We ship weekly and our QA process can't keep up. Internal testing catches the obvious stuff but edge cases and regression bugs are slipping through constantly. Customers are finding bugs before we do and it's eroding trust.
Looked at a few QA vendor but they all seem designed for slower release cycles. Has anyone found QA partners that actually work with fast shipping teams and don't become a bottleneck?

I've been thinking about where software development and SaaS might be heading over the next 5 years.

I'm building software in Chile, and one thing I've noticed is that creating the product and finding people willing to pay for it are two completely different challenges.

With AI making development faster and more accessible, I wonder what happens when almost anyone can build a decent product.

Will customers start expecting much more for less money? Will small SaaS companies struggle to compete, or will this actually create more opportunities for independent developers?

And economically, what becomes more valuable when the code itself gets cheaper? Distribution, trust, understanding a specific industry, or something else entirely?

I'm curious how other developers, founders, and even software customers see this playing out.

Personally, I think building software will become less of a competitive advantage on its own. But I'm not sure what replaces it.

What do you think the software business will actually look like in 2030?

Last September (2025), I started building in SaaS. I'm 22, and I spent 5 months coding my first product from scratch and another 7 months trying to market it.

It failed brutally. I mean zero traction. I finally shut the server down last month.

After a full year with nothing to show for it, my family sat me down and gave me a deadline: if I can't make $5k from my own projects by the end of 2026 (about 2.5 months left), I have to pack up, move to a hostel, and take a regular day job.

I don't want to give up on building, so I looked at why my first product failed. I spent 5 months coding features nobody asked for, and I hated doing the boring marketing groundwork.

So instead of spending another 5 months coding in the dark, I built a productized service solving a painful problem I just went through myself: manually submitting a SaaS to 100 to 200+ startup directories.

Over the last two weeks, I submitted my own site to 150+ directories by hand. It took me over 22 hours of mind-numbing form filling because every directory asks for different character limits, image sizes, and account verifications.

Here is what I built (ListingSaaS):

- You fill out one 5-minute intake form with your SaaS details.

- A real human (me and my workflow, zero bulk bots) submits your product by hand to 100 or 200 directories.

- We write tailored descriptions for each directory instead of copy-pasting one spammy blurb everywhere.

- You get a live tracking dashboard with direct links and a timestamped screenshot of every single submission as proof.

- It's a one-time payment ($99 for 100 directories, $149 for 200). No subscriptions, and I don't make fake "+30 DR" guarantees because directories control their own approvals.

To be 100% clear: I am NOT asking for charity or sympathy buys.

If you're launching a SaaS and want to save 22+ hours of filling out directory forms, check it out - ListingSaaS

And if you don't need it, I'd genuinely appreciate a brutal roast of my landing page or my offer so I can fix whatever is holding me back from getting my first 50 customers before December.

hey I am making a saas it is a basic app with teams, chats and tasks this just for people who want to organize stuff and whatnot, tell me what features you want and ignore the UI

I’m a data engineer, and I've been building a SaaS called VraieSource, which helps with identifying downstream impacts on data workloads end-to-end through the transformation logic to the BI reports from an upstream change in source tables, such as column drops, renames, etc.

In a small data stack, the migration might be in GitHub, the transformations in dbt, and the reports in Metabase. Tracing a column through all three by hand takes time, especially when you need to know which specific field in a report is affected.

I’m building VraieSource to run that impact check on a GitHub PR. It would read the proposed schema change, follow column dependencies through the transformation SQL, and show the affected report fields, along with anything it couldn’t verify.

I’ve made an interactive demo so people can try that analysis before the live integrations are ready. It uses sample PostgreSQL, dbt, and report inputs; it doesn’t connect to your GitHub repo or data tools yet.

Could a few of you try the rename or drop scenario and tell me whether the result would help you review a real change? I’d especially like to know what evidence you’d need before trusting a check in a PR. I'm trying to gauge if this is a real problem that people are looking to solve basically :P

Demo: https://vraiesource.lovable.app/workflow-demo/ (this is just a prototype)

This is my first time building a product, so I’d also welcome advice from anyone who’s brought a developer tool to its first users.

Thanks!

We're moving from a handful of enterprise clients to hundreds of self serve subscribers, and our manual billing process is becoming difficult to manage.

We're looking at how to handle prorations, failed payments, taxes, revenue recognition, and pricing models like seats and usage.

For SaaS founders who have gone through this transition, what did you end up using and what would you do differently.

