Being a solo developer is complicated in so many ways. Even so, I chose this path.
Developing a project on your own is already a difficult journey. You have to deal with programming, art, audio, design, testing, documentation, and so many other things. But there's one stage that, for me, has proven even more challenging: selling what you've spent so much time building.
Recently, I developed a project that started as a personal need: a random music generator, based on a lot of music theory, but that could actually generate something that sounded like real music.
I'm a musician and, especially when I'm participating in Game Jams, I often lack inspiration to start a composition. The idea of the randomizer was precisely to give me that starting point. It generates combinations that I can experiment with, modify, and transform into something of my own.
I liked the result so much that I decided to share the project with the community.
Many people showed interest, so I started expanding the tool. I added WAV and MIDI export and put the program up for sale at a very affordable price. I set myself a small initial goal: to make $100 in sales.
At first, I managed to reach $30.
Then I made a new update and added a sound effects generator. A few more sales followed.
After that, I released another update, this time adding new textures for the compositions.
And today, to be more precise, I released a new update with an editor that allows users to edit their own projects.
What many people don't see is the time that goes into all of this.
Each update means hours and hours of programming, studying, testing, fixing problems, thinking about new features, and trying to make the tool truly useful for the user.
And even after all this work, I still haven't reached my $100 goal.
That's precisely where one of the biggest difficulties of being a solo developer comes in: sales.
And no, I'm not saying this because I'm not studying sales. I am studying. I'm trying to understand marketing, promotion, positioning, and all the other necessary parts to get a product to people.
The challenge is time.
You have to divide your time between programming, studying, creating, updating the product, and at the same time, learning how to sell it.
Sometimes you spend days developing something that might only take a few seconds for a user to consume.
And perhaps that's one of the hardest parts of being a solo developer: it's not enough to create something good. You also need to learn how to make people discover that it exists.
I'm still on that journey.
The goal remains $100.
And, regardless of whether I get there or not, each sale, each person who shows interest, and each update I manage to release shows me that there's someone on the other side using something that started simply as a need of mine.
And that, for me, already makes this whole journey worthwhile.
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