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Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

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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.

3 days agoby bruce511

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.

2 days agoby 44za12

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...

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.

2 days agoby bentocorp

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.

3 days agoby rorylaitila

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.

2 days agoby bisRepetita

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.

2 days agoby commodorepet

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 :)

2 days agoby alittlebee

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.

2 days agoby k1t

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.

1 day agoby techn00

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.

2 days agoby Ozzie_osman

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.

2 days agoby senko

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 :)

3 days agoby dvt

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.

3 days agoby mdorazio

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?

2 days agoby mattfrommars

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

3 days agoby yesimahuman

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

2 days agoby webprofusion

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.

2 days agoby commodorepet

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.

2 days agoby adkaplan

the "Working nights & weekends after corporate job" period is probably why you made it!

Very inspiring and kudos for not giving up! Congratulations!

2 days agoby buildItN0w_

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?

2 days agoby bprater

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!

3 days agoby Crisco

Nice! How did you go about finding a growth marketer that was a good fit with your business?

3 days agoby braden-lk

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.

3 days agoby mNovak

The parrot on the OGs shoulder is the goal (besides raising the ARR lol)

2 days agoby konsalexee

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?

1 day agoby dahuangf

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?

2 days agoby cbeach

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.

2 days agoby RonSkufca

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.

3 days agoby ipaddr

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

2 days agoby ozgrakkurt

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!

2 days agoby shahzaibmushtaq

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.

2 days agoby bz_bz_bz

> 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.

4 days agoby rvz

Congratulations and happy to have contributed to reach that milestone !

This product has so much potential.

2 days agoby llsf

Congratulations man, it makes me so happy to read this and I can relate to that dopamine rollercoaster phenomenon you are talking about.

3 days agoby dvrp

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.

2 days agoby alok-g

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)

2 days agoby apparent

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.

1 day agoby pipes

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.

2 days agoby TrackerFF

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

3 days agoby nico

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!

3 days agoby artur_makly

It would be just as interesting to hear what mistakes you have made and what you would do differently.

3 days agoby akomtu

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.

3 days agoby davidw

To OP, does this focus on US customers or covers the context for international customers too?

3 days agoby noisy_boy

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.

3 days agoby CalRobert

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.

1 day agoby avervaet

I've been following their journey for a while and love hearing about their success

1 day agoby sgallant

>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.

4 days agoby fuzzfactor

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

3 days agoby montakaoh

It's amazing and gives me energy to do the same

1 day agoby TimurZakirov

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.

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.

2 days agoby matesz

Congratulations! It always helps if you start with solving it for yourself. A marketer like Jon is every side project strength

3 days agoby ggap

Wicked PMF there. Getting to 150 MMR right away is a good sign. Especially for a HN post.

2 days agoby bravesoul2

So happy to hear about your story! Congratulations rooting for you! :D

2 days agoby agcat

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.

3 days agoby ilamont

Glad to hear of your success! Projection Lab is such a great product.

2 days agoby xwiz

Congrats! Great to see you succeed through perseverance and just-not-giving-up!

3 days agoby pinkmuffinere

Congrats!

Wondering if you have any tips for what worked well with marketing?

3 days agoby AstroBen

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.

2 days agoby terminatornet

Wow congratulations!

3 days agoby johncole