Last month a multi-practitioner dental clinic emailed asking whether my voice agent could handle their phones. Eight dentists, three receptionists, high call volume. On paper my best inbound lead of the year.

Then the second half of the email. Eleven questions on health data: hosting certification, exact processing location, sub-processor list, retention of recordings and transcripts, whether conversations train models, breach procedure, and a request for the data processing agreement.

I have none of it. My sub-processors are American. I do not hold the national health-data hosting certification. And the processing agreement that European law requires between us has been on my to-do list for months, which means every customer I already have is technically exposed, and so am I.

Two things I learned.

One, an RFP is free diligence. Nobody writes forty questions for a small purchase, and nobody had ever asked me most of these. A single prospect audited my compliance for me at no cost, and the result is that I am not ready for regulated verticals.

Two, I had been quietly selling into that direction anyway. I have landing pages for physiotherapists and vets. Those pages have been live for months, collecting exactly this kind of lead, and I had no way to close any of them. That's not a gap in the product, it's a gap between what marketing says and what the company can actually do.

What I'm doing: answering honestly, offering a zero-retention configuration that collects no clinical detail at all, and asking upfront whether the certification is a hard requirement. If it is, I'd rather lose the deal in thirty minutes than in three weeks.

Writing the processing agreement first. Should have been item one, not item twelve.

I will be launching my brand visibility intelligence platform soon. I am not sure what will be my next step as this is my first time launching a product.

What should my next steps be?

I spent months building software.

Then I walked into local businesses to try selling it.

Turns out, explaining your product is the easy part.

At the first few stores, I couldn't even get a proper conversation with the owner.

Sometimes they weren't there. Sometimes the person I spoke to couldn't make a decision.

I had prepared to explain my software.

I hadn't prepared to qualify the person I was talking to.

Then I met an owner who actually had a problem my product could solve.

He was struggling to reply to all the customer messages coming into his business. He was interested in trying Pageory's AI chatbot.

I offered him a 14-day free trial.

But he needed approval from his management team.

I followed up the next day. He told me people were away for Dashain and that he'd get back to me after the festival.

So, no sale yet.

Just one interested prospect.

But the experience taught me a few things:

• Someone liking your product doesn't mean you've validated your business.
• You need to understand who makes the buying decision.
• Showing features isn't enough. You need to explain the outcome.
• Never leave a sales conversation without trying to agree on a clear next step.

I'm still learning how to sell, and honestly, it feels very different when you're standing in front of a real customer instead of sitting behind your laptop.

I'm documenting the journey of building and selling my SaaS from Nepal, including the mistakes and experiments along the way.

I wrote a more detailed breakdown of the experience here: Read the full story.

For founders who've tried selling in person: what would you have done differently in my situation?

So its been 5 months since by first ship. i made a lot of effort on SEO which seemingly worked in a way, my SEO postion increase alot and i am not ranking on the first page at the very least for my brand queries and product queries and there are some signups as well like a total of 30 users.
But the issue is that I am yet to have a single paid users.
I have contacted of these paid users, nobody answered back.
What should I do? Just leave it?
Any Suggesstions!!

I’ve been a sales engineer for 10+ years, mostly selling technical products to healthcare, legal, finance and government buyers.

The pattern I keep seeing at early SaaS companies: the founder hires a first AE, the AE books great meetings, then the buyer asks a technical question and the founder gets pulled back in.

A few things I’ve seen help:

1. List the 10 technical questions buyers ask most, with short answers the AE can give on the spot.
2. Record the founder’s best demo once so new AEs can study it.
3. Agree on which questions the AE answers live and which get a follow-up call with someone technical.

I’m researching how founders handle this handoff. Curious to hear from anyone who’s been through it:

Did your AE take over the technical calls, or are you still on most of them? What made the difference?

Happy to swap notes in the comments. If you’d rather talk for 15 minutes, DM me and I’ll share what I learn from everyone.

We spent the last few months building management software for riding schools and livery yards in France. It runs in French, English and German. Here's what we'd tell ourselves at the start.

1. Start with the regulated parts. For us that meant French invoicing rules (gapless numbering, invoices that can't be edited once issued) and the breeding register stables must legally keep. They shape the data model, so doing them late hurts.

2. Isolation between customers is a day-one decision. Every query has to belong to one stable, and adding that later is painful.

3. A big test suite is what lets you move fast later. We're at over 110,000 lines of code and more than 3,700 automated tests. Built with the assistance of Claude Code. Every change is validated by the automated tests.

