KTool

💰 $592 revenue (+13%)
💸 $748 MRR (+7%)
🤑 91% margin

👨‍💻 10k visitors (+20%)
🧑‍💼 446 new signups (+27%)
#⃣ 4.46% (visitor → signup)

💳 11 new subscribers
😢 4 churned
#⃣ 2.46% (signup → subscriber)

#buildinpublic

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Overall, it was a slow month.

I was pretty frustrated when my experiments didn't seem to move the needle.

So I decided to spend less time on KTool and more time exploring new ideas.

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I still managed to run a few experiments though:

✅ Bring back freemium + added more social login
→ signups increases from ~90/week to ~160/week
→ conversion to paid still low though

✅ I did a second attempt at paid ads
→ results were pretty bad, $100 spent, 4.5k impressions, 177 clicks, 0 signups

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I booked an SEO service (AI-powered). The result is ok-ish.

I updated one of my most visited blog post and publish a couple more.

SEO is a slow game, but I started to see the progress.

Below is non-branded keyword search for KTool

Open startup update (Feb 2023)

💰 $525 revenue (+42%)
💸 $702 MRR (+13%)
🤑 $636 profit/mo

👨‍💻 8.3k visitors (-14%)
🧑‍💼 352 new signups (-16%)
#⃣ 4.24% (visitor → signup)

💳 16 new subscribers
😢 3 churned
#⃣ 4.55% (signup → subscriber)

#buildinpublic

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1. Successful experiment: extending trial period to 30 days

After a slow January, growth seems to be improved.

My most notable change last month was extending the trial period to 30 days.

It's a successful experiment: the signup → subscriber conversion rate almost doubles (from 2.4% to 4.55%)

2. Product improvement

I spent the majority of February to address customer requests: bug fixes and general product improvement.

Customer LTV increased to $143, MRR churn down to 1%

It's tempting to drop wisdom here but TBH I have no idea why 😅

3. Leaky funnel

I continue to fix my leaky funnel.

✅ Improve onboarding flow (easier to set up)

✅ Simplify pricing

⬜️ Suggest relevant content so users would send more

The pricing redesign sparks some interest, both from Twitter and Reddit.

One strategy I think could work is to share more about technical side of building KTool.

Not entirely sure, worth a shot though.

4. KTool was mentioned on Lenny's Podcast

One big win last month: KTool was mentioned by Patrick Campbell on Lenny's Podcast 🤯

It brought maybe ~60 new users, which crashed my server a dozen times 😅

5. What did I fail?

Enough of the wins. What did I fail?

❌ I didn't write a single blog post

❌ Haven't started paid ads experiment yet

❌ Haven't launched on Product Hunt yet

But it's ok, I wasn't feeling well in February anyway 😅

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That's a wrap

I hope this has been useful to you. Thanks for following my journey ☺️

If you're on Twitter, join my #buildinpublic journey. I shared my bite-sized startup growth lessons there.

And if you have a Kindle, give KTool a try. It helps me learn sales and marketing in record time!

💰 $1201 revenue (+43%)
💸 $473 MRR (+36%)

👨‍💻 10k visitors (+15%)
👁️ 13k page views (-13%)
🧑‍💼 398 new signups (+15%)
#⃣ 3.98% (visitor -> signup)

💳 31 new subscribers
😢 3 churned
#⃣ 7.8% (signup -> subscriber)

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1. The struggle

Although the metrics look good, it's not the time for celebration yet.

I was quite struggling with growth earlier this month.

KTool was growing at 70% MoM the previous months. Then it suddenly stalled.

I was super stressful and barely able to work (don't be like me)

And this is when being part of the indie hacker community helps.

Got a lot of support from Tony Dinh and Phillip Youngg. Thank you 👊

2. The Black Friday week

Things only started getting better on the Black Friday week.

I prepared and promoted KTool pretty well during the week.

Will write more about it later.

3. The leak

But it doesn't hide the real problem that I need to fix my leaky marketing funnel.

4. Taking actions:

I talked to my users and learned a few things.

— My onboarding flow is still complicated for some users

— Most people don't need "unlimited articles" and find the $60/yr too high to justify

— Users aren't aware of the "extend trials" functionality

Started to fix these problems.

5. Takeaway

My takeaway for this month: Always be aware of your shortcomings even when you're winning.

I'm super close to my goal this year: $500 MRR.

I'm confident I could reach it in December, hopefully no customers will churn this month 😅

4. What's next?

My plan for December:

— Fix the leak obviously

— Ship the RSS feature

— Prepare for Christmas season (running deals similar to Black Friday)

— (still unsure) launch on Product Hunt?

That's a wrap

I hope this has been useful to you. Thanks for following my journey ☺️

If you're on Twitter, join my #buildinpublic journey. I shared my bite-sized startup grow lessons there.

And if you have a Kindle, give KTool a try. It helps me learn sales and marketing in record time!

