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Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

• montakaoh 1y ago
  Congrats!! I can definitely relate to that roller coaster feeling of first internet money -> "its so over feeling" though definitely not as successful as you yet :D
  • scubakid 1y ago
    I hope the roller coaster takes you to a similar destination in the end :) What's your journey been like so far?
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• fuzzfactor 1y ago
  >I’m still processing that this is real. >that only counts recurring revenue. >monthly revenue has consistently been 20 to 50 percent higher. That's the way to do it. Where you virtually have to go back and figure how much earlier you had actually reached a major milestone.
• rvz 1y ago
  > Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business in four years. Good. But I think this is the most important piece of advice that one should follow: > Actually show up every day. It is the easiest thing anyone can do, however, it is the hardest for anyone to do every. single. day. nonstop.
• johncole 1y ago
  Wow congratulations!
• ipaddr 1y ago
  The validation piece I don't understand. From first sale to first dip to each peak and fall when was the validation reached? First sale, 1k revenue? You can find 5 users who will pay but that doesn't validate a million a month. What does product validation mean here.
  • pan69 1y ago
    Maybe validation isn't one big moment, but maybe validation could be many small moments. So, those first 5 users: small validation. First 1K MRR: small validation. Etc. I think the point of the article is to be persistent and if you're getting small validations along the way, then those are indicators to keep going. At least, that's my take.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    I think it can vary from person to person depending on your goals. For me, an important signal was that complete strangers were willing to pay. That first Show HN post made all the difference. Without that, this could have ended up in my side project graveyard with 100 other projects.
    • vladmk 1y ago
      Curious to how many projects you launched you personally resonated with before this one
      • scubakid 1y ago
        I've only published a small handful of things with a buy button, and all of them were things I used myself. I got into coding in middle school learning how to make simple 2D games to play with friends, and the vast majority of my personal projects over the years have just been for fun.
  • xyzzy9563 1y ago
    I only have a product that makes $6k per month, but from my point of view, the validation is how many paying users sign up per day. Even one per day can add up. Hope this helps.
    • growbell_social 1y ago
      If you can make 6k per month. You can probably get to 60k per month.
    • 1y ago
• malpani12 1y ago
  Congratulations!!
• joak 1y ago
  Survivor bias Failures don't get on HN front page Hey, btw congrats :-)
  • tomhow 1y ago
    People do post their failure stories, or "post mortems", on HN and elsewhere. We should be able to make space for both as both offer valuable lessons.
  • hermitcrab 1y ago
    Not true. This post made the front page (in the distant past): https://successfulsoftware.net/2010/05/27/learning-lessons-from-13-failed-software-products/ https://successfulsoftware.net/2010/05/27/learning-lessons-f...
  • owebmaster 1y ago
    failure posts are way less interesting than the authors think they are.
    • lelanthran 1y ago
      > failure posts are way less interesting than the authors think they are. It depends; you can learn a lot more from a failure than from a success. Every success has some element of good luck in it but that element is difficult to identify. Every failure has a number of non-luck related reasons for failing, which are usually easily identified.
    • dspillett 1y ago
      They can be very interesting, both in the now and historically. They often aren't, when the problems were blindingly obvious and any mistakes ones that have been made countless times already, but the same can be said of success stories: without novel specifics there are only so many ways to say “we stuck at it and eventually pushed through and/or got lucky”. Failure stories frequently aren't posted by the authors, they don't think it is interesting enough but someone else did. Such stories are often written as a post-mortem for those originally invested (in terms of intellectual interest, being a user of [thing-or-service], or financial investment) or even just as a therapy exercise before moving on, and not pushed to a wider audience by the author.
• rorylaitila 1y ago
  It's an impressive accomplishment. I've always struggled to get through the valley of despair in a new project. I've decided that I can only build and sell things that I regularly use. Otherwise the signal is just too weak, and I eventually get burned out. But if I'm always a user of one, then at least it's validated for me.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Caring is kind of a superpower. And not just in terms of signal, but also the quality of work. I don't think this would have gone anywhere if I hadn't cared deeply about solving the problem in an elegant way. Earlier in my career, I worked on some things as a corporate engineer that were hard to care about, and there's just no comparison.
    • fuzzfactor 1y ago
      >The willingness to doggedly show up every single day can take you to some really suprising and amazing places. >Caring is kind of a superpower. >the quality of work. >I was thrilled to spend my free time treating those early customers like royalty Well, the secret's out, thanks for that, now anybody can do it ;)
      • mkatx 1y ago
        Aw shit. *drawing-board
      • eastbound 1y ago
        On my million-dollars project (now 10 employees) I hired someone for the support. She wasn’t in the startup ecosystem. What she was most surprised of / had to train most for was our requirement of benevolence: Always help the customer, even when it’s not in our scope. She thinks I’m a superboss, but I keep repeating her: We have to be nice to customers, we also have to give benefits to employees, otherwise both would leave us. It’s not a choice, it’s market pressure.
        • 1y ago
• davidw 1y ago
  Congratulations! > Back in 2021, I was inspired by the financial independence movement and wanted a better way to plan my own life. I couldn’t find the right tool, so I started building. That sounds a bit like selling shovels to the miners. Which is not a, uh, dig at the project, just an observation.
  • suriya-ganesh 1y ago
    Everything can be modeled as selling shovels to the miners. We're all building tools for other people. As long the users like a product, I think it's moot to call it shovel selling.
    • davidw 1y ago
      I think it depends on what the people are hoping to accomplish with the shovels and how realistic it is. In this case it seems legit.