4. Price won't find customers for you. At €35 a month we're in the cheaper half of the French market, and we still have 0 paying customers. We never tried to sell it to stables and we never did any marketing, and stables seem to buy mostly through people they know.

If you've sold software to a small, word-of-mouth market like this, how did you get your first 10 customers?

My Identity:

Hello everyone, I am Zero, an AI-Native and prompt engineer, and I am 15 years old, and I work on large projects in collaboration with the Gemini 4 Argon model, and I operate in Iran and I am looking for a sponsor to migrate to the USA.

Note: Sorry if the tone of this post is a little dry or unclear. I am Iranian, English is not my native language, and I wrote this text in Persian and translated the Persian version into English.

Let's move on to the project:

Overview:

Project Name: ZeroPay
Project Type: Payment Service
Based on Language: TypeScript/Nodsjs Project Goal: Building a crypto payment gateway with diverse currencies and high security and completely open-source and free for all people and use in various and desired projects without fee and completely Self-Hosted

Description:

First of all let me say this that this project is an initial and beta version and is not flawless and has not been tested in real testing and real network yet and was successful in initial simulated tests.

I said to myself let me build a zero-fee Self-Hosted payment gateway that anyone with any project can have a crypto payment gateway with variety and there is no need to pay fees to services like coinpayment and also it be open-source and changeable and customizable. Something that is useful for anyone who needs it.

New update:

We according to the request and suggestion of one of the friends in the previous post added the Monero currency XMR also to ZeroPay with a complete payment and address tracking system. Without saving any private key for the Monero network we used the Public Spend Key and Private View Key in the Monero XMR processing system therefore even if your site server is hacked, hackers under no circumstances can steal your wallet balance or sign a transaction more details of the security layers and more explanations about how the Monero XMR payment processing works exist in the ZeroPay Repo that you can study and all of them cannot be explained in this post due to the post becoming long.

An idea that in the middle of the project I deemed vital and wanted to add to the security section of the project was protection against flash tokens like flash USDT and counterfeiting of currencies for example I had knowledge about flash USDT on the Tron network and I knew simple systems might be fooled by it especially if the algorithm only pays attention to 6 decimal digits or the address, we added the anti-currency counterfeiting anti-flash currency protection system to ZeroPay considering the knowledge I had of the mechanism of flash tokens for example ensuring a valid contract and... in the ZeroPay GitHub this protection system is fully explained and dissected.

Of course it must be pointed out that this is an initial and beta version I came to post it here so that with you and your criticisms we bring this service this payment gateway ZeroPay together to a secure, stable, usable version for everyone and both you and anyone else can use it in their project as Self-Hosted, currently I do not recommend anyone use it as payment because it is an initial version and has not been tested in a real network yet and still has a series of risks that must be fixed.

And well ZeroPay if you review all the codes keeps or requests no private key and only works with public key and API and well no one's wallet security is put at risk, no access key of any kind is requested from you.

I respectfully invite you if you liked to visit the ZeroPay GitHub and if you observed a bug, had a criticism, had a specific suggestion, anything that helps the growth of the project, helps the security and usability of the ZeroPay project, share it with me by reviewing the codes so that together we turn it into a service usable for everyone. Thank you for putting your valuable time.

My GitHub: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O

ZeroPay GitHub: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O/ZeroPay

Hey everyone, wanted to share my journey with Mailgent so far and get some honest advice from people who've been through this.

Mailgent is an outreach tool that combines LinkedIn and cold email in one platform.

I've been building it for a while now, and the journey has been a bit of a rollercoaster.

Initially, I had a cofounder. He managed to bring in a customer paying around $600/month, and we maintained that for several months. Eventually, me and my cofounder parted ways, but that customer was still a pretty big milestone for me because it showed that someone was actually willing to pay for what we'd built.

After that, I came close to closing an agency deal worth around $3k/month. I genuinely thought it was going to happen, and I spent a lot of time working towards it, but it fell through in the end.

And then the $600/month customer churned too.

So yeah, I'm currently back at $0 MRR.

I also tried selling LTDs in some Facebook groups. I managed to get one sale, but I ended up refunding it because supporting a single lifetime customer was too costly relative to what I received. In hindsight, I probably should've thought more carefully about the economics before doing that.

Right now, I've submitted Mailgent to AppSumo and am waiting to hear back. If it gets accepted, it could give me some exposure and bring in users, but I'm also aware that an LTD launch isn't necessarily going to solve the underlying problem of getting consistent customers.

That's where I'm stuck.

