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Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

projectionlab.com

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Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

#81

Post by mkatx »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #35
scubakid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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 ;)

Aw shit.

*drawing-board

Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

#82

Post by bentocorp »

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.

Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

#83

Post by scubakid »

bentocorp wrote: post #82

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 writte…

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.

Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

#85

Post by eastbound »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #35
scubakid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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 ;)

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.

Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

#86

Post by bentocorp »

scubakid wrote: post #83
bentocorp wrote: post #82

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 writte…

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.

> 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/

Best Web Browser - 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.

Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

#87

Post by scubakid »

bentocorp wrote: post #86
scubakid wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 hel…

In terms of scale/footprint, roughly how many articles did it take to achieve that critical mass of content?

And yeah, with the state of AI tooling, I think junior engineers, assistants, new grads, etc, may currently have the most to worry about.

Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

#88

Post by scubakid »

eastbound wrote: post #85
fuzzfactor wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 ;)

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…

What ecosystem was she in before?

Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

#89

Post by bentocorp »

scubakid wrote: post #87
bentocorp wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hel…

In terms of scale/footprint, roughly how many articles did it take to achieve that critical mass of content? And yeah, with the state of AI tooling, I think junior engineers, assistants, new grads, etc, may currently have the most to worry about.

It's not a lot of articles in total - only 35, with the first being published over 7 years ago.

You can see the full list here: https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/

Perhaps the age of the content helps, though I haven't done a deep dive into SEO practices myself. In the last year, when search traffic increased, I've increased the output to almost 1 article per month.

Re: Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

#90

Post by fishtoaster »

dvt wrote: post #76

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 :)

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!

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