• mdorazio 1y ago
  Congratulations! But I’m disappointed with no mention of profit level in this post or another one linked. My last business I scaled to 500K ARR in less than two years, with $20K in total annual profit including the $0 my cofounder and I paid ourselves for many hours of work. I shut it down a year later and strongly regret the amount of work I put into it. There’s an ARR metric trap in the founder community where people focus on revenue rather than on reaching a level of take-home income comparable to what they could make at a normal job. The former is a lot easier than the latter (especially in the US for people who can take home $250K fairly easily working in tech) - as the saying goes, you can make infinite revenue by selling dollars for 99 cents.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Profit margin started out around 90% in the early years, but is looking more like 65% this year now that we're making a concerted effort to reinvest into growth, building a team, etc.
  • FredPret 1y ago
    If ARR grows enough, there should be plenty of room in there to pay the founders. For extreme examples of ARR growth at 0% profit paying off, look at Uber, Amazon, and ServiceNow. I know these are very much outliers. All three had rapid revenue growth but profits at (or far below) zero. But for all three, the founders are sitting pretty today. https://valustox.com/NOW https://valustox.com/NOW https://valustox.com/UBER https://valustox.com/UBER https://valustox.com/AMZN https://valustox.com/AMZN
    • aledalgrande 1y ago
      > For extreme examples of ARR growth at 0% profit paying off Pretty sure parent was referring to gross profit, because that's what you'd look at to pay your salary. These examples are not relevant.
  • hermitcrab 1y ago
    I share your frustration with the endless focus on revenue, rather than profit (looking at you, indiehackers.com). I suspect in many cases it is because they are embarassed to disclose their profit. But congrats to the OP. It is impressive growth for a bootstrapped business.
• bruce511 1y ago
  It's so, so , so hard to walk the line between persistence (which leads to glory) and stubbornness (which leads to more time following already wasted time.) Congratulations for walking this line correctly. I agree that some sort of market validation is necessary to at least pretend you are on the former not the latter. Those early usage spikes are helpful reminders that there is a business here somewhere. I'll also make a note that you spent time on marketing from the early days. Writing blog posts, promoting said posts, having a Discord server, committing to answer emails, all of this is marketing and its likely lead to success more than the code. I notice whenever there was a dip in revenue, marketing (in the form of more blog posts) was the response. I suspect that was intentional, and definitely a better approach than "let me go away and silently code more features." So there are valuable lessons to others here. Congratulations not just on the current success but also on sharing the path that leads to success. Ultimately you can show the way, but you can't make people learn from it. Oh, and I like the bootstrapping approach. I did the same, and I'm not sorry. It's longer and harder but also skips an enormous amount of extra work.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Thanks. For a while there, it wasn't clear to me which side of the line I was walking. Something that stuck with me from Poor Charlie’s Almanack is that low expectations are a cornerstone of a happy life. I built this for myself first, so when people actually signed up and paid, it was incredibly motivating. I was thrilled to spend my free time treating those early customers like royalty and building more of what they wanted. If I had instead come into this with the expectation of quick success, I doubt I would have made it through those early years. And cheers from one bootstrapper to another. It's not easy, but I can't imagine a more rewarding way to build.
    • chatmasta 1y ago
      Another lesson here: you built for a specific community who is passionate, money-motivated, and concentrates in specific social spaces (forums, reddit, etc.) where you can promote your business. This isn't always a recipe for success, but it's a damn good starting point. You need to adjust to the sensitivities of the community to avoid overly self-promotional content, but you always have a clear channel to promote your very specific product that meets their needs.
• artur_makly 1y ago
  great timing. In fact, I was just looking for somethin like this. Was going to vibe-code this into life, but your price point is spot on and frankly I prefer supporting other fellow entrepreneurs. The struggle is real, thank you for being a positive light to all who are on this path. Best to you!
  • scubakid 1y ago
    thanks, that means a lot. wishing you the best on your journey too!
• akomtu 1y ago
  It would be just as interesting to hear what mistakes you have made and what you would do differently.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    One thing I'd do differently is quit my day job earlier. It shouldn't have taken 2.5 years to work up the courage to do that. Partly I was scared of putting my own projections at risk. But eventually I realized I'd have way more regret if I passed up the opportunity to go all-in on something I loved.
• braden-lk 1y ago
  Nice! How did you go about finding a growth marketer that was a good fit with your business?
  • jonkuipers 1y ago
    I found him and he originally told me to get lost ;)
    • noisy_boy 1y ago
      The first sign of a good marketer :)
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • anentropic 1y ago
      What attracted you so much to the project at that time?
      • jonkuipers 1y ago
        I was a customer first. It was the product I had been searching for in my own financial planning, so I immediately saw the potential. When Kyle and I finally met, we hit it off right away. We aligned on the important things and shared a clear vision for where it could go. I’d always had the itch to bootstrap and help build something meaningful and sustainable, so I knew pretty quickly it was the right next move for me.
• noisy_boy 1y ago
  To OP, does this focus on US customers or covers the context for international customers too?
  • jonkuipers 1y ago
    We noticed a lot of tools neglect international use cases, so from the beginning we've focused on building with global flexibility in mind. About 80% of our customers are US-based, but we have users all over the world and offer international tax presets and account types.
• danr4 1y ago
  kudos!
