Year 1 reflection

On April 6, 2021, ChatKitty got its first paying customer. At the end of April 2021, our monthly recurring revenue was $45 USD.

A year later, invaluable insights from customers have helped us grow our product and the business supporting it. We’ve added new features, launched a new video/voice call product, grown our customer base, and increased our MRR to $3,889 USD with over $50,000 USD in revenue since launch.

In 2019, I quit my comfortable software development job at an amazing company to take a risk working on an idea my best friend and I had since university. That didn’t work out the way I expected and after a global pandemic no one saw coming, I began to wonder if I had made the right decision. Fortunately, I had an incredible partner, @August_BK, who believed in me and a great team supporting us. In May 2020, during the lockdown, we made the decision to pivot, and with the knowledge, skills, and experience we acquired. I couldn’t be happier we’d made the decision to persevere.

Reflecting on the journey until this point has been instrumental in keeping me motivated and focused on what’s important. Bootstrapping a company isn’t easy, but having the opportunity to use my talents to help people build great products has been a worthy reward. After two years, filled with uncertainty, our customers and the amazing team I get to work with have been my North Star. In the past year, I've learned so much about creating and growing a startup. I’ve learned about marketing, sales, pricing, customer success, and the importance of customer feedback and iterative product development.

I couldn’t be more excited for the next year of ChatKitty. I look forward to focusing all of next year on ChatKitty - building more features for our customers and getting our product in front of as many people as we can.