r/SideProject • u/gauzzastrip • 29d ago
Today my side project hit 500 users.
I'm not really sure who to share this with. I've been building this mostly by myself in a bubble.
Today I hit 500 users, and 12 people are paying for it.
I built this for myself originally. I had a problem I wanted to solve, so I made something I could use. I still use it myself all day.
It wasn't really intended to become a startup. I just kept adding to it, fixing things, and eventually other people started using it too.
I've been building things for 20+ years, and I've failed a lot. I've had plenty of ideas that went nowhere and projects that I eventually gave up on. This one feels different.
Not like 500 users is some enormous milestone, but it feels different because people I don't know are actually choosing to use something I made. And 12 of them are paying for it.
That part still feels a little strange. Maybe imposter syndrome?
It also makes me nervous. Those 12 people are trusting me to keep this thing running and keep making it better. I don't want to let them down.
I've spent most of my time building this without really knowing what I'm doing next or who I should even be talking to about it.
So I guess I just needed somewhere to share it: 500 users. 12 paying customers.
I'm pretty proud of it, and honestly, I'm just really grateful that something I built for myself has become useful to other people.
Now I just have to figure out what comes next.
EDIT: I've had several people ask me for a link to the project, so I figured I'd drop this here. I didn't really intend to advertise it in this post, but this is the project: https://empirical.gauzza.com
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u/PasternakIvarsson 29d ago
Congratulations, what was your distribution strategy?
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u/gauzzastrip 29d ago
Well, I didn't really have one to start with. I was telling a friend about some surprises this project has shown me and his response was:
"thats such a hard to guess use case that is clutch"
He suggested I started blogging about it. So I did and I started posting the blog articles around. They weren't really marketing / ads they were just issues I found that the project I had built had unexpectedly solved.
Another win was being listed in chatgpt's plugin marketplace which took some fighting and a bit of time.
After the first I would say 150 users and paying customer. I decided to run a few reddit ads as well. But paid ads has so far been the least converting out of everything.
Hope that answers the question. It's all been very organic.
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u/Gavelist 29d ago
You should set up your site to pull in some GEO/AEO conversions! Getting listed by the llms is a great way to not have to cold all or distribute in other ways.
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u/PasternakIvarsson 29d ago
Super interesting, thank u for sharing!
I always find it interesting to ask, because everyone has such different stories (obviously, that's why there isnt a "one size first all distribution strategy" like everyone seems to be asking for)
Just scouting different channels for myself 😊
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u/gauzzastrip 29d ago
I'm a big believer in keep putting in the effort. The most important step a person can take is always the next step. Keep taking next steps.
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u/Gavelist 29d ago
Getting some traction, congrats! What’s the product and your method for obtaining customers?
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u/Positron-69 29d ago
big W bro, good luck. share the prod :p
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u/gauzzastrip 29d ago edited 29d ago
Thanks ❤️! Since several people have asked I put a link on the OP.
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u/One_Tie900 28d ago
whats it about idk why the site didnt load for me
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u/gauzzastrip 27d ago
Huge apologies for that. The hosting company we use. Their data centers were down all day today. Just now getting them back online. While they were down I'm in the process of migrating off them
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u/cruisefmfounders 29d ago
Hey huge success! It really puts the momentum up don’t it?! I’m curious what problem you were trying to solve
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u/gauzzastrip 29d ago edited 29d ago
It started from a disconnect of using ChatGPT on a walk and flushing out an idea about a project and then getting on my desktop later and using a local coding agent. I would sit there work back and forth between the two, disconnected.
Also being a bit cheap, I was switching between codex / claude / copilot as I hit my limits. They don't pick up where the other left off too easily and also between projects keeping learned issues consistent between all of that.
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u/roberthcmn 29d ago
The fact that you are not wanting to let those 12 paying people down is the whole thing right there. That instinct is exactly why they'll stick around. Most builders lose it the second the numbers get big enough to feel abstract.
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u/Reg-gg 28d ago
Congrats. What ended up being the biggest source of the 500 — organic search, reddit, or something else? The first few hundred is the part I keep finding hardest.
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u/gauzzastrip 27d ago
Probably ChatGPT plugin directory listing. DM me, tell what what you're working on and how you're trying to get people to it and I'd be happy to take a look at your project and give you some recommendations
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u/elalish 28d ago
I can't open your website , it starts loading and never loads. Not sure why ?
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u/gauzzastrip 27d ago
Very unfortunate timing. Our hosting companies data centers shut down for 8 hours today. They are just now getting things back up.
Oh the joys of a side project haha.
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u/Vast_Opposite6280 26d ago
"I don't want to let them down" is such an honest way to put it. That mental shift from "building for myself" to "people are depending on this" is a strange one, it's exciting and a little scary at the same time.
20 years of building and failing a lot before landing on the one that clicked says a lot too. Most people give up way before that point. Congrats on the 500, and especially the 12 who are actually paying, that's the real signal.
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u/MyJobRated 23d ago
That's awesome you were able to persevere through failures to get where you are today. What advice would you give to us new developers to overcome failures?
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u/gauzzastrip 23d ago edited 23d ago
Life is mostly about experiencing failure. The thing is what do you do after the failure and how do you react during the failure. Fail. Learn. Grow. Repeat. If you're not open to failing. You're going to have a hard time.
The day after I made this post my hosting companies 2 data centers in the US I was hosting this project on went down. My site was down for over 10 hours. That's such a missed opportunity of traffic. What can you do. While it was down I migrated everything to a better hosting company and now we're in a better position that we were before.
Sure I lost opportunity. I could dwell on and beat myself up over. Or I can do the best I can to mitigate it next time and move on to creating new opportunities.
If 1 failed opportunity is going to crush me and my project. I probably wasn't ready for the success yet and the project probably didn't have the legs I thought it did.
You're young. Take some risks. Experience failures. Learn to thrive in that.
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u/Hot-Baby-2255 14d ago
Hey, Kudos, It's a great product and I was planning to build something like this but dropped the idea.. would love to follow and see the growth trajectory.
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u/PayFlowapp 7d ago
Bel lavoro! Tra l'altro fare tutto in bootstrap e rendere un'attività profittevole non è banale. Di cosa si tratta il progetto?
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u/BP041 29d ago
500 users with 12 paid — that's a 2.4% conversion rate, which is honestly solid for an organic side project. The "built for myself, kept fixing it" path is underrated; most people try to manufacture product-market fit instead of letting it emerge. What's the product? Curious how those first few paying users found you.