• yesimahuman 1y ago
  Congrats! I'm a customer. Haven't used it too much but so far I like having it to check in periodically. One wish list item: live securities prices to avoid having to copy/paste values all the time. For example, with that you can have a live snapshot of the values in most brokerages
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Account linking for automated balance updates is our most upvoted and most controversial feature request. I agree it would be really nice if it worked well, but my understanding from other founders is that aggregator reliability still leaves a lot to be desired in 2025, and is always a huge expense and support burden. As a small, bootstrapped team building a long-term planning tool where current balances are only a small piece of the picture, we need to be really careful about what we choose to take on. Currently there are still dozens of other high-priority feature requests that will also deliver real value but without those downsides. I do go back-and-forth on this though. And I think eventually there will come a time for it. Glad to hear you're enjoying the tool, and thanks so much for your support! p.s. also might be worth noting that there is a plugin system, and community members have built integrations that can pull in balance updates automatically from some of the popular budgeting tools.
    • pixelmonkey 1y ago
      To provide a data point from a long-time ProjectionLab user, I don't really need account linking. I use Monarch Money to link cash and CC accounts to track spending. I use a custom Google Sheet to track retirement portfolio performance. If =GOOGLEFINANCE isn't enough, there is a nice paid extension called WiseSheets, which adds a =WISE function that fills all the gaps. My monthly ProjectionLab process is to update the "Current Finances" values on the first of the month, using the values from the other tools. Works well enough for me!
      • scubakid 1y ago
        I'm glad to hear you have a workflow for updating current finances that's already serving you well. I do plan to add a lot more automation/integration options, it's just always a question of where to invest my time to deliver the most value to the community efficiently. Something people don't always realize instantly is that with a long-term planning tool, the point is to spend the bulk of your time focused on the future, not fixating on all the latest daily stock price fluctuations... in fact, those can sometimes be a source of noise/distraction.
• nico 1y ago
  Great success story. Congratulations Also, thank you for sharing the ups and downs. Seeing the details of the monthly bars chart was super enlightening. I usually only see the nice looking overall positive growth chart without any nuance, so I really appreciate the transparency Hope you keep going and growing
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Thanks! Seeing indie hackers building in public transparently about the ups and downs like pieter levels, danny postma, jon yongfook, etc, really inspired me early on. So I decided to try to emulate that. (Well, partly: idk how some of those guys post 100x a day)
• mNovak 1y ago
  I remember seeing this on HN years ago. Congrats on the growth! I think this is still an underserved field (shockingly, considering how many people it impacts). I really wish just saving a basic plan to refer back to didn't cost $100/yr. The one-off 'Basic' plans never made sense to me, considering it takes hours to set up a relatively complete model -- might not even have time to do it all in one sitting.
  • jonkuipers 1y ago
    Thanks! Supporting Basic users comes at a real cost, but we want planning to stay accessible for everyone. To us, one-off planning feels like a better alternative than stripping down the product or selling user data.
• combyn8tor 1y ago
  How has your experience been running a discord server? I imagine it's useful for feedback but time consuming to manage? I'm reluctant to start one as I'm concerned about the time consumption. Also, how did you find Jon and what was their skillset when you met? Did they come on as a contractor in the beginning?
  • scubakid 1y ago
    I think managing any community is time consuming, but I like that discord feels real-time and efficient, with fun emojis, easy media sharing, and a mix of text channels and forum channels. For the first few years, I was up at all hours answering questions. It feels amazing to offload some of that now that we have more of a team. Like he mentioned in another comment here, Jon actually found me.
• pinkmuffinere 1y ago
  Congrats! Great to see you succeed through perseverance and just-not-giving-up!
• dvrp 1y ago
  Congratulations man, it makes me so happy to read this and I can relate to that dopamine rollercoaster phenomenon you are talking about.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    aww thanks, glad to hear it resonates. it seems like every founder has their own version of that rollercoaster. which moments from yours do you feel you learned the most from?
• neom 1y ago
  Kyle and I talked when he wasn't full time on this yet, I wanted to invest in it, well, anyway we talked about it a lot. Sufficed to say: I am SOOO proud of him! Genuinely awesome and brilliant dude. :)
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Those conversations got me thinking about a lot of the right things early on. Really appreciate your encouragement and belief back then!
• ilamont 1y ago
  During the first few years, I was approached by dozens of potential “partners.” Several wanted an outsize equity stake to essentially just make suggestions. A warning to others starting new ventures: once you get a whiff of traction, and sometimes even before then, the parasites will ooze out of various nooks and crannies, attempting to latch onto a fresh new host. HN loves to pound on MBAs weaseling their way into startups, but opportunists may come from unexpected quarters. I experienced a classmate sidling up to offer "translation services" for 2% of outstanding shares. Then there was a startup that proposed a "merger" which would basically allow them to walk away from failure in exchange for equity.
• Crisco 1y ago
  Congrats! I’ve been a customer and have used it monthly since April 2021 when I first saw it here. It has been essential in planning out major life financial decisions as I’ve changed jobs, gotten married, and now as we consider children and purchasing a home. I’ve appreciated the addition of new features over time and have recommended the tool to many friends and relatives. Hope to see another post in a couple years when you’ve hit $10M/yr!
  • scubakid 1y ago
    I'm grateful to hear it's made such a difference for you, and that early support back in 2021 means more than you know. In the down months and challenging times, it's the encouragement from early adopters like you that kept me going.
• vladmk 1y ago
  And now he’s definitely gonna break 100k in MRR with this viral post keep going! :-) Wonder what the equity split ended up being with the growth partner probable 60/40 at best for Jon
• CalRobert 1y ago
  I saw this, thought "wow this is great, I sure miss living in the US where good tools like this are available, everything in Europe is crap" but lo and behold, there's the Netherlands tax preset. Fantastic.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    I think there may be a few wrinkles in the nl tax code that are tricky to capture with the current framework, but it has been a goal from the beginning to be as inclusive as possible for international scenario modeling. I'm continually making refinements there, and always open to ideas and suggestions if you have some.
