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Here on HN and IndieHackers I've always looked up to the people who pay their bills with recurring revenue from their tools.
I've tried, many times, to do the same, without much success. A couple of rather successful HN pitches, but none of my projects ever even paid me a beer (let alone my rent).
Until this month! Last year I built myself and my girlfriend a tool. Even though I did build it for other people to use it, I had never thought someone actually would. Long story short, half a year later I provide my service to more than 5000 (fully organic) users.
This month is the first month in which revenue is high enough to pay my rent with it. Disclaimer: I share my rent with my girlfriend, but it does sound cool to say.
Looking back at the proces, it does match with a lot of other success stories I read over the years in the HN community. The main lesson which I can now confirm: build something that scratches your own itch.
So... Thanks you guys, for keeping me motivated and inspired.
Long story short, four months later, I am the only user of my service. I hired a brand strategist who looked at the market, with who I forged a marketing plan, and with who I set goals. Needless to say, none of them were met.
What does/can this mean? Should I accept that what I built will only be used by myself, or is this a phase each product/service goes through? If only there were one extra paid user, I would have enough motivation to continue, but with zero conversion the motivation starts to fade.
I think it is irrelevant to re-post a link to the project, but feel free to ask/look it up if you think it's relevant.