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Posted on • Originally published at masatoman.net

Build in Public Week 0: Resetting My Indie Strategy to ¥100K in 3 Months

#indiedev #buildinpublic #producthunt #startup

TL;DR

  • Goal: ¥100,000 ($670) in total revenue by 2026-07-16
  • Strategy: One Product Hunt launch on June 9, aiming $149 × 7 = ~¥105,000
  • Starting line: 47 weekly sessions on my blog, 50 