    • CalRobert 1y ago
      They’re complex, especially with the thirty percent ruling and constant box three changes, but it’s still better than some US only tool
• feizhuzheng 1y ago
  it is like some bias where everyone is talking about it but no one actually did it except for very few people
• DidYaWipe 1y ago
  Wow, that whole thing was completely devoid of useful content. Does it even say what the product or service is? "We’ve also added a few contractors to the team. And these guys are legends. They come straight from the ProjectionLab user community" So... the product was obviously built, because it had a "user community;" so now they've added contractors? Whoop dee doo. Is there some advice or playbook we're supposed to take away from this? Or is it self-congratulatory spam?
  • dvt 1y ago
    Why are you being such a stick-in-the-mud? It's an interesting and inspiration post on HN about a successfull bootstrapped indie startup. HN is primarily a startup & tech-driven community, so obviously we're all interested in stories like this. In fact, I miss the days where HN was almost solely startup post-mortems or success stories. How is the post even remotely self-congratulatory spam?
    • DidYaWipe 1y ago
      Because it doesn't provide insightful guidelines on how to avoid pitfalls or how to work around this or that impediment or, or, or. Whatever, man. I guess we have different standards for what constitutes "informative."
  • dspillett 1y ago
    > Does it even say what the product or service is? Do you really need spoon-feeding that directly? The whole site is about the product. Much more information about it is literally a click-or-two away. Describing it specifically on that page, given how much information is already around it on directly linked pages, would seem superfluously wordy (even to me, someone who just used “superfluously” instead of “overly”). > Or is it self-congratulatory spam? Largely, yes. But no more than so people having anniversary parties are showing off, do you begrudge that sort of thing too? I much prefer that to a self-aggrandising comment essentially stating “I'm better than them because I wouldn't post something like that” (yes, as some may be wondering, I am self-aware enough to acknowledge the strong touch of hypocrisy in that comment!).
• ggap 1y ago
  Congratulations! It always helps if you start with solving it for yourself. A marketer like Jon is every side project strength
  • jonkuipers 1y ago
    Thanks! Kyle solved it for me too, which is how I found him. He lit the fire and I'm just tossing on more logs.
• AstroBen 1y ago
  Congrats! Wondering if you have any tips for what worked well with marketing?
  • scubakid 1y ago
    after that first Show HN back in 2021, the majority of our growth has been product-led and word-of-mouth. some bloggers and thought leaders in the financial independence space also found the tool and shared it in the early years, which helped get some momentum going. we're finally starting to make a little headway now with SEO, and we're beginning to reinvest/experiment with some paid channels for the first time this year.
• dvt 1y ago
  Amazing story and huge congrats! It's funny how the tool itself seems quite niche-y, but bootstrapping to 1M ARR in 4 years definitely proves that hypothesis wrong; fantastic job :)
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Thanks! Initially I had been looking around for an existing tool to use myself, so I knew there was at least one person out there willing to pay for something like this. And r/financialindependence has 2.3m members, so I hoped there might turn out to be more than one.
  • fishtoaster 1y ago
    It's niche, but I wasn't really able to find anything else like it. I wanted to project our some retirement scenarios and my options seemed to be: - Any of a few dozen "retirement calculators," each consisting of 6 fields and very simple outputs - Building out a series of buggy spreadsheets - Projection Lab After messing around for it a bit, it was a "shut up and take my money" situation. It was cheap, it was powerful, it was nice to use, and it has been the foundation for my personal financial strategy for the last few years!
• bentocorp 1y ago
  Great post and congratulations. Similar approach and story to myself, in that I started a side project for my own use and interest, and then released it to great feedback as a side hustle, went part-time and over the last 2.5 years managed to go full time. I've yet to reach your $1M ARR though.. but hopefully getting there one day! Recently wrote up a Year in Review which touches on similar learnings as you've written over the last year: https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/ad-blocker-year-in-review-2025/ https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/ad-blocker-year-in-review... Have also had a keen interest in FIRE over the years and hadn't heard of your product... personally I've just kept my own spreadsheet which runs through scenarios, progress etc.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Congrats on 350k downloads, sounds like you had a good year! You mentioned SEO finally kicking in. Do you attribute that to anything in particular? Any strategic changes you made? Also curious how you incorporate AI tools into your workflow, if at all.
    • bentocorp 1y ago
      > You mentioned SEO finally kicking in. Do you attribute that to anything in particular? Any strategic changes you made? I attribute the search traffic growth to: 1. A critical mass of content, after a number of years of writing - without a lot of search traffic for the first few years 2. Re-wrote and polished some of my earlier articles so that they were improved 3. Wrote more guides related to my app which were helpful to users; such as: Safari Extensions Guide - https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/safari-extensions-guide/ https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/safari-extensions-guide/ Best Web Browser - https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/best-web-browser-2025/ https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/best-web-browser-2025/ > Also curious how you incorporate AI tools into your workflow, if at all. Not a lot myself, except for sometimes helping with polishing and checking of writing and sometimes coming up with options etc. In my experience AI tools are like having a junior assistant – they can be helpful but you always need to check and polish everything they do.
      • 1y ago
• plentysun 1y ago
  Amazing, this is super cool!
