Why I started Alerty
by Michael PfisterHey Indie Hackers,
Just like many of you, I quit my job last June with the dream of bootstrapping a cash flow positive business.
After taking a few months off traveling the world and taking time to recover from burnout, I rediscovered my inner curiosity and started getting excited about what could be next.
I've started out building several apps with a few simple goals: To meet other entrepreneurs, learn about and utilize emerging tech, build a solid community of supportive friends that I can share my expertise with, have fun, and hopefully get to ramen profitability.
Right now my current personal burn isn't sustainable– I have about 12 more months of runway to explore building my ideas. I'm focused on building SaaS apps that generate enough revenue to live sustainably and work for myself. I know, the dream, right? I'm splitting my time between building my own ideas and freelancing software development.
Alerty is a web app that allows anyone to send real-time push notifications to their phone with little to no code. One perk of being a home-screen web app is that you can customize the app icon and title, giving you the perfect look for notifications. Alerty is integrated with Zapier, so it's really easy to start sending notifications around your pre-existing workflows with little to no code.
I started Alerty because I wanted a way to monitor keywords on the decentralized social network Farcaster. By getting real-time alerts when keywords about apps I built were mentioned, it allows me to be super responsive to potential users of my apps.
I managed to get Alerty featured in Macstories by providing relevant and timely information around the iOS 16.4 launch, which added support for Web Push APIs, which Alerty is built on. I kept the momentum going with posts on Hackernews and a launch on Product hunt as well.
So far I have 237 users and ~60 MAUs, but no paying customers yet.
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I was looking for the "Download on the App Store" button and suddenly realized it was the new web push feature. I guess many people don't know it exists or haven't updated to 16.4 yet.
How about adding an "Install on my phone" button to quickly let the users try it out, by sending an "Installed successfully" notification which redirects to the sign up page.
BTW, have you traveled to Bangkok,Thailand yet? 😆 @levelsio says it gives 1 year of runway https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1634617450041057280
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Thanks for the suggestion! I think improving UX around installing on home-screen can definitely be improved.
I did see levelsio mention that! Maybe I'll have to move there in 6 months if I'm still on the same course 😄
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hi Michael
Thanks for sharing your story. You say you have a 12 months runway, is that with/without the freelancing software development? Hopefully, there is a way for you to work just enough so that you have an indefinite runway.
Congrats on the 237 users, which is already great.
I have always been doubtful if building apps is a way to an independent life. Apps sell for such a low price that it must be hard to get to 10K MRR which would be a comfortable income. Webapps that add value easily sell for a few 100$ in which case you only need 100 customers to get to the 10K.
Does that make sense?
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The runway is without freelance income. Totally agree- I'm hoping to make enough freelancing around 30-40 hours a month that offsets my expenses, leaving time for building my projects.
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Wow, if you can get unlimited runway with 30-40 hours a month, which is basically like only 1 day a week, that should give you ample time to build some great product!
I feel success is coming your way!
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