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I made a million dollar product from my dorm room (2025)

nick.winans.io

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Re: I made a million dollar product from my dorm room (2025)

#91

Post by saghm »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #56
saghm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it sounds like there just legitimately are 50K people who are in this niche. Maybe the fact that people might assume there are fewer is why there was a gap in the market for the author to fill!

I think this is the Big Thing when it comes to making things - underestimating the market. Mechanical keyboards is a multi-billion industry, and building them yourself is a percentage of that. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if this product managed to end up in the supply chain for a lot of the keyboard manufacturers, which would be a huge boost to sales volumes.

Given the acquisition, that fits with what I'd expect. 50k individual customers probably isn't going to be making a business worth over a million dollars for a product like this (a margin of $200 per sale seems quite high), but if it's an existing company buying it with the idea that they can integrate it into their existing stuff, the math probably works out a lot more.

Re: I made a million dollar product from my dorm room (2025)

#92

Post by NetMageSCW »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #72
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the guy (Mitch Altman) that invented the tv-b-gone, a universal remote that turns every TV off. He made a small fortune off of that and now goes around teaching people IoT and the like. I'm sure he's on here, if so, hello and thank you for the neat synthesizer board project o/

I have one. It's fantastic. Although, I don't see as many televisions in public spaces anymore. Maybe because now it's smartphones that anesthetize the masses.

You are not going to enough sports bars.

Re: I made a million dollar product from my dorm room (2025)

#93

Post by fsckboy »

>I wanted to try making a DIY wireless keyboard after having made a few wired ones

if anybody is interested, I want both a "both keyboard" and a "both mouse": plug them both in, they're wired, unplug them, they're wireless.

also, is there a mouse with a scrollwheel that I can set to scroll one line (of text) at a time, and is sensitive enough to do between 1 and say 20 lines at a time?

Re: I made a million dollar product from my dorm room (2025)

#94

Post by katdork »

c7b wrote: post #8

I admit, I barely understand what the product does, much less how there's 50k people wanting this. This is a component you can use if you're building a DIY keyboard and want to make it wireless? Seems profoundly niche to me. Am I missing something? Anyway, congrats on finding and reaching your market! The Internet at its best (although part of me wishes this nerd community had found a more self-hosted way of connecti…

the clones are the foundation of many slimevr smol trackers, so it does things other than just keyboards too!

Re: I made a million dollar product from my dorm room (2025)

#96

Post by saghm »

notahacker wrote: post #62
saghm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it sounds like there just legitimately are 50K people who are in this niche. Maybe the fact that people might assume there are fewer is why there was a gap in the market for the author to fill!

Also, and this is the neat bit, 50k people actively looking for recommendations on online communities

True! "I am a user of this type of product" is a much less strong signal than "I'm going out of my way to solicit more information about what products are available for this and how to use them". This isn't the often-cited silly case of "I just bought X, and now I'm seeing ads for buying another X even though I don't need one anymore".

Re: I made a million dollar product from my dorm room (2025)

#97

Post by k_plankenhorn »

abustamam wrote: post #87
k_plankenhorn wrote: post #83

The part that resonates with me most is the timing and luck acknowledgement. I built a solo Saas product over the past few months using Calude Code as my development partner. Total cost $600. Launching in 3 days. The tools available now means the barrier to building something has basically collapsed. A weekend in a dorm room in 2020, a few months with AI coding in 2026. Same DNA... find the gap, build the thing and s…

If you don't mind sharing, what's your product? I found that ideas are a dime a dozen, but finding the people who will pay for it is the hard part. AI will more than happily suggest terrible ideas no one would pay for.

It’s call You Have Time. It’s an anti procrastination app that connects to your Google calendar, finds your real free time, and shows you how long you’ve been avoiding each task. The idea came from years of observing people avoiding things they know they need to get done. AI just handled the coding.

You’re correct that people risk shipping pointless ideas when they let AI drive. But when you’re in the driver’s seat… you have the idea, the vision, you know your customer… AI is a tool in your toolkit.

Launching tomorrow for free at app.youhavetime.co. Paid tiers open in a few months. Tomorrow I find out how the idea resonates.

Re: I made a million dollar product from my dorm room (2025)

#98

Post by abustamam »

k_plankenhorn wrote: post #97
abustamam wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind sharing, what's your product? I found that ideas are a dime a dozen, but finding the people who will pay for it is the hard part. AI will more than happily suggest terrible ideas no one would pay for.

It’s call You Have Time. It’s an anti procrastination app that connects to your Google calendar, finds your real free time, and shows you how long you’ve been avoiding each task. The idea came from years of observing people avoiding things they know they need to get done. AI just handled the coding. You’re correct that people risk shipping pointless ideas when they let AI drive. But when you’re in the driver’s seat……

Congrats on the launch! Best of luck. Seems like a neat idea
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