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I'm Going Full-time on Software Ideas! ⭐

It's been just under 10 months since I first launched Software Ideas, and I'm happy to announce that I'm going full-time on the project!

Software Ideas began with my own search for my next SaaS product. After my first SaaS, CoderNotes (~$150 MRR), I realized that I wanted my next product to be in a market that already had a lot of money changing hands.

I wanted to find niches in markets where I thought a bootstrapper could compete and win, so I started doing tons of market research.

I quickly realized that this research wasn't only valuable to me, but to any founder who was serious about finding their next profitable business idea, so I took some of my early research and formatted it into a post here on IndieHackers, as well as on places like Reddit and Twitter, to see if I was right in thinking it was valuable research.

As of today, that post has over 24,000 views on IH alone!

That's when I realized that this research-based approach was something people wanted. And after some pre-sales, I also validated that it was something people and were willing to pay for, and I decided to explore it as an actual business, putting my plans for my next SaaS on hold temporarily.

Five months later, Software Ideas was pulling in 10k MRR!

Around this time, the demands for Software Ideas became much more challenging than they had previously. Early on, it didn't take much to run Software Ideas week-to-week, for two reasons:

First of all, there were fewer customers. I try really hard to respond to every subscriber who personally emails me, asking additional questions about the opportunities discussed in the newsletter, looking for my opinion about their marketing strategy, etc.

And in the beginning, this meant only a couple of in-depth emails per week. But as Software Ideas grew to over 500 paid readers, it took a lot more of my time to manage customer questions.

Secondly was the double-edged sword of improving the Software Ideas newsletter.

The first newsletter had 1,218 words in it. These smaller newsletters were easy to write, taking me only 10-15 hours.

Issue #44, one of the more recent newsletters, had 8,306 words! This is a great thing for the product because I'm providing far more value to readers. Still, the extra time was destroying my ability to get done everything I needed to for Software Ideas to succeed, particularly on the marketing side.

All of this combined meant that it was time to take the leap - Software Ideas needed more of my time, and it was making enough money to cover my immediate expenses.

So back in March, I gave my employer a four-week notice.

You might be wondering, "Wait, why are you posting now if this happened in March??"

Well, I plan on writing more about this over the next few days, but the short version is that both my significant other and our dog both happened to get seriously ill at the same time - both ending up hospitalized and having some pretty expensive medical bills.

I plan on writing more about how much of a blessing it was to have my freedom during what's been the most trying time of my life, but the reason I'm posting this milestone today is that things are calming down - my significant other is feeling good enough that I don't have to be a full-time caretaker, and our dog is currently stable.

This means that I finally have time to re-focus on why I went full-time in the first place - to focus on Software Ideas!

To those wondering why I've been pretty quiet for the past couple of months, this is the reason. But I'm back for good (fingers crossed), and I'm excited to start sharing how I plan on growing Software Ideas even further!

  1. 2

    Congrats, Kevin! Amazing to hear this.

  2. 2

    Congratulations, Kevin! That is amazing news.

  3. 1

    Wooo congrats Kevin, thanks for all the inspiration!!

  4. 1

    Congratulations Kevin. It's great to see things are going well for you.

  5. 1

    Awesome man, well done 👏🏼 I'm a fan of the SI newsletter, keep up the good work!

  6. 1

    congrats! keep going!

  7. 1

    Congrats, Kevin!! Glad things are getting better too!

  8. 1

    Woohoo! Congrats Kevin! 🚀

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