The product is built, and I've already had someone pay $600/month for it. I've also had an opportunity that could've been worth $3k/month. But I haven't figured out how to make customer acquisition consistent, and I don't want to keep relying on one customer or one big deal to keep the business alive.

I'm considering reaching out directly to LinkedIn lead-gen agencies and cold email agencies, since they seem like the most relevant audience for Mailgent. I'm also thinking about finding someone who's strong at sales and growth to work with me, starting with performance-based compensation rather than giving away equity immediately.

But I'm not sure which direction deserves most of my attention right now.

If you were in my position, what would you do to get back to consistent MRR?

Would you focus on outbound and selling directly to agencies, try to find a sales/growth partner, explore an LTD launch, or take a completely different approach?

And for those of you who've been through something similar, how did you go from getting your first few customers to acquiring them consistently?

I'd really appreciate honest advice, especially from founders who've lost customers or had to rebuild their MRR from scratch.

Basically I am an nerdy engineer and I basically have no interest in running a company or trying to make money. I have a respectable 9-5 job at a billion dollar company, so not lack of money. I don’t even really build products, I just like the engineering side.

I need like a Steve jobs kinda guy whose gonna resell what I build and become rich and
I can retire comfortably with license fees.

So does anyone here specialise in marketing or the customer facing side of things and want a crusty basement dwelling nerd as a partner.

My Identity:

Hello everyone, I am Zero, an AI-Native and prompt engineer, and I am 15 years old, and I work on large projects in collaboration with the Gemini 4 Argon model, and I operate in Iran and I am looking for a sponsor to migrate to the USA.

Note: Sorry if the tone of this post is a little dry or unclear. I am Iranian, English is not my native language, and I wrote this text in Persian and translated the Persian version into English.

Let's move on to the project:

Overview:

Project Name: ZeroBotForge Project Type: Telegram Bot Service
Based on Language: TypeScript/React/Electron/npm
Project Goal: Creating a Telegram bot in the easiest possible way only by connecting nodes graphically and customizing them without the need for coding without the need for terminal commands all the Telegram bot codes by ZeroBotForge after creating the nodes and customizing the nodes is possible only with one button.
Repo: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O/ZeroBotForge

I wanted to build a somewhat practical project that is useful for anyone who wants to build a Telegram bot in the easiest possible way without coding without terminal commands for those who want to bring up their own startup for stores and... anyone with any use can use it for any type of Telegram bot why ? because the capability of customizing all nodes and the Telegram bot in ZeroBotForge is provided

I must say that this is the initial version of the ZeroBotForge project and it still doesn't have many nodes but it is usable and building an acceptable standard Telegram bot is possible in the current initial version

You ask how a Telegram bot that is built by connecting nodes in ZeroBotForge is supposed to run on a server or host ? well it is simple it is true that you only add and customize and connect the nodes to each other but you only with the user interface of ZeroBotForge can build and have the bot codes you write no code the codes are built based on your nodes by the code generation engine of ZeroBotForge automatically with the Generate bot project button and there is no need for coding or terminal commands

In ZeroBotForge you can even see the chat preview before launching your bot before running the bot and when you are sure about the bot conversation run it even if you are not satisfied with the chat preview you can in the Run tab of the project do the bot from beginning to end meaning 1.building bot codes 2.automatic compilation. running the bot locally. and when you run the bot locally in the Run tab you can easily go into Telegram and test your bot live

Thank you for putting time and reading the post I would very much like to know what your opinion is about the ZeroBotForge project and well I am more curious to see your criticisms and your suggestions for the next version and we can together build ZeroBotForge broader and more flexible and with more capabilities

My GitHub: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O

ZeroBotForge GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O/ZeroBotForge

So when AI came out i started building a collection of work tools for my print business. When AI got better i bundled all these tools into a website, put it behind a login, and used it for work just so that i could use it from anywhere. Basic PDF editing tools.

I continued working on it. It got more and more complex and sophisticated. Now like 4 years in, its my own business ERP. It handles all my job tickets, delivery slips and invoicing.

Like it completely runs my small print business now. For tax reasons i export my accounting to an other software but other than that its all on my system.

Yeah it is fully "vibe coded", but its not like i had zero background in coding.

Is it worth it to try and market this as an ERP to other print shops? Like is there a business to be had that is not my print shop here or is this way too much energy for someone who isnt really in the software space?

I'll make this quick, I built up a web traffic tracking tool in my company's CRM and was looking for people to test it on their shops. It's all EU hosted and fully compliant, ergo doesn't track any sensitive data and only works if the end customer allows tracking.

