builder - basedoc.co, pollkit.co, subsail.com, magpile.com, pocketmcp.com — dx engineer at loops.so
Brit in Finland
- Tweets 18,541
- Following 672
- Followers 86,556
- Likes 27,110
My side project income from March will be about 132% of my salary.
I like where this is heading.
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Excited to say I recently gave notice at my job 🎉
For a while now, my projects have been making more than my salary. It’s time to take them full-time and grow them even bigger.
Adventure awaits! 🛣
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You can have a job and run multiple profitable side projects with kids and +8 hours sleep.
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After working on my startups all day, I like to wind down by working on my startups all evening.
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Decent ideas
+
OK design
+
Average code
=
Lifestyle businesses that let me support my family
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I’ve been making things online for 15 years now. New things I thought others would find useful or fun.
Nothing has ever taken off.
15 years is a long time. I’m 38.
Wondering if it’s easier to just build a copy of an existing thing rather than make new things every time
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Today I signed a purchase agreement for one of my projects. My first ever exit.
Mixed emotions! 🤯😭🥳
More details soon.
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DesignJoy is at $90k MRR (!).
A one-man design team, working with clients on $2.5k/m and $3k/m subscriptions.
Only needs ~30 customers for $1m ARR. Already past it.
A really ballsy business (unlimited designs and revisions, forever!) that's paid off big time.
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After working on my startups all day, I like to wind down by working on my startups all night.
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I'm not going to make my $10k MRR goal by the end of the year.
After I sold Tolta in May, I adjusted it to $100k ARR / $8.33k MRR. I won't make that either.
But I'm free, waking up to build whatever I want and supporting my family at under $7k MRR. I made it.
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12 years after I started building web applications, I've hit $100k ARR 🥳
My first paid app launched 5 years ago. Most revenue now comes from the apps I launched in the past two years: Cove, ilo, Gloat and Refermo.
Not a rocket ship by any means, but steady, stable growth 👌🏼
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Most of my brain energy this week has been sucked into the question “If this random person can be making $20k a month, why aren’t I”
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Build your SaaS so you never have to hire a support person.
• make a sensible, simple UI
• use micro-copy to explain how things work and what will happen as users use the product
• write self-serve documentation for everything else, and update it after every question you get
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By 8:12am my apps had collected me $265. This is the freedom I’ve been wanting for 10+ years
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Proud and excited to announce that I’m joining Lemon Squeezy @lemonsqueezy as Head of Developer Relations 🍋
I’ve been a customer since launch and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to join an amazing team building an amazing product and to help grow it in the developer community 🙌🏼
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Screw tasks, code reviews, complicated deployment processes.
As an indie maker you can code in your main branch then FTP or git pull and restart. No need to complicate things. If it works, it works
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I haven’t done a full day of work since early November, and I’m earning more than I did at all of my previous development jobs.
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Gloat, my mini Ghost host, just hit $500 MRR 😎
Now all four of my SaaS are over $500. Currently about $4.25k total.
Onwards to $10k!
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Last week I sold Tolta (@tolta_co), my platform for analysing and sharing social and sales data ✨
Today I started the handover.
Some back-story, why I sold and some details of the acquisition…
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I got asked what I do for a living yesterday and I totally bumbled my way through it. I still don’t know what to say to non-tech people 🙃
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I can’t wait to sit down on a Monday morning and only work on my own stuff all week. It’s the dream.
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First time putting an app behind CloudFlare. Feels pretty solid so far.
Are there any downsides? If not, everyone should be doing this.
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For years I’ve wanted to build a SaaS and grow to +$10k MRR.
But after the recent sale of @toltaHQ and other enquiries, I think my future may end up being building + selling SaaS way before they reach $10k.
Selling at $3k MRR and a 4x multiple is $144k. Do that once a year…
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I'm proud and excited to announce that I'm now the Developer Experience Engineer at @loops!
I've been talking with @frantzfries in DMs for years about building and growing products, and have been using Loops in my projects for a year. Pumped to be a part of the team! 💌
ALT A screenshot of the Loops.so homepage, with the title "Email for modern SaaS".
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I need to buy a new M1 MacBook.
Do I need a MacBook Pro for my main three activities of web dev, Sketch and video editing? I'm thinking the 16GB model.
Or will I be fine with a 16GB MacBook Air?
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You can build good side projects in 30 minute intervals
in your lunch break, during your kid’s nap, after school, on your train commute, after your evening Netflix session, …
Find the gaps.
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Sometimes I wonder if I’m getting too old to build meaningful wealth and that I’m running out time.
Then I think about KFC’s Colonel Sanders only making millions in his 70s after only starting his franchise business in his 60s.
Not everyone makes it in their 30s.
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New project ✨
tolta is an idea that's been brewing in my head in the past week.
Yesterday it spilled out into Sketch, and now it's also spread into my code editor 😆
Hoping to finish an alpha version in the next week or so!
Super early homepage draft ⤵
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How to make a decent income in 2021.
• Start a blog+newsletter on a topic you know well or are eager to learn about.
• Capture emails.
• Write regularly.
• Offer a low-cost ad slot at ~200 subs.
• Offer higher-cost slots at 500, 1k, 2k...
The only hard part is the content.
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What’s the best office chair that doesn’t look like an office chair?
