Tell HN: I made $1000 with my app and now making $500/mo

[strongpigeon]

Edit: Wow #1 on HN. Y'all are making my day.

Hey HN,

I'm mostly a lurker on HN who's always super inspired by other people's small project that end-up making money. (Huge fan of Ben Stoke's Tiny Project [0])

After being burnt-out in big tech, I decided to write my own weightlifting app and set myself a humble goal of reaching $1000 in total proceeds. See [1] for my initial launch post.

I've now surpassed that goal and am now making about 500$/mo by selling premium features in the app. Android version is coming soon too. Doing the whole thing end-to-end (code, launch, marketing, support) was super gratifying and taught me a whole lot. I have to admit that I got almost teary eyed the first time someone bought one of my IAPs.

I'm not making a killing out of the app, and that was never the goal. But the personal satisfaction I got out of it was worth everything. I can't pretend to have derived any life lesson that applies to everybody from this, but this whole mini-journey was worth it for me, and I hope it will be for you too, should you embark in a similar one.

[0] https://tinyprojects.dev/

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27507452

[m12k]

>I can't pretend to have derived any life lesson that applies to everybody from this

Part of what attracted me to software engineering in the first place was an interest in "how things work", and being able to move between levels of abstraction (e.g. I know how IP, DNS, TCP, HTTP and JSON works, but most of the time I can just treat it as "sending objects"). So it was a bit of a eureka moment for me to realize that running a company is really just expanding the levels of abstraction that you operate with. It doesn't matter how well you code if people can't understand the user interface, so I got an interest in UX and usability. But it doesn't matter how user friendly it is, if it doesn't solve the right problem for people, so I got an interest in product development and customer research. It doesn't matter how good a product is if people never hear about it, so I got an interest in marketing and sales. And it doesn't matter how well I do all of that if I can't pay the bills, so I got an interest in pricing and monetization strategies.

Juggling all those needs, and trying to shape the company and all its aspects into a cohesive whole is just as demanding and interesting as doing the same for a software project - it's just expanding the scope of which requirements and concerns you bring into the equation. For me at least, it's also been very rewarding to do the whole thing end-to-end, and it's felt like more of a natural extension of my ever-broadening interests than I would have expected. Bookkeeping can be as annoying as debugging, but in the end I'm really grateful that I understand how each detail works.

[chrisweekly]

Good analogy, and cool story. IME real-world events rarely follow such a linear narrative but I found your company from your profile, and like that its blog -- https://www.hrvey.com/blog -- shares insights from an "entrepreneurial journey" perspective. Congrats!

[kebsup]

Good job! I know exactly the feeling. I'll once again shamelessly plug my project, since it's vaguely relevant.

I'm making about 200 USD/month by selling watermark removals on https://gifmemes.io. What I've learnt is that I'm very bad at marketing & design and will much rather spend hours programming useless features. For example I've spent like 10 hours getting an wasm ffmpeg converter of gifs to mp4s and webms, which was not used AT ALL, while most of my traffic still comes from cold-writing (is it even a term) for 1 hour random people to put links on their websites or subreddits.

The scene in the Sillicon Valley series, where Richards enhances the algorithm by 1 % is quite accurate.

On the other hand, being the solo developer and product owner is quite powerful. My implementation of billing into the app took around 2 hours, which is probably less than a meeting about it would take in a company.

Finally, I can run silly experiments. There is a button in the "Buy watermark removal" page that says "It's too expensive", which leads to 50 % discount. Around 70 % people still buy the full price.

[telchior]

I love the "too expensive" button. I'm the sort of person who'd probably want to test a dozen variations of that, half of them being jokes, and try to figure out exactly why it works. Do you know how many of the full price buyers ever click the button and find out it has a discount?

[OJFord]

> Finally, I can run silly experiments. There is a button in the "Buy watermark removal" page that says "It's too expensive", which leads to 50 % discount. Around 70 % people still buy the full price.

I don't find that silly at all. At most it's a fun example of price discrimination. A fairly big online-only florist in the UK (Bloom & Wild) for example does something similar, if you enter a valid voucher code but it's only for new customers, it pops up telling you that 'but click here to apply 10% off instead' (where the voucher might've been for 25 or whatever). Clever I think - stops you thinking 'oh sod it' and shopping around.