💰 $840 revenue (+13%)
💸 $349 MRR (+65%)

👨‍💻 8.7k visitors (-56%)
👁️ 15k page views (-56%)
🧑‍💼 345 new signups (-47%)
#⃣ 9.7% (visitor -> signup)

💳 28 new subscribers
😢 4 churned
#⃣ 8.1% (signup -> subscriber)

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1. Switched from Freemium to Free Trial

Although the traffic was not as good. The conversion rate improved significantly!

I'm not sure if this was because of switching from Freemium to Free Trial 🤔

2. Big improvements:

I spent the majority of October talking to users and improving the product. I introduced 2 big features:

— Bundle articles into personal magazines
— The all-new mobile experience

Both got super positive feedback from my users. Some decided to upgrade just bc of those 2 features

3. Improve pricing:

I also improved my pricing:

— better messaging
— 2 new subscription plans
— localized pricing
— increased the base price by 20%

That's probably why the number of subscribers doesn't growth much but MRR increases by 65%!

4. Start doing "real" SEO 😆

I launched KTool blog section after postponing for so long.

So far, nothing to report yet (obviously). Maybe check back 6 months later 😆

5. What's next?

My plan for November:

— Give full effort to the newsletters & RSS support. Way too many users are asking for this

— Prepare for Product Hunt

— Start reaching out to newsletter authors, for a partnership/affiliate program

I hope I could reach $500 MRR in November 🥹

That's a wrap

I hope this has been useful to you.

If you're on Twitter, join my #buildinpublic journey. I shared my bite-sized startup grow lessons there.

And if you have a Kindle, give KTool a try. It helps me learn sales and marketing in record time!

I've reached my revenue goal for October 🥳

What I've learned from this month's growth?

— Revenue is a lagging indicator. I got many sales from people who signed up in previous months.

— You probably should not build new useless features. But definitely improve your product following feedback from your paying customers.

Many users subscribed to KTool this month because of the new features: bundling articles into personal magazines.

What's next?

I'm betting on 2 experiments this month.

— I switched from Freemium to Free Trial starting October

— I put a big bet on mobile app. More and more users asking for a better mobile experience.

If you're on Twitter, follow my #buildinpublic journey 👋

💸 +$100 MRR (+103%)

👨‍💻 11k visitors (-33%)
👁️ 21k page views (-16%)
🧑‍💼 660 new users (+68%)
#⃣ 6% (visitors -> users)

💳 25 new subscribers
😢 3 churned
#⃣ 3.8% (users -> paid)

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September was great for KTool. I started to get more sales from my earlier marketing efforts. I like the term "bus arrival effect" (learned this from Ana Bibikova) — after the trial run, people seems to realize KTool's value and decided to subscribe.

Marketing activities I've done this month:

1. Built a free tool and launch on Reddit + Facebook Group

2. Continue to improve ASO

3. I started to engage more on LinkedIn and seeing some traction there.

Monthly update for KTool (August 2022)

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💸 +$73 MRR (+386%)

👨‍💻 17k visitors (+580%)
👁️ 25k page views (+400%)
🧑‍💼 392 new users (+200%)
#⃣ 2.3% (visitors -> users)

💳 16 new subscribers
🤩 0 churned
#⃣ 4% (users -> paid)

August was my best month so far. I got lucky and KTool reached Hacker News front-page.

I posted about the aftermath here: https://twitter.com/daniel_nguyenx/status/1564495484898590720

Thanks for your support 🙏

Today marks an important milestone for me 🤯

KTool just reached $600 ARR 🥳

My expense is $547/year. KTool is now Default Alive 🔥

The marketing channel that keeps working pretty well: Twitter

The marketing channel that starts to gain traction: AppStore & Chrome Web Store

Thank you all for your support 💖

KTool reached 700 users today 🥳

It usually takes a month to acquire 100 users, but this month it only took 12 days 😍

I think the reasons were my Indie Hackers post, my talk at a tech event and the recent "publicity"

Thank you for your support! 🙏

Hello Indie Hackers, I'm Daniel and I've been building ktool.io on the side for 6 months. I just reached $3,000 LTD sales and currently at a modest $24 MRR.

Here are my key learnings:

— Validation is important. Even if you're building a product that is already on the market, do talk to potential customers to learn why would they use your product.

— Use the stack you're most familiar with. It's fine to build a side project to learn new tech. But in my experience, learning new techs while building a side business usually increase your time-to-market.

— Be consistent and don't stop tweeting about your product. With a little bit of luck, your first customers will come.

— Try to nail one channel before jumping to another. By focusing on Twitter, I got social proof built-in. People see my build in public journey and it builds trust. Also, don't afraid of self-promoting your product

— Pricing is hard. Don't afraid of testing it constantly.

— Twitter is wonderful if you know how to do it right. Also having a supportive community is super important. I'm grateful to receive so many support from the community 🙏

— You will make mistakes. Learn from it and improve in the future.

I shared more details in the other post below 😁

https://www.indiehackers.com/post/3-000-ltd-sales-24-mrr-600-registered-users-after-6-months-building-ktool-on-the-side-this-is-my-story-8f8f200f95?utm_campaign=forum-notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=indie-hackers-emails