I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#31

Post by cmenge » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:27 AM UTC

KingOfCoders wrote: post #10

I remember the moment when in my last startup, the first invoice was paid - $5. A magic moment. I still remember the name of the customer. The last invoice before exit was $50.000. I remember that customer too.

Interesting, did you pivot / change the target market? $5 sounds more like a consumer product but $50k likely isn't (unless you literally progressed from skateboards to cars like every Agile cartoon wants to make us believe)...

Among other things, I'm working on an elephant hunter type product. Took us five months, but the first invoices were $7k, $3k and now $45k but that doesn't prove much yet.

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#32

Post by cmenge » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:29 AM UTC

jsemrau wrote: post #15

I built a deep search for financial research in 2023 and learned that 2025 would have been the year to launch it.

Sounds interesting, what stops you from (re-)launching it?

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#33

Post by input_sh » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:29 AM UTC

kubb wrote: post #29

How do you guys get funding to build things for such a long time? Rent, food and health insurance in my area costs $50k per year. If feels I have no choice but to earn a salary. Dropping a quarter of a mil on an app that might not pan out seems out of the question.

Nobody starts by dropping quarter of a mil, you start by dropping $1k and being very frugal, releasing something minimal, seeing how it behaves, and once you have some actual data to work with, you pivot again and again and again.

It's always a huge money sinkohole until it isn't.

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#34

Post by piskov » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:32 AM UTC

2.54:1 contrast for text which spectacularly fails any accessibility specs.

Please don’t do this

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#35

Post by svantana » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:34 AM UTC

kubb wrote: post #29

How do you guys get funding to build things for such a long time? Rent, food and health insurance in my area costs $50k per year. If feels I have no choice but to earn a salary. Dropping a quarter of a mil on an app that might not pan out seems out of the question.

It's not really clear from the blog post, but it seems like it was a side project. That's why it took so long.

Personally, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of doing freelance work 2-3 days/week and working on my own projects in the remaining time.

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#36

Post by ExxKA » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:38 AM UTC

kubb wrote: post #29

How do you guys get funding to build things for such a long time? Rent, food and health insurance in my area costs $50k per year. If feels I have no choice but to earn a salary. Dropping a quarter of a mil on an app that might not pan out seems out of the question.

It may be possible for you later in life. Most bootstrappers have worked up some wealth via traditional methods like savings, home equity, inheritance, and freelance/consulting work.

VC money and accelerators are primarily for people who dont have the wealth to bootstrap, but who are young and willing to take investors on early.

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#37

Post by fbuilesv » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:39 AM UTC

kubb wrote: post #29

How do you guys get funding to build things for such a long time? Rent, food and health insurance in my area costs $50k per year. If feels I have no choice but to earn a salary. Dropping a quarter of a mil on an app that might not pan out seems out of the question.

From the article:

> Nice to meet you. I'm an engineer who runs a small mobile app development company.

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#38

Post by webprofusion » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:40 AM UTC

Technically they didn't put a price tag on the app, the $1 was github sponsor money, so the project was never really designed to make money.

The app itself (Midi editor with piano roll UI) looks great but is instantly made much less relevant if you just install Reaper (and actual DAW, free to try, available at the time all this was developed).

Cool thing, but the moral of the story is: release that toy thing you spent a few weeks on, it's as ready as it ever will be and maybe it'll grow with it's user base.

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#39

Post by Gasp0de » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

kubb wrote: post #29

How do you guys get funding to build things for such a long time? Rent, food and health insurance in my area costs $50k per year. If feels I have no choice but to earn a salary. Dropping a quarter of a mil on an app that might not pan out seems out of the question.

I assume you work in your freetime, besides your actual job.

Re: I spent five years building a webapp and got my first $1 (2022)

#40

Post by KingOfCoders » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 9:54 AM UTC

cmenge wrote: post #31

KingOfCoders wrote: post #10

I remember the moment when in my last startup, the first invoice was paid - $5. A magic moment. I still remember the name of the customer. The last invoice before exit was $50.000. I remember that customer too.

Interesting, did you pivot / change the target market? $5 sounds more like a consumer product but $50k likely isn't (unless you literally progressed from skateboards to cars like every Agile cartoon wants to make us believe)... Among other things, I'm working on an elephant hunter type product. Took us five months, but the first invoices were $7k, $3k and now $45k but that doesn't prove much yet.

No we started with too low of a price, and we added enterprise pricing later on. So it was a combination, but we didn't pivot.