How I made $115 and got 49 new customers in one day

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!