UpVPN
A Modern Serverless VPN based on WireGuard
When setting up your own VPN servers using the modern WireGuard VPN protocol, the most time-consuming part is creating configuration files for the server and clients.
So, I've created a tool where you only need to provide a single input - the IP or DNS of the server - and every other configuration comes with default values, following the convention over configuration principle.
The tool also provides easy script snippets to set up a server from scratch!
With this tool, you can have VPN servers and clients up and running in just a few minutes!
I'm a first time Indie Maker, and my first product had one full month of July after first launch on Hacker News at the end of June.
Here's what I did to get visitors and customers throughout the month of July, and also monitor health of website SEO and payments:
Early in month I started self promotion on Reddit in relevent communities via comments, which brought traffic and paid customers. However, I learned the hard lesson as first time founder that Reddit moderators will block you on promotions.
Github
The product is open source on Github, and my profile README has links which brings visitors and converts them into customers!
Product Hunt
I launched on Product Hunt during towards end of the month. The big lesson here is picking day of the week for launch is very important. I picked Tuesday. which is a peak day and big projects launch. In hindsight, I should not have launched on Tuesday or Wednesday.
I had shared my PH launch to my network on WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Twitter for the support.
Consider peaks days if you know you can get support from hunders of people or have a huge following on social networks or PH!
SEO
I'm actively monitoring Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tool, they suggest fixes for exisiting pages to have more pages indexed.
Stripe
The most failed payments were from customers trying to use Cash App. I'm not yet sure why though, perhaps customers don't complete their payment once they transition to Cash App.
Thats all, hope this helps you to try different things to market and get sales for your Indie project!
My conclusion after first full month is that if I can bring more visitors they would convert to paid customers!
Please do share in comments on how you increased traffic after your launch.
Here's the link to the product website: https://upvpn.app
I’m a first time Indie Maker and I made my first internet dollar! 🎉
A little bit of Background
It started with me needing a pay as you go VPN few years ago, I couldn’t find one. Few years later I saw a technical path by bringing Serverless model of computing to VPN. And so I built UpVPN - World’s first Serverless VPN.
Biggest obstacle to launch
Building Severless VPN required focusing on two big areas: backend and desktop apps. Distributing desktop apps is very different than a website/backend in important ways - Security, Authenticity.
Windows and macOS Operating Systems show user a warning when they download any installers outside any app stores that those OS do not recognize. The solution to that is code signing.
Just like today we won’t ship a website without https. I think of code signing as similar - from day one user should have confidence to install a software they downloaded from the internet.
Apple makes it possible by issuing code signing certificates through their developer program. And their process is quick. Microsoft on the other hand relies on third party certificate providers - and it is expensive, very slow process, not a very good experience overall - and the biggest obstacle.
First paying customers
I decided to launch without Windows app. I went on Hacker News and posted the link via “Show HN”. What happened next was very rewarding for all the work that I put in until that point - first paying customers!
Well the truly first paying customer was my wife even before the launch to a big audience. Because how caring, loving and supportive that she is. Here we’d refer to first-paying-customer as someone not family 😄
This was my first launch to a big audience, and here are some key data points:
Trended on first page of Hacker News
Received 3k+ visitors on Launch
Got $115 and 49 new customers
Takeaway
There will be many more obstacles in the Indie Maker Entrepreneur journey, but using them to your advantage to keep moving forward would still be progress!
So just launch!
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1
Super interested in how you built this. Could you talk about the tech stack and what have you used?
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Tech stack is mostly open source:
NextJS, Typscript, React, TailwindCSS, daisyUI for website and app frontend
Rust, Postgres for backend
Rust, Tuari for desktop apps-
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Nice! Rust for the low level VPN part etc and Tauri+React for UI I assume?
EDIT: I missed that the app is FOSS. There's the answer.
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Yes! here's the link just in case: https://github.com/upvpn/upvpn-app
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