[volsa_]

I love the "But internet stuff should be free!" button, got a chuckle out of me :P

[jbarberu]

For what it's worth, I'm the kind of person that would pay full price if I saw and clicked the "It's too expensive" button :)

[allenu]

Well done! $500/mo, though not crazy money, is significant.

How did you market your app and how long did it take you to build out the app?

I've built an app as well while I was doing my regular day job and recently quit the day job, mostly due to being burned out working in big tech as well.

During my break from work, I decided to try to get my app sales up, but it's challenging. (During my best month, I think I got up to $200/mo but it's more like $100/mo right now.) As many others before me have found, marketing is the key, and I'm still learning that game. So, $500/mo is really good stuff.

That said, building the app and making my users happy is something that is incredibly gratifying, and something that was missing in my previous 9-5.

[strongpigeon]

Thank you! I feel you 100% when you say that keeping user happy is incredibly gratifying.

The app took me about 300-400 hours to build. Regarding marketing, I've said it elsewhere in the thread but here it is again:

- Created an instagram account for the app and started following some tags. I liked post on the tags and started following some users to get them to look at my profile. Got about 150 downloads from that.

- Made a 5/3/1 Calculator website. The goal was to make something useful to boost the SEO of my domain. What really ended up happening is the calculator ranks usually number 2 on Google and then users see the link to the app in there and click on it. Got about 200 downloads from that.

- Apple Search Ads gives you $100 credit. Got a bunch of downloads with this

- I used Bing Ads credits but wasn't too impressed with what I was getting from there though

[dheera]

Yep, all money is money and can make a difference to anyone.

I live in the bay area, and though my rent is a lot more than $500/mo, if I put $500/mo more toward rent I really could have a much nicer apartment, for example. Or it could be the monthly payment for an EV.

$500/mo can be a nice quality of life boost even in the most expensive parts of the world even if it's not enough to live on just that.

Back when I was doing my PhD, on a $2300/mo research assistantship salary in Boston, I also built a webapp that got me ~$200-300/mo for several years and close to $900/mo for one of those years. That alone allowed me to do lots of things I wanted to do at the time (e.g. ~2 overseas vacations a year and several self-supported long distance bike trips). Savings wasn't a huge concern at the time because I knew I could get a decent-paying job post-graduation.

[bgroat]

$500/mth is $6,000/yr

At a 4% safe withdrawal rate what you've built is the equivilent of saving $150,000.

You should be EXTREMELY proud of yourself, and never underestimate the power and value of the asset you've built

[moosedev]

Without taking anything away from OP's achievement, I'd caution against this kind of exuberant comparison without some qualification around it. The risks to that app's continuing to yield $500/month in perpetuity are quite different (and, I dare say, worse) than the risks faced by the kind of balanced portfolio that "safe withdrawal rate" implies (to me). I acknowledge that you didn't directly compare with such a portfolio, but you did say the app is "the equivalent of saving $150,000" - again, if this is true it's in a very limited sense only: the app and the cash face a very different set of risks.

[andymcsherry]

This is a business, it's not passive income. It requires maintenance, support, etc. If he were to just let it ride, income might increase for a while but ultimately wither out and die.

[acover]

Will this app pay 6000 a year for 25 years?

It's an impressive creation but this is not a good way to value it.

[tome]

Normally web apps like this would change hands at around 3x annual earnings, so OP has built the equivalent of more like $18,000, which is still impressive!

[Ventito]

I think its a great achievement in itself but your post does push people in the thinking of 'i can just make a no work sustainable something as a service app and become rich'.

I don't think it works.

I think the best bet by far is either to optimize your job salary (switching after 2-3 years, being proactive, trying leetcode, persuing FAANG) or following FIRE.

$500 would be 5h per month freelancing.

And to be really fair, he would first calculate all hours invested and he needs to calculate/estimate further time involvment.

For creating your own small company/business, thats probably a doable thing but still much more high risk than anything else.

[kqr]

Despite the valid criticisms against the specifics of your comment, I found this perspective interesting.

You could model the specifics differently, of course: maybe we assume the $500/month is a peak and it tapers off exponentially somehow. What sort of capital returns does this correspond to?

I haven't done the maths, so I don't know, but the fact that I can even ask the question means I've learned something from your comment that I didn't know before!

