Originally published on my blog.
€14, €161, €145, €85, €522, €1,080, €1,133, €461.
That's 8 months of revenue. That's my whole run so far.
I see the other posts every day. 10k MRR in 30 days. Six-figure launch. 50k in a quarter. Those posts are why I started....but 8 months in, this is what building a product actually looks like for most of us, and almost nobody posts the boring version.
Quick context: I'm a dad, married, 8 years as a dev. I started this before work, after my daughter went to sleep, and every weekend. Two months ago I quit the 9-5 to try this properly. Part living the dream, part just needing out of the burnout.
The app is Loggd, an all-in-one personal growth app. Habits, tasks, goals, focus timer, all tied together with a GitHub-style activity graph for your life. Built solo on Laravel and Vue, one codebase across web, iOS and Android.
Where I'm at:
- 6,286 users
- 70 paying, 4 on trial
- €3,621 total revenue
- ~€205 MRR
- ~150 DAU
- ~23 new users a day (August just started, so ignore that tiny last bar on the chart for now.)
Now look at that first row again
€14, €161, €145, €85. Four months. €405 total. One of them went down. I was still working full time and building at night for all of it.
Then April: iOS launch plus my first batch of lifetime deals. €522. Then €1,080. Then €1,133.
If I only posted that stretch it would look like a rocket. It wasn't.
The lifetime-deal trap nobody warns you about
Of the €3,614, about €1,800 came from lifetime deals. Half my revenue is money that will never repeat. In July I didn't run any and it dropped to €461. Nothing else changed. Same posting, same product, more users than ever.
Lifetime deals are great for cash. You feel it right away. But then you hit a quiet month and you really feel that too, because the thing underneath was never as big as the good months made it look.
That's why my MRR is €205 and not €1,000. A good month and a growing business are not the same thing, and I only learned it by watching my own chart.
The other expensive lesson
I wasted about €1,400 on Meta and Google ads at the very start, before I knew anything. ROI was bad, I stopped. Expensive, but at least it was early.
A few things I'd tell someone at month one
- The first four months are supposed to look like nothing. Mine did.
- One-time revenue feels amazing and teaches you nothing. Watch MRR or you'll fool yourself.
- 6,286 users, 70 paying. Barely over 1%, and that's not good by any standard. The catch: web converts worst and has been live longest, so it's piled up dead signups. Mobile is newer and converts better.
- Growth isn't a line. It's silence, a spike, then silence again.
- The skill isn't writing posts. It's posting on the days nothing happens.
I'm not saying don't do this. Quitting was the right call for me, even at €205 MRR, and I don't regret it. Working on something you actually care about until 2 am...feels better vs being burnt out on someone else's roadmap at 3 pm.
I'm saying be ready for that first row of numbers. That's the part nobody screenshots.
Top comments (0)