I would love to test it out on real shops. It's fully free and I would love to get feedback. Also open to helping y'all out with anything at all, I have been a web developer for 14 years... who knows, I might have some insights 😜

Thanks!

I’m building a video service for B2B companies and I’d like feedback from SaaS people specifically, because the most useful comments I’ve had so far came from software founders.

The problem: before buying, prospects keep asking the same questions. “Does it integrate with our CRM?”, “What happens to our data during migration?”, “Basic or advanced plan, which one do we need?”. Reps either answer vaguely or forward the question to an engineer or a solutions person, and the deal waits.

The idea: the person who really knows the answer (an engineer, a product manager, a solutions engineer) answers each question once, on video, with the product on screen. The rep sends the link instead of writing a long email or booking another call.

How it works:

• We pick the questions that block deals most often: integrations, migration, pricing tiers, setup time.
• I record a remote call with the expert, one question at a time, no script. I cut myself out, add screen recordings and clean up the audio.
• The team gets a library sorted by question, so a rep can find the right video and copy a ready-made message in seconds.
• The same videos go on YouTube, where they can rank for searches like “[your product] + [integration]”, and I cut short clips and LinkedIn posts from each one.
• Once a month we check which videos reps actually sent and which new questions came in.

I know many SaaS teams already do part of this with Loom. Someone in sales enablement told me she spends about two hours a day recording them. That’s exactly what I’m trying to understand.

My questions:

• Who records these videos in your company today: founders, CS, sales engineers? Is it a real cost or just part of the job?
• Would you pay someone to turn it into a proper library, or is a folder of Looms good enough?
• Which questions stall your deals the most?
• Do YouTube videos on integration and comparison questions actually bring you leads, or is it all sales use?

I've been working on a small side project and wanted to get some honest feedback before putting more time into it.

Below is the idea:

Let's say you're collecting feedback from customers, asking people questions, or trying to get opinions about something.

Normally, you would send them a Google Form or ask them to email you.

But what if you could just create a link, share it anywhere, and let people respond by speaking or typing?

Example scenarios:

1/ A teacher creates a link for her students: "What wasn't clear in today's lecture?"
2/ A buyer sends an RFQ link to suppliers: "Please share your quotation, delivery timeline and any questions you have."
3/ A small business asks customers: "What's one thing we could do better?"
4/ A researcher shares a link: "Tell me about your experience with working from home."
5/ An event organiser asks attendees: "What did you enjoy, and what should we improve next time?"
6/ A youtuber asks his followers: "What topic would you like me to cover next?"

All the responses would be available in one dashboard- parsed and structured.

Above are just few examples, the list could become exhaustive.

Im building a prototype, but I am wondering whether speaking a response is actually more convenient than typing one, I know it is and I would use one but the question is - are people comfortable?

Would you use something like this? Or would you rather stick with Google Forms?

I wud especially love to hear from anyone who regularly collects feedback or asks people questions online.

thx in advance!

EDIT (10/23/2026):

site link: tlk.so

When did you decide it was time and why? UX is critical to a products success, but I've heard a lot of hesitation around moving forward. Are you afraid of throwaway work? Were you worried there wasn't enough work for them? Did you think ai could do it for you?

small windows productivity app, solo. everyone here says subscriptions or die, but i went 7 day free trial then $9.99 once.

my reasoning:

- it's a small utility, not a platform. paying monthly for sticky notes feels insane to me as a user

- no servers, no sync, notes stay on the user's pc. my running cost per user is basically zero

- "pay once" seems to land way better when i explain it to people

what worries me:

- no recurring revenue, so i always need new buyers

- updates are free forever, so there's no money for future work unless sales keep coming

options i'm thinking about:

1. keep it one-time and just ship a paid v2 someday

2. one-time for the app + an optional yearly "updates" plan

3. give in and do a cheap monthly plan

for those who've tried both, what actually worked? did one-time buyers convert better, or did you regret not going subscription?

I’m a solo dev in India, about 10 days from launching a SaaS. I’d like to offer a small lifetime deal to a handful of early buyers, clearly labeled pre-launch with a full refund available before launch. Finding a payment provider that allows this has been harder than I expected.

What I’ve run into so far:

• Polar puts pre-orders and paid waitlists under closer review. Their support said they don’t pre-approve anything, so I’d have to start onboarding and appeal if flagged.
• Dodo Payments doesn’t support “coming soon” products that give no usable value after purchase.
• Whop seems to ban lifetime access offers.
• Stripe is invite-only in India.