I hate this aesthetic
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With Tolta launching this coming week, this is my sixth launch in 10 months.
cove.chat 4/20
gloat.dev 6/20
superthemes.co 6/20
ilo.so 7/20
gloathost.com 11/20
tolta.co 2/21
Feeling in my groove.
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“The first $1k MRR is the hardest”
Today ilo.so passed $1.5k MRR. It feels like things are starting to click into place and momentum is kicking in. Exciting times ahead!
200 days to $1k
45 days to $1.5k
Not a rocket ship. But a healthy business.
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I build and design everything on a 13” MacBook Air. It’s not ideal but it’s the bare minimum (cheapest Mac laptop) I need to work and is everything I need.
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I turned 36 today 🎈
And I just discovered a life hack: spoil your close ones on your birthday rather than expecting the day to be about you. Absolute game changer ❤️
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My key tips for running multiple side projects successfully 💪🏼
• small tasks (break things down)
• don’t stress
• keep fresh (multiple projects)
• enjoy it
• focus (on the macro *and* micro)
• hands-off projects (they can’t need you 24/7)
• say no (protect your time)
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My MRR growth is just $3.1k over the past year. This is not good enough. It’s actually embarrassing.
Something isn’t working, or I’m building the wrong things.
I need to do something different, but when you’re in the weeds, it’s hard to figure out what needs to change
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If you’re at $3–4k MRR after two years, is that product worth continuing with?
When’s the cutoff when you decide a product is not going to be the success you hoped it would?
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Just bought a $3.98 domain from @Namecheap.
I'm planning to turn that $4 into six figures within a year or two.
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We all know @levelsio does “alright” with his apps, but $200k MRR is just insane. Seeing that is mind blowing. Credit where credit is due 👏🏼
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Never leave a job to start working on side a project. Do them both and wait until you’re confident your project is working first. You don’t want your fun idea to become a source of stress
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2021 was wild. After years of dreaming, I left my job to go full-time on my side projects.
Twitter (i.e. you) fuelled everything I accomplished.
I finished the year with +177% MRR growth and +276% follower growth.
MRR: $2,583 → $7,159
Followers: 7,856 → 29,508
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Big news from Mauritius! They’ve announced a new “Premium” visa for remote workers:
• 1 year, renewable
• permit to work (remotely)
• can bring dependents with
Only big requirement is to have travel and health insurance for the year.
Come live in a COVID-free paradise! 🇲🇺
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With a new Gloat subscription just now, I passed $90k ARR.
Which means the next milestone I’ll hunt down is the magical
✨ $8,333 MRR ✨
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If there's one thing I love about working on SaaS, it's landing pages. I could do this all day.
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I’ve sold more $$ of Ghost themes in the last seven days than in my previous best month 😳 Finally seeing some traction
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For me, if you’re indie and are earning enough to live, you’ve won at (work) life.
It’s as simple as that.
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I've decided on my product studio name: Monday.
An ode to never having to have a "Monday" ever again and a reminder to live a less structured, more relaxed life.
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After a long day in front of my computer coding,
I really look forward to a quiet evening
in front of my computer coding.
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New SaaS product incoming! ⚡️
☑️ domain
☑️ email address
☑️ Twitter account
☑️ landing page
☑️ email list
The basics are in place. Now for some actual building!
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I used to freelance and only just make enough to get by.
Now I have a few products and earn enough for a comfortable life, but not much more.
My next goal is to earn +$5k more than I need each month. That will bring a calm and comfort I’ve never experienced before.
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When the time comes (soon), I’m thinking of streaming or at least screen-recording me building my next product. Probably a series of streams/videos while I make an MVP.
Is that something that you’d watch? Would it be useful to you to watch me design and code?
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I've moved all of my digital products (Ghost themes) from Gumroad to @lemonsqueezy 🍋
Back to a more normal checkout design, and a stunning admin panel 😍
superthemes.co
ALT A screenshot of Lemon Squeezy's admin panel for sellers.
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Late last year, I set a lofty goal to save $20k in 2020. I’d never saved that much in a year and didn’t know how I would do it (especially with 3 kids).
I made my goal 🙏🏼 I had no actual game plan but things gradually came together.
The five things that made it happen:
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Took a long break from Twitter recently, and from building side projects.
It was a lovely time to have more normal days: work at Loops and hang with family. And have time do more of other things I love, like playing football, coaching, tennis etc.
I turn 39 tomorrow. I told myself I'd have a "big indie win" before 40.
I haven't had one yet.
So today I'm coming back to Twitter, starting to get back into thinking of ideas, and building something on the side again.
🙌 Excited to be back
(Hope everyone is well, I have a lot of people's timelines to read, to see what I've missed!)
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💯
A mini milestone for an indie maker.
ilo.so now has 100+ paying customers.
First time one of my products has reached this number 🥰
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“The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, ‘I can do whatever I want today.’”
From The Psychology of Money by @morganhousel
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NFTs should be used as SaaS Lifetime access passes. Sold pre- or at launch, then with limited drops later on.
Would be great for early revenue.
Re-selling would allow tokens to be passed on to new users and bring in more revenue.
Access would be easy to manage via wallets.
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Cove just passed $10k ARR 🏴☠️ 🥳
It’s a slow burner but only requires a few hours of my time a month. A perfect side project.
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ilo.so just passed $2k MRR 🥳
My biggest takeaways from this graph are:
• thank goodness I kept working hard on ilo throughout the slow first six months
• the past three months have blown me away; feeling very happy that people like my little app!
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