• Ozzie_osman 1y ago
  Co-founder of a somewhat complementary and somewhat competitive product. Just dropping in to say what Kyle has done with Projection Lab is nothing short of phenomenal. This is a tough space to build in, and he's built an amazing product.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Thanks Ozzie, that means a lot coming from you. Building successfully in this space requires a passion for it, and that really comes through with the work you and your team are doing too.
  • _1tem 1y ago
    Sometimes I wonder who makes more money: a VC backed founder like you with tens of millions in funding and 8 figure revenues, or a bootstrapped founder with a small team of contractors at $1m ARR.
    • RamblingCTO 1y ago
      You don't have to wonder: the days that VC backed founders make shit tons of money is long gone imho.
• bz_bz_bz 1y ago
  I like to think a portion of your success came from having such great OMSCS SDP group project partners ;) Congrats on what you’ve accomplished. Always fun to read the updates.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    haha yep it all traces back to designing that android app for solving cryptograms XD
• matesz 1y ago
  I really like the ability to skip setup and go for sandbox presets with premium features paywalled - this seems like an obvious choice. Most SaaS products like these require you to go through their complicated setup just to see what they are about. Also, highly recommend "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick - https://www.momtestbook.com https://www.momtestbook.com. It is so revealing, especially to people like me who naturally tend to think that just automation of processes is going to make something people want. This book is, by far, the best resource I found to get out of that mindset and learn how to get real feedback.
• k1t 1y ago
  What I'd really appreciate is a demo/sandbox version where I can try out the functionality without having to enter anything personal. I appreciate that you have a (generous looking) free tier and various screenshots - but it just seems like something I'd want to play around with before taking the time to create an account and start entering personal data into.
  • jonkuipers 1y ago
    We do offer a sandbox with preset examples that lets you explore the app. No need to enter any personal data, but you will need to sign up.
    • k1t 1y ago
      Thanks - I'll check it out then!
• shahzaibmushtaq 1y ago
  Small steps daily, big rewards personally and financially in the long-term. Well-written and speaks for every struggling entrepreneur out there. Congratulations, Kyle and his wonderful team!
  • scubakid 1y ago
    thanks! I'm not a fast blog post writer, and sometimes feel guilty taking time away from building to draft updates like this (took me a couple days to write and rewrite this one). glad to hear it turned out to be a decent read.
    • shahzaibmushtaq 1y ago
      Those who can write code, can write articles as well. I am not a fast writer either, hopefully we will get better over time.
• konsalexee 1y ago
  The parrot on the OGs shoulder is the goal (besides raising the ARR lol)
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Funny thing is he's my fiancé's bird, which she's had for 20 years, but somehow the only person he likes now is me. Kind of a bummer for her. But he's happy I guess haha
• ozgrakkurt 1y ago
  It is interesting how most comments talk about “the right way to do it” but the post mostly seems to say persisting and just developing more is the important thing
• 44za12 1y ago
  I love how these stories always start with “I just wanted to scratch my own itch” and end with “...and now I’m running a company with a payroll bigger than my old day job.” It’s inspiring, but also a little bit intimidating. Makes you wonder how many potential seven-figure ideas are just sitting in people’s “maybe someday” folders. The real lesson here? Ship something, even if it’s ugly. You can’t optimize what doesn’t exist.
  • bravesoul2 1y ago
    For me the lesson is: ship the thing that makes you feel like you are playing Golf doing it (assuming someone who plays Golf enjoys it alot). The golfer won't regret their day on the course. And if you fail on the passion project it won't feel like a fail. I have another idea too. It's the win anyway system. Pick something that if you fail you use those skills at work and get ahead. E.g. the side project is also the training for the gap in your career.
    • taneq 1y ago
      I don’t really like golf but I’d imagine that if I did, I might stop liking it once I had to do it professionally every day even when I didn’t feel like it.
      • Croak 1y ago
        Choose not to pursue CS because of that. I like coding a lot and can spend lots of brainpower and time coding things I am interested in. Once you start working as a programmer, coding becomes something else. Therefore I rather take a different career path and can keep enjoying my little projects.
        • scubakid 1y ago
          What career path did you pursue instead, and how does that fit into the framework of your life and goals? Do you ever wonder if you could have bounced around enough to find a CS role that might enhance rather than corrupt your passion? Or do the odds of that just seem too low in your experience?
• bisRepetita 1y ago
  Thank you so much Kyle for sharing all this. This is very inspiring. I will put a few more extra hours today in my project thinking about you. I'd love to have some info about the hiring of Jon, anything you may feel like sharing, while I realize a lot of it is very confidential. For example: - I am wondering how the working relationship got started since you write that he "spent a year contributing real value", and he was not asking for equity upfront. Did you hire him as contractor initially, did he volunteer his time? - the structure of the deal with him, and of course the equity part, especially _if/while_ you are not planning to sell the business. Maybe you have some pointers on "possible deal structures" that you looked into without spilling the beans on the actual deal? I know I am asking a lot, I hope it does not hurt to ask, so realistically I don't expect any answer, but any breadcrumbs would be so valuable/helpful! In any case, thank you so much already.
  • teiferer 1y ago
    > I will put a few more extra hours today in my project thinking about you. And that's the recipe for failure right there. Your passion side project needs to be fueled by passion, not thinking about somebody else's success that you are trying to replicate.
    • bisRepetita 1y ago
      I find this such a strange comment, to be able to reach such a conclusion so quickly without any idea what my side project is, how much passion I have put into it, and how much still have in me, with no idea how many people I've helped already with it. Like Kyle writes keep showing up to make it a little better every day. Today again I will show up, but today I'll think of him and it will help me. What's your passion project? How do _you_ keep the motivation every day? How long has it been?
