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Bootstrapping a side project into a profitable seven-figure business

projectionlab.com

181–190 of 264 posts

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

#183

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…

This is great.. thanks for sharing!

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fu…

I don't need/want account linking, I just want $VTSAX etc recent prices. I know it can be noise but what you're saving me from is really annoying copy/paste work when I come in quarterly to update numbers and track my progress.

sounds like that would also mean overhauling the data model to track individual positions within every account, not just balances?

and then folks would expect every account's asset allocation to be automatically derived from those positions too I imagine? that would differ a lot from how asset allocation modeling and change over time currently works in the tool.

maybe I'm missing something, but it feels like there could be a lot of complexity here that would need to be carefully weighed against the product vision and other things on the roadmap.

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

#187

the "Working nights & weekends after corporate job" period is probably why you made it! Very inspiring and kudos for not giving up! Congratulations!

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)

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

#188
post #6

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.

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.

What is being validated though? I'd say it's your marketing efforts more so than your product

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

#189

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.

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.

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

#190

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

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.

The question is really just how big of a market does this serve? You've made it to the point where anyone entering the FIRE market will likely stumble upon your product as a top recommended tool (just judging by the praise here). Maybe it can tap into the larger, but more generic, financial/retirement planning market. To me, it seems well on it's path to be a YNAB which has a high amount of word of mouth recommendations, but perhaps covers a larger market.
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