[DeathArrow]

Why it's 4% a safe withdrawal rate? Is it safe in the current economic context? Isn't affected by inflation?

[POiNTx]

Can you breakdown this calculation? I'm familiar with FIRE and SWR but how do you get to the $150,000 number?

[EDIT] Thanks got it!

[quickthrower2]

You wouldn’t get $150k on flippa though. Maybe $15k?

[strongpigeon]

Thank you!

[aryamansharda]

Congrats on the success! I just started a newsletter - Indie Watch (http://indie.watch/) - that features cool apps built by indie iOS developers.

Would you mind if I featured your app in our first release?

Since it's our first release, I can't guarantee any results or conversions, but the mailing list has a few hundred people on it, so it couldn't hurt...

[strongpigeon]

Thank you! For sure! My email is in my profile

[silvi9]

Congratulations! That's incredibly impressive, and is so inspiring, especially for all us fellow indie hackers out there. What were your main ways of acquiring new users? Do you have any marketing advice that helped you out?

Well done again, and wishing you continued success with your app!

[strongpigeon]

Thank you!

Initially I would use Instagram and follow some hashtags and like people's posts and follow them to get them to look at my profile (I got about 150 downloads that way).

One day I decided I wanted to try out ReactJs and so I made a web calculator version [0]. The goal was to make something better than the current incumbent (Black Iron Beast). This turned out to be super helpful. It usually ranks number 2 on most Google queries for 5/3/1 calculators and lead to about 200 downloads for the app.

I also started using Apple App Store Search Ad with their $100 credit and honestly the result are great. Having your app show up first for some keywords is a huge boost.

[0] https://fivethreeone.app/calculator

[whelton]

Another indie hacker here, to add to OP’s reply, I’ve been using Syften[0] to monitor relevant keywords across various sites to find people my product can be of value to, or I provide answers to their related questions (which can lead them to checking out my profile and then product).

I’m building Conjure[1] a habits, behavior and goals platform, so I track everything from ‘habits’/‘productivity’/‘quantified-self’ type keywords, to people looking for alternatives to XYZ product name, to specific questions I’ve answered before (eg organization, time tracking, building exercise habit, achievement, etc).

[0] https://syften.com

[1] https://conjure.so

[unity1001]

> Doing the whole thing end-to-end (code, launch, marketing, support) was super gratifying and taught me a whole lot

Yep. Just putting out one single app by doing everything teaches you a LOT about tech and makes you start giving due respect to every single specialization that exists in tech - from development to support to marketing.

[yboris]

Thank you for sharing! I wish more people were transparent about money (to know what's possible).

In my example, I created Video Hub App that sells for $5 (and $3.50 goes to a cost-effective charity). I'm averaging about $500 for over a year now (with almost $15,000 donated to charity).

https://videohubapp.com/ & https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App (MIT open source)

[rebelos]

Wow this is cool. How long did it take to build it?

[NKosmatos]

Bravo to you!!! Most of us have half started, unfinished projects and once more you show to all of us that we should make some time from our daily routines and finally just ship it ;-) I know that for US and other high paying countries 500$/mo is not much but for most countries it’s a very respectable amount. I’m a huge fan of Ben’s tinyprojects and reading his posts, stories like yours and other similar HN posts/comments give us courage and some of the missing determination.

[OJFord]

> I’m a huge fan of Ben’s tinyprojects and reading his posts, stories like yours and other similar HN posts/comments give us courage and some of the missing determination.

Personally, I felt that very briefly; then like crap for my years old WIPs or worse!

It's nice to read there can be decent outcomes for 'little' things; it's not so nice to see how quickly some people can turn them around (compared to oneself)!

'analysis paralysis' is my problem I think, I'm sure there are years old ideas floating around back there (that I was/am really excited about) that I still haven't quite figure out how to store the (non-existent!) user data for. It's also a curse of it being your own side project, not something with a deadline/external expectations, I suppose.

[Xeronate]

Grats. That's awesome! How did you market it? Seems like weightlifting apps has to be a pretty saturated market. Also assuming its a native iOS app since there isn't an android equivalent. Were you an iOS developer in big tech? Building UIs feels so much nicer with the native frameworks, but I'm always hesitant to do so because writing the same app twice seems so grueling.

