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๐ŸŽ‰Hit $100,000 ARR in just over four months!

I'm a little late on posting this, but just recently Software Ideas hit $100,000 in ARR!

This is mostly a vanity metric, but it's still really cool to see the newsletter hit 6 figures!

I think the biggest take away from my story is that it's possible to see these kinds of numbers in just a few months' time. There's nothing special about me, I just happened to find the right mix of a product that people are willing to pay for and a number of channels for people to find out about the product. That's all it takes!

Next up - $10k MRR!

  1. 6

    How Did you find First 10 Paying customers?

  2. 2

    Congrats, this is big.

  3. 2

    Congrats, Kevin!!

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    Congrats man! Great job, I ve been a customer of softwareideas as well :) The reports are great and very detailed, you also helped me believe more into the idea of downsizing and building products that exist but by focusing on other segments of the market.

    By the way I am curious about the channels you use. I personally found you on indiehackers.com and twitter.com but I've no clue if you have any other channels that perform well :D

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      Thanks! Your support means a ton to me.

      Here are a list of other channels I've explored so far, other than the two you mentioned:

      • Cross-promotion: Not great for me as a paid newsletter, since it's usually better to promote my own product compared to someone elses

      • Sponsoring other newsletters: So-so for now. Seems to have some ROI, but I've paused these in favor of other opportunities

      • Podcasting: I have a podcast called First Time Founder, and I've done multiple podcast interviews. These always turn out some new customers, but it's been hard to track! Still not completely sure on this one

      • SEO: This one has been a clear winner. Doubling down on this channel

      • Word-of-mouth: Obviously I don't directly control this one, but when a fan shares the site with someone else who will benefit from it, it's a huge way that my newsletter grows!

      Some other channels I'm exploring soon are:

      • Referral program

      • Affiliate program

      • Google ads, PPC, remarketing

      • More private communities, groups, etc. I think Reddit would be a great place, but I hate the negativity there and HN, so I avoid it.

      My philosophy is this: When starting out with an idea, you need to find at least one reliable way to get your product in front of people. From there, you need to try a lot of things and figure out what sticks!

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        I'm 99% sure that your search traffic isn't "real" SEO traffic but rather branded searches. If that's the case, you shouldn't double down on it, but rather on the sources that generated that brand awareness. Probably people who saw Software Ideas on Twitter or IH and later searched for it on Google.

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          There is a large number of that, but I'm talking about specific long-tail keywords that the site has ranked for naturally

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            Oh you mean keywords like โ€œbusiness software ideasโ€ or โ€œniche saas ideasโ€? Thatโ€™s really good!

            Now you have two options: optimize the homepage to include them or create specific pages/posts. Since your homepage is already ranking for those terms Iโ€™d probably just start by optimizing it.

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        Can you share a bit how you approached SEO? From looking at the site, there are just a few pages, including two blog posts which aren't that long.

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          Same question I had. Not a lot of content is open for indexing from the website.

          The only thing I noticed is the domain name, people are searching for "software ideas" with about 300+ searches a month and the domain is in the top position.

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            The site is naturally ranking for some nice long-tail keywords, looking to double-down on these in the next couple of months via more/better blog posts!

      3. 1

        Really cool to see which channels people are using, and your findings on effectiveness of each - thanks for sharing!

      4. 1

        Thanks so much for the feedback man this is very enlightening and clear <3

        I totally agree on your approach and it's interesting to see that SEO pays off. I am currently creating UX courses for indie developers and had my first sales through my mailing list and twitter account. I also use indiehackers.com as a channel to showcase and share my work.

        In the future I also want to invest into SEO a lot, it's a great channel that doesn't require you to be active and post things every single day, so I feel it's a great combination with the other active channels.

        Cheers and keep it up!

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    Been a subscriber for a while now. Rotor is the brainchild of Issue #4 ๐Ÿ˜‰

  6. 1

    congratulations!

  7. 1

    Your success with Software ideas is one my biggest inspiration to keep in working on my ideas.

    Congrats brother.

  8. 1

    That's crazy! Congrats man. ๐ŸŽ‰

  9. 1

    Massive news Kev... congratulations. Get some pizza and celebrate ๐Ÿ•๐Ÿ•๐ŸŽŠ

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    Great job that's an amazing pace!

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    Congrats Kevin! You're doing an awesome job with the newsletter, I'm a paid subscriber. You put a lot of work into each one and I enjoy reading through each idea. I appreaciate the inspiration both with the newsletter itself and seeing you build this!

    1. 1

      Thanks so much for subscribing and for the kind words! It takes a lot of effort to keep the newsletter at my standard for quality, so it's always so nice to hear when someone recognizes the effort :)

  12. 1

    Thanks for posting here, I have Subscribed :)

    1. 1

      Thanks a bunch Saran! I hope you enjoy!

  13. 1

    Thanks for sharing this. This is just gold. Even if you don't actually realise one of the ideas, it helps you a lot in getting creative and develop a mindset for finding nice opportunities.

    1. 1

      Glad you like it! A lot of founders tell me that even if they don't choose an idea from the newsletter, they feel that they've learned a lot about how to evaluate different business ideas and markets.

  14. 1

    Congrats my guy! What app do you use to keep track of your ARR? Just curious because it looks so nice!

    1. 1

      Sorry for the slow response! This is Baremetrics. Full metrics here: softwareideas.baremetrics.com

    2. 1

      That's stripe's UI

  15. 1

    congrats!

  16. 1

    Nice job!

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