What It’s Really Like to Launch a Project as a Solo Dev
I launched my project a little over a week ago and realized something: launching a project isn’t hard — the hardest part is getting people to visit your website.
We all have ideas, but how do you find the people who will actually be interested in your product?
Long story short, I launched sitefolio
, a website that lets you answer 5 questions and instantly get a ready-to-use portfolio. I created it because I was too lazy to update my own portfolio, and in the end I built a tool that does it — and lets you have one easily too. It’s really useful for interviews or simply to showcase your projects to recruiters. Feel free to check it out, it might be useful to you
Back to my solo-dev reflection: there are many ways to get your product noticed. The fastest ones are usually paid, and I didn’t want to spend too much before validating the product.
So I posted it on different platforms:
Product Hunt → total flop
Indie Hackers → where I got my first visitors
And recently Reddit → one post got 3,000 views and brought almost half of my traffic
Honestly, I recommend Reddit to promote your projects and get your first feedback.
Speaking of feedback, I received a lot — positive and constructive — which helped me improve the interface. I also noted other suggestions that I’ll implement over time.
Revenue-wise, I’m at $0 for now.
But I think I learned something that will prove itself over time: at first, I let people buy the code for the portfolio template so they could host it wherever they wanted, modify it, and add whatever they liked, for $19 (market price). What I didn’t realize is that most platforms selling templates already have a reputation, so they feel more trustworthy than a developer like me who just arrived.
So I put my ego aside and lowered the price to validate the product and see if people are actually willing to pay for my work.
I’m continuing my solo dev project, and I’ll keep sharing updates on its progress. It’s fun to build something on your own, manage every aspect, and watch it evolve. I’m only at the beginning, and I’m not in a rush — I’m not aiming for a huge viral spike, but steady growth over the next few months.