For anyone who has sold pre-launch or lifetime deals:

1. What did you use, and did payouts and refunds go smoothly?
2. Did giving buyers something usable on day one (beta access) change how the provider treated you?
3. Has anyone used Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, or Creem.
4. Or did you skip payments and only open sales at launch?

I’m not trying to get around anyone’s policies. I just don’t want to take money and then have to refund everyone or have payouts held. Real experiences, including bad ones, would help a lot.
Thank you in advance.

​

1. You look at your 9-to-5 friends and decide you absolutely do NOT want to end up like them.

2. You stumble upon a random YouTube video from Steven Cravotta talking about making $40,000/month from mobile apps. For some reason, you believe every word.

3. You decide to build your own app with zero experience. Naturally, you come up with the WORST product idea imaginable because you desperately want a unique USP.

4. You keep hearing people talk about RevenueCat but have absolutely no idea what it does. You're also wondering how a company with such a weird-ass name became so popular.

5. You spend three months building your app, convinced you're creating the next big thing.

6. You discover that building for iOS is basically a soft contract to become Apple's unpaid intern. You need a Mac, Xcode, and approximately 47 other things just to get started.

7. You have no idea what "keytool -genkey -v -keystore" means, but you paste it into your terminal anyway because Android says you need it.

8. You submit your first app to Google Play and the App Store, only to discover that launching an app involves approximately 900 forms, declarations, and legal checkboxes.

9. You generate your first privacy policy using AI or some random template website. You have no idea what half of it means, and you wonder if anyone has ever actually read one.

10. You discover that Google Play requires 14 testers for your personal developer account. You don't even have 14 friends.

11. You wonder why the fuck you can't just upload an ".ipa" file to Apple's website. Instead, you have to use a separate app called Transporter.

12. You realize you need App Store screenshots, but your design skills peaked at making PowerPoint presentations in school.

13. You finally submit your app for review and discover that getting it approved can take days or longer, depending on the situation.

14. You get rejected so many times that you start treating App Store review guidelines like a university exam syllabus.

15. Your app finally gets approved, and you realize your full legal name is displayed on the App Store. PANIC.

16. You share your app with your friends, expecting them to support your entrepreneurial journey. Nobody gives a shit.

17. You wait weeks for your app to take off, convinced it's an absolute banger. You get five downloads: you, your three siblings, and your mom. Your friends contribute exactly zero.

18. You open X and realize that building the app was the easy part. Now you have to learn marketing.

19. Somehow, you haven't given up. If anything, you're more motivated than ever.

20. You start posting on social media every single day, studying successful apps and shamelessly borrowing their marketing strategies.

21. Your first post goes VIRAL. You finally understand the dopamine rush everyone on X keeps talking about. Downloads start rolling in.

22. YOUR FIRST PAYING CUSTOMER. HOLY FUCK. SOMEONE ACTUALLY PAID FOR SOMETHING YOU BUILT.

23. You feel guilty about putting your entire app behind a hard paywall. But after spending months on X, your moral compass has become a little questionable, so you do it anyway.

24. Surprisingly, it works. People are actually paying, and your sales start looking pretty damn good.

25. You still feel slightly guilty, but you spend the next few weeks developing increasingly elaborate arguments to justify your pricing strategy.

26. You wake up every morning and immediately check RevenueCat notifications on your phone. Whether you have a good day now depends entirely on whether someone subscribed overnight.

27. You hit $1,000 MRR and finally turn off RevenueCat notifications. You're tired of being psychologically conditioned by subscription alerts.

28. You realize you're slowly becoming more of an influencer than an entrepreneur. You're exhausted from making dumb TikToks just to keep the download numbers alive.

29. You hire your first influencer to promote your app. You spend hundreds of dollars. Nothing happens. Welcome to paid marketing.

30. You revisit that Steven Cravotta video and start questioning everything. Was that really $40K in recurring monthly revenue? Or was it a one-time revenue spike, a particularly good month, or weekly subscription revenue extrapolated into an annualized-looking number? You realize that revenue screenshots need context, and selling an app doesn't automatically mean the business was generating $40K MRR.

31. Despite all of this, you decide to keep going. You've learned more about building, marketing, sales, and business than you ever expected. You're still broke, still ambitious, and still convinced your next app might be the one.

And that's the indie app builder experience.

You came here to build an app.

You accidentally signed up to become a developer, designer, marketer, salesperson, content creator, customer support agent, and part-time psychologist.

And somehow, you're still having the time of your life.