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
Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
61–70 of 264 posts
Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
#62I 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.
Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
#63The 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.
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.
Curious to how many projects you launched you personally resonated with before this one
Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
#64The 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.
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.
Could you share what worked for you? Is it B2B/b2c? I guess that matters too for the type of marketing to focus on?
Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
#65it is like some bias where everyone is talking about it but no one actually did it except for very few people
Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
#66Congrats! 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
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 s…
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!
Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
#67I 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.
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.
Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
#68Congrats! 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
Live is overkill, all they'd need is an every 30-60 minute update on equity prices, which is not an overly expensive thing to acquire. With a 65% profit margin in their business, this is a dead-obvious feature they should be automating away to save their users a sizable headache.
Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
#69Congrats! 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…
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.
Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Curious to how many projects you launched you personally resonated with before this one
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.