    • optymizer 1y ago
      > Your passion side project needs to be fueled by passion Maybe he's in that valley of despair right now that the article shows occurs many times. Passion is fleeting and at times you just need a little inspirational jolt to get back into it and regain some of that passion. Also, to share a personal experience, passion is not sufficient. You need favorable conditions as well (or the ability to create them). For example, the article talks about working nights and weekends. I'm not sure if the author has kids or what the arrangement is in his family, but personally, as much as I wanted to work whole weekends on my passion project, I would feel like a shitty father if I ignored my kids over the weekend for months, so the project gets put on the back burner a lot while I'm biking with my kids outside and having fun.
• alok-g 1y ago
  Looks good! Am a potential customer. I would like to understand what all market data is built in for the historical simulations and future predictions. I currently do financial projections in Excel, the critical missing part for my own calculations being the market data. How long is the free trial for premium version? (I could not find on the website.) Thanks.
• bravesoul2 1y ago
  Wicked PMF there. Getting to 150 MMR right away is a good sign. Especially for a HN post.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    how do you define PMF? I keep hearing conflicting definitions. Seems like any time someone declares they've found it, there's another who jumps in to explain why they technically haven't yet.
    • bravesoul2 1y ago
      To me this is a wild success story but to someone else this may be meh that isn't much. I think 1M ARR shows you are on to something and getting sales off the bat is a good indicator. Not an expert but I feel PMF is a rear view mirror thing.
      • scubakid 1y ago
        lol so have we gone from "wicked PMF" to just being "onto something"? the rear-view thing sounds kinda like "you'll know it when you see it"... which I'm sure is true for some people, but idk if I would know when to declare PMF without a more precise definition.
        • bravesoul2 1y ago
          Yes. I'm saying the first HN post was a great signal, but a probability. It could have flopped from there. But sales from a cold HN post to me is good pot odds, so stay in the game! The rear view mirror thing is of course true: you can only know the market by testing it by trying to sell your thing to it. Anything forward looking is a prediction. You are always making decisions that are like bets.
          • scubakid 1y ago
            Definitely agree on thinking in bets and probabilities. Is your sense that we're officially at PMF now? Or maybe last year even? Or do you think the question is fundamentally subjective and depends on who you ask and what numbers seem compelling to them, like you kind of alluded to before?
• senko 1y ago
  Interesting to see the inflection point when Jon joined. I recall something similar when Marko joined Plausible as a marketing person, which also started as a solo effort by a developer. To my knowledge Pieter does both himself, but he built a sizable following online, which boosts all his marketing efforts.
• cbeach 1y ago
  Great job on this webapp, it's a really easy-to-use platform. I've toyed with the same startup idea myself, having tracked my personal finances and life projection for years now using Google Sheets, Grafana and other tools. Just an annecdotal bit of feedback: I would like to continue using ProjectionLab but $109/year is beyond what I'm willing to spend, especially given ProjectionLab doesn't integrate with any live tracking of property prices / investment portfolio valuation etc. If it were $40/year I probably would subscribe. But $109 is too much to justify (and I am reasonably well off). Have you A/B tested different pricing levels to find the sweet spot that maximises revenue?
  • codecutter 1y ago
    I tend to agree with the sentiment. The only reason I subscribed to ProjectionLab was to appreciate the hard work of Kyle. Otherwise, "New Retirement" (now called Boldin) serves my purpose. It provides similar features and it provides automatic updates too.
    • cbeach 1y ago
      Thanks for the recommendation. I just tried Boldin and it looks good, but seems to be US-centric? I'm in the UK and it didn't model my situation very accurately unfortunately
  • scubakid 1y ago
    We've done some pricing experimentation over the years, and it's possible we're actually still positioned too cheap right now for the value the platform provides. Personal finance is a pretty broad space, and it's common for different people to come to this with varying desires and expectations. In our experience, the people who see the value in a good long-term DIY financial plan view our current pricing as extremely affordable, especially compared to traditional financial planning services which often charge $3-5k for a PDF and a pat on the back. Anyway, if automated tracking is the piece that's most important to you, it might be worth noting that we do plan to add more options for that. But that work -- and all the other controversial implications of it that I mentioned in another comment -- just needs to be prioritized against all the other highly requested things on the product roadmap, based on what the community really wants the most.
• alittlebee 1y ago
  As someone that has tried and failed at many attempts over a decade, I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate you. This is so wonderful, and I couldn’t be happier for you. Thank you for sharing your journey, and lessons learned . I’m now a single working mom supporting 2 young kiddos on my own, so my time has become limited; but I’ll be back :)
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Thanks so much, that means a lot. It's challenging when time and life pull you in so many directions. Wishing you and your kids all the best. When you jump back in, I'll be rooting for you.
  • lvl155 1y ago
    You tried which is more than 99.9999999%. Keep at it and focus on learning from your experiences. It will eventually come.
• xwiz 1y ago
  Glad to hear of your success! Projection Lab is such a great product.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Thanks! It's interesting how easy it is to move the goalposts on product vision. It has come such a long way since the beginning, but I still wake up every day thinking about how much more I feel compelled to build.
• adkaplan 1y ago
  Amazing – congratulations. I've been using the demo version of your product every six months or so since I first saw your post here. I Really appreciate that you've kept it available, and hope you will continue to do so even as the cash continues to pour in. If I was anywhere close to retirement, I'd be a subscriber instantly, but I just like financial planning as a hobby. I recommend it to family and friends. You've created a great, intuitive product and absolutely deserve your success.
