assuming a good product would sell itself. I'd still build the same way, but I'd share the journey sooner and more publicly.

Scratch itches and focus on small improvements

Here's my advice:

• Start small and build something useful, even if it’s not fancy. Solve a real problem you personally have, or build a feature you wish an existing product had. That’s how both SEO Utils and Ring Tonic started.

• Talk to users as much as possible until you truly understand what they need from your app. Build features based on real user problems, not just what you feel like building. Once you understand your niche and your competitors, you will have a much clearer direction for your product.

• If competitors already have a feature, don’t be afraid to build it too, but focus on better UI/UX and small details. Minor improvements in workflow can save users a lot of time and make a huge difference in how valuable your product feels.

What's next?

From here, I plan to continue shipping and grow revenue.

You can follow along on X and LinkedIn.