[h4waii]

I wrote my first full-blown mobile apps (fairly simple and spartan) with React Native, I target both iOS and Android, and it was a breeze using Expo. It's seriously good, I have no affiliation, just a happy customer (I tested the paid tier out but currently use the free one).

[strongpigeon]

I agree that "weightlifting app" as a whole is pretty saturated and some of the apps are pretty good too. I figured I'd have more chance to stand out in a niche, namely 5/3/1 specific apps.

I was previously a full stack SWE on Google Ads before. The app is built using Flutter, so porting it to Android isn't too hard. I built it using the iOS looking widget first that's what I use. The Android version should be out pretty soon.

[boplicity]

A question, from someone who used to start lots of projects, but now finds himself busy from all of those (some now quite successful) projects:

How much daily "mental load" does something like this take? Are you able to work on it when you want, and otherwise ignore? Any tips for starting a small project that doesn't require ongoing mental effort?

[strongpigeon]

The fact that I'm not running a service does make it a lot better. But being somewhat of a perfectionist, I do stress out a lot when a user email me with a bug.

Being a user of the app myself reassure me that it's working and that even if there might be bugs, it's probably working well for the vast majority of folks.

[vegesm]

Congrats! It's about the same I make with Android with my app (a graphing calculator) [1]. Everyone says on Android you can earn less, I'm curious what's your experience will be.

[1] https://androidcalculator.com/

[afrnz]

Very impressive and bravo on your success! I love seeing indie hackers launching their projects and get positive feedback in the form of revenue. Also appreciate the weightlifting focus, will check out the app for sure.

[strongpigeon]

Thank you!

[aschismatic]

I checked out your app because I've been wanting something like it but hadn't bothered looking at what was out there yet. Looks great!

One thing I noticed though is that both barbell weight customization and plate customization is coupled together in one purchase. I feel like you may want to separate barbell weight into a free customization option because barbells made specifically for women tend to be lighter (~33lbs). By charging for barbell weight customization, you're inadvertently creating a difference in experience between men and women (for the base app, no purchases).

[OJFord]

Alternatively (I know nothing about the domain) perhaps allow the choice for free? (Needn't be 'tell me your gender here's data sharing agreement blah blah blah', could just be a choice between '~33lb' and ..whatever the current is that's apparently more appropriate for men.)

[ge96]

Nice to hear

Side note I think 'Tell HN:' is for problems, vs. 'Show HN:'

[newbie578]

Can anyone share what is their thought process regarding on deciding what app to build? Say you have a Word document with 15 different ideas, how do you decide which one is worth investing?

[strongpigeon]

I built this app because I wanted to use it. Being user 0 is really helpful and is quite fun I can say.

[ffhhj]

In my case, the one that has a larger community where it can be promoted at low cost.

[Zababa]

> I can't pretend to have derived any life lesson that applies to everybody from this

Kudos for being honest about this, it's rare these days. Congratulations and I wish you the best.

[dimitrios1]

I love that there is so much opportunity in the indie space, and hope it doesn't go away.

There are a ton of great apps to be made, with better UIs and functionality than existing entrants that aren't made by big companies because they don't offer enterprise-sized war chests and moats. Can't make enough to pay for a bunch of MBAs, managers, and SEO, Creative, and Engineering teams, so they don't get made. But it's certainly enough for a few driven people.

[davidkuennen]

Very good. Congrats.

I made an app 2 years ago and make around 10,000$/month currently with it. Keep going!

[newbie578]

Congrats! This is really no small achievement, being able to make a profit while making mobile apps is no little thing. I saw your comment that you made the app in Flutter, how come that you didn't release it then for Android?

Also a separate question, I do wonder what was your thought process for coming up with the idea for the app? Do you keep somewhere a list of app ideas, or was this one you have been dreaming about some time?

Keep going and I wish you much more success!

[strongpigeon]

I'm using the Cupertino widget to have an iOS look and feel. I care a lot about the experience and I didn't want to release an Android app that feels like an iOS one.

That being said I'm almost done making the app look great on Android. I'm just waiting for some Material 3 widgets to be done by the Flutter team.

My thought process was simple : I don't like any of the apps on the App Store for 5/3/1, so I'm going to make my own!