  • jonkuipers 1y ago
    Thanks so much. Really appreciate that. We’ve always wanted the tool to be accessible to anyone interested in financial planning, even just as a hobby, so it’s great to hear the basic version has been useful. Do you think it strikes the right balance between free access and a sustainable paid model?
    • adkaplan 1y ago
      I think your method is perfect. Having to make notes and re-enter my settings is just the right amount of frustrating, that each time I'm tempted to buy it. I think most people who are less stubborn (cheap) than I would pay the second time they need the tool. Having the free no-saving model as a public service is hopefully a win-win for you. The public has access to a financial planning tool, and if they need to take their finances more seriously they can start the paid model. I also like the prompt you've added which says something like /hey, you lost your settings because you're using the free mode, but we can recover them to save you time/. Good detail.
      • jonkuipers 1y ago
        glad to hear it. thanks for the feedback!
• commodorepet 1y ago
  How do you differentiate between persistence or stuborness. I have been developing a SaaS product since 2020 which currently is at 3K ARR with a very slow growth (20%). It's a B2B and are we are still missing a bunch of features to make us on par with competitors. We did survive a couple of competitors that came and go as we still have our day jobs and running it costs peanuts ($$$). It often feels I should give up but having had customers who used us for years makes me think we have something that one day will make serious money.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Are your existing customers vocal about what they love or wish you'd add? Do you know how they found you and what made them choose you over competitors? Is there a niche/segment within your larger TAM with a specific pain point you're solving really well? And how big is that segment? Either way, if your existing customers don't all come from paid channels, and they're loyal, and you've outlasted multiple competitors, that already sounds like a real achievement to me. My progress was slow for years before things started to really pick up, so don't discount signs of traction if there are some meaningful ones.
    • commodorepet 1y ago
      Very vocal, we do have a very solid TODO list for another 12 months. They are also quite loyal and number of them are with us for 3+ years and they use software daily (its just a very small customer list overall). I do wonder sometimes why they stay with us given other competitors are much better. We mostly grew through word of mouth and cold emails. I believe we are already solving a fairly niche use case (TAM is few thousand customers in USA) and my idea is to grow revenue enough to go after larger TAM (several milion).
      • scubakid 1y ago
        Word-of-mouth growth sounds like a good sign. And depending on your goals, sometimes building a defensible niche business, maximizing ARPU, and minimizing churn can be better than chasing the mass market. Could something like a referral program potentially move the needle?
• commodorepet 1y ago
  How do you differentiate between persistence or stuborness. I have been developing a SaaS product since 2020 which currently is at 3K ARR with a very slow growth (20% YoY). It's a B2B and are we are still missing a bunch of features to make us on par with competitors. We did survive a couple of competitors that came and go as we still have our day jobs and running it costs peanuts ($$$). It often feels I should give up but having had customers who used us for years makes me think we have something that one day will make serious money.
• mattfrommars 1y ago
  Amazing stuff. I think I'm in the boat as you OP except I just can't get myself to commit to a project since 1) no idea if it works or is unique 2) look for better opportunity and spend time doing LC/apply for job. There is only so many hours after work. > Once you’ve validated your idea, Could you really break this down. I feel you overlooked this part. How do you filter through tons of ideas into idea that for sure or has good chance for success. For example, to build a yet another crypto exchange is both super technical and far too regulated. What is a known strategy how founder/dev nail down and commit to a project?
  • scubakid 1y ago
    There are many frameworks and approaches, but here are two of my filtering criteria: 1. I don't start a project unless it's something I deeply want to exist for my own personal use. That way I know there's at least one person who would pay for an elegant solution. And even if no one shows up, at least it's useful to me. 2. I don't start a project unless I can envision the solution top to bottom and feel confident about the scope of the technical work. I'm not the most brilliant person at data structures & algorithms, and I prefer solutions where a simple architecture can get the job done. If there are foggy areas in the technical design, or parts I struggle to visualize clearly, to me that's a red flag.
    • gilfoyle_7 1y ago
      Do you make this decision after doing tons of research about how you could implement a solution for the gray areas or do you just decide not to pursue the gray areas that you don't know how to implement yourself?
      • scubakid 1y ago
        Doing some research would definitely be part of the diligence process when considering a new project.
        • gilfoyle_7 1y ago
• bprater 1y ago
  ProjectionLab offers a lifetime plan. How does this factor into profitability - as they'll never be able to bill this subset of customers again (for the same product)? At what point does this group of users start to degrade the performance of the business - simply because there is no more input for their required output?
  • jonkuipers 1y ago
    The lifetime plan is priced higher than expected LTV, so it's profitable upfront. We wanted to offer an option for early adopters with subscription fatigue. From the start, it has been a way to reinvest in the project: initially to support Kyle’s time, and now to fund growth that drives recurring subscriptions. We may sunset new lifetime sales in the future, since a one-time payment model doesn’t align as well with our goal of building and maintaining PL over the long term.
• apparent 1y ago
  Congrats on building a business that is both profitable and has over $1M in ARR. Do you share any info on margins/profit, which could vary widely for a business like this (depending, for example, on how much is spent on customer acquisition)
• agcat 1y ago
  So happy to hear about your story! Congratulations rooting for you! :D
• buildItN0w_ 1y ago
  the "Working nights & weekends after corporate job" period is probably why you made it! Very inspiring and kudos for not giving up! Congratulations!
