Working on your project for several months? Share it with us
Hi Indie Hackers, I'm Miguel Espinoza 👋
I’m the creator of TurboNav a tab manager to help you stay focused and organized throughout your day, all powered by a command-line experience.
I’ve been working on this tool for several months now. 9 months to be exact, well if we want to be technical 4 months part-time and 5 months full-time. Suffice to say, progress has been slow, but steady. This isn’t a post about what I should do next, asking for help, or making a mistake, this is a post to gather other indie hackers that are on the same boat.
I have a plan to launch to a wider audience, you see I built a free tab manager, but have plans to build premium features on top. I’m aiming to greatly differentiate from the rest of the tab managers. So steadily working through the list. I’m close, very close.
On occasions though, I start to wonder if I’ve spent too much time, and if it’s a bad thing. Maybe, but maybe not, maybe that’s a good thing. I’ve come to realize I’m a slow thinker and can overthink which could be bad at times, but I try to see the positive in things. Maybe overthinking and slow thinking is my superpower!
I’m not on the same spectrum as others, people who can build MVPs in a month and launch. I’ve come to realize that’s fine. I’m fine going slow, but moving with intention. I do realize the importance of validating your idea and so that’s what I plan to do next, launch to a wider audience. If this fails, I’m ok, after all, this is a tool I’m building to scratch my own itch.
So that’s where my headspace is. Are you working on a product that hasn’t launched yet, but you’ve dedicated a great deal of personal time to get it ready for prime time?
Share your product, how long have you been working on it, and what’s left?
Let’s all get to the finish line! ✌️
Hey Miguel, thanks for sharing
People expect SaaS to grow fast, but I think that's more the exception than the rule.
Back in June 2021, I launched katlinks.io
I've been working every day since then to help it grow. I'm almost at $500 MRR. The last few months have been a little bit slow, but I'm happy with the results so far.
Slow and steady can also win the game 🎉
very good point, I agree
thanks for sharing a bit of your journey Roberto and yes slow and steady absolutely wins the game!
you got an awesome product here, it's great to hear about other devs that are slowly growing their products and are happy with the results. Keep on pushing forward Roberto! 🚀
Hi @miguel
Many people seem to have issues with tabs. I never do. Strange.
https://skilledup.life went live on 1st Aug 2020. It was hard convincing people to join in the early days. Took me 176 days to onboard the first 100 volunteers. Now we add the same number in 2 to 5 days.
We now have 3,688 Volunteers from 76 countries. All free once subscribed. We charge for access to our product but not for free talent.
I'm building on public - see https://skilledup.life/metrics
All the best with TurboNav. Feel free to get in touch if you like to know more about us I am building this specially for bootstrappers. manoj.ranaweera@skilledup.life
Hi Manoj, I guess you're one of the lucky ones!
thanks for sharing a bit of your journey. It's an interesting concept, I can see how this can help people early in their tech careers to gain experience and exposure in the industry.
also, cool that you're sharing your company metrics in the open. I always enjoy seeing other founders who share their progress in the open. Helps inspire the ones who are just at the beginning of their journey
Keep on pushing forward Manoj! 🚀
Thanks. We are all lucky in our own ways. SkilledUp Life is from 18 yrs to until you die. See my own team https://skilledup.life/about Most of these individuals have day jobs. Only two are students. Some have kids and taken time off but want to keep the brain functioning.
for sure, that's awesome! you definitely have a growing team.
congrats on your progress so far 🎉
Hey Miguel, thanks for sharing.
I too am building in Public and building a SaaS product that is an alternative to Google Photos with the emphasis on privacy and data protection. It also has an aspect of social interaction where you are able to comment and love photos/videos with your family and friends.
Been working on my product for about a year or so. So far its in beta mode and I am looking to see if this is a MPF. If not, I will need to either pivot or find something else.
Its definitely been a fun process and a great learning experience!
cool deal Kloak, sounds like an interesting product.
how close do you think you are to launching?
I am still deciding if I should make it available to the public. Everything is up and running and functional. At the moment its invite only by users so still trying to figure out the logistics but the app is functional!
Let me know if you want to give it a shot!
oh nice, what's holding you back from simply going live?
I also thought about making my product invite only, but figured instead to label it as beta, so that's where I'm at now
Not sure to be honest. Maybe cause its not good enough or maybe cause of the LLC? (i think my worry is about lawsuit but i hear its not a problem till you grow)
You think its wise to just go live?
I hear you, I've seen many examples here on IndieHackers where the only way to get to where you want to be is to ship, even if you feel you're not ready or it's not good enough.
The only way you'll know if it's a good product is to get feedback, this validates your assumptions about the problem you are trying to fix.
I see how privacy could be a concern, I'm no lawyer, so I don't know the specifics about lawsuits, but it's likely not a problem for early projects like ours. But definitely do your due diligence, for example for me, I've designed my tool to be local first. So I'm not handling any personal information that could backfire and somehow be misused by bad actors.
Once I have a cloud feature, I plan on adding encryption to cover privacy for users.
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Give it a shot, if it's all functional, launch it and see what's next for you in your journey! Let me know when you've launched it, I'm happy to support another fellow indie hacker!
I will let you know when we launch! Thanks for your support @miguel!
awesome! sounds great, looking forward to seeing your launch
Thanks Miguel! I finally launched this afternoon. We'll see what happens!
that's awesome! definitely share your experience here on IH
I've been building RoastMyStartup for past few weeks ( Not several month). Although I'm at this point where I'm done with feature building and it's time to focus on the marketing otherwise I will loose my interest continue working for this project.
Let me tell you the project that I'm working on first and then I will tell you about what left in the building side. The project is all about leaving feedback. I always see landing page feedback post in IH and other places. So I decided to make it in the central place. I'm not sure this idea works or not but I like to try it.
I've one more idea that I planning to build which is "Get paid for leaving feedback to other people posts". Again not sure if this user wants but I think this will encourage new people to leave feedback and people will keep on comings so...
cool stuff Raja, no doubt feedback is very important, especially in the early days. I've been very grateful actually for the early feedback I got for my landing page right here on IndieHackers a while back.
Sounds like you have an MVP ready to start marketing and validating the problem, sounds exciting!
Looking forward to seeing your progress Raja