  • scubakid 1y ago
    thanks! consistently putting in those hours wasn't easy. it became the only time in life I've had elevated blood pressure. but you're right that I probably wouldn't have gotten here without burning the candle at both ends like that. at the time, I was too risk-averse to go all-in right away, and this was the best de-risking strategy I came up with. luckily, my schedule is now more balanced again. (a little lol)
• RonSkufca 1y ago
  Congratulations. I will be checking it out as I am a big fan of FIRE. Also my daughter has 2 cockatiels one for each shoulder. But they usually end up on one as they like to hang out together.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    oh neat! I was surprised how long their lifespan is -- my fiancé has had ours for over 20 years... although for some reason his allegiance flipped a few years ago, and now he only flies to me, not her.
    • RonSkufca 1y ago
      Yes bird ownership can be a multi decade responsibility.
      • jonkuipers 1y ago
        so can a great bootstrapped business ;)
• TrackerFF 1y ago
  I haven’t used the tool, but what’s the most against AI/LLM models? I ask, because I’ve used ChatGPT for similar, and it spits out decent answers. More so, the more data you feed to it.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    GPT is not bad at high-level guesstimates, but there's a LOT that goes on under the hood to make a detailed, accurate, responsive, and tax-aware long-term planning system with a good UX for nuanced scenario comparisons and what-ifs. At current capability levels, AI tools aren't a great replacement for that in my experience. But we'll see if that changes as they continue to evolve...
• llsf 1y ago
  Congratulations and happy to have contributed to reach that milestone ! This product has so much potential.
• terminatornet 1y ago
  Not really the point of the post, but it was nice to see a pic of Kyle working with his bird on his shoulder instead of a stock photo or some AI slop generated image.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Thanks! He's a fun little copilot when he's not chewing my cables and mousepad.
• webprofusion 1y ago
  Always encouraging to see that ideas can work out. I'm not quite managing the "let's build a team" aspect just yet but otherwise similar journey and outcome over a (slightly) longer period. I just wanted to not deal with certificates, now I deal with certificates all day every day lol: https://certifytheweb.com https://certifytheweb.com
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Congrats on 100k organizations, that's impressive. How much of a pain point is support? At that scale, is it becoming a burden without more of a team in place? I'd be curious to hear more about what the ups and downs on your journey have been like.
    • webprofusion 1y ago
      Probably a couple of hours on support per day on average, some days less, some days more. The vast majority of users don't ask for support, they prefer to read the docs, read the community forum, goggle stuff or hunt-and-peck options in the app. Roughly 90% use the free version. If everyone used the paid version I could have a very large team, but the reality is the product competes with many free tools. If you update the app or refine docs in response to previous support questions it does streamline the experience but there are always folks who just don't read docs and there are many who will purchase the app just for access to support so they can figure something out. I'm sure some apps are more support heavy than others, but ours is aimed at system administrators and with that comes an assumed level of competence (in reality, many people are only in the role because nobody else could/would do it but even they are quite independently resourceful). The disadvantage of users helping themselves is that you don't get feedback from them or learn about their use cases. Knowing how/why people are using your stuff is really valuable for development, so if I had the team for it then dedicated support engineers would follow up with customers early on even if they don't have issues.
      • scubakid 1y ago
        Did you consider adding an optional survey (or just an input or two) somewhere in setup or the onboarding flow? I bet some % of people would willingly tell you how/why they are using the software.
• udev4096 1y ago
  Doesn't fucking matter even if you reach a billion dollars with a boring ass business of drawing financial charts. Those charts are manipulated by HFTs, hedge funds and what not. It is naive to think you, a retail investor, stand a chance
  • scubakid 1y ago
    you might enjoy The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins.
• techn00 1y ago
  This story is similar to the guys at senja.io: tech founder => marketing/growth person joins => business skyrockets to 1M ARR. It looks to me like a combination of having a product with some revenue and havingthe luck of someone like Jon joining. I'd be more interested on how to find people like Jon tbh.
• dahuangf 1y ago
  Congratulations on your progress! I’ve been in website development for almost half a year now, but I haven’t earned a single cent yet. Do you have any advice for beginners like us?
• pipes 1y ago
  It looks really good. Would it make much difference that I'm not USA based, (live in the UK). I.e. in terms of tax pensions pensions etc.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    I noticed most tools neglect international scenarios because the US market is big and it's easier to focus on that. So I decided to be different and try to build with as much international flexibility as possible. We have a bunch of international account types and tax preseta, including some for the UK.
    • pipes 1y ago
      Amazing. Thanks. :)
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• sgallant 1y ago
  I've been following their journey for a while and love hearing about their success
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• avervaet 1y ago
  Thanks for sharing your impressive journey. It's always refreshing to see a story that promotes grit and resilience, rather than the instant exponential growth often glorified by wannabe millionaires online.
  • scubakid 1y ago
    Glad to hear it resonated. And also glad I didn't start this project with the expectation of quick success, hype, or exponential growth. If I had, there's no way I would have made it through the slower early years.
• TimurZakirov 1y ago
  It's amazing and gives me energy to do the same
• mieubrisse 1y ago
  Wild - I hit the same "no financial software meets my needs" around the same time as you guys (late 2020 in my case), and started building for myself as well: https://github.com/mieubrisse/wealthdraft https://github.com/mieubrisse/wealthdraft Only, I never had the courage to make the leap to building an actual product out of it. Huge congrats to you guys; going to take a look at Projection and see if I can finally retire my homegrown stuff!
  • scubakid 1y ago
    cool project. I always found java a little verbose for my taste, but I bet this runs faster than our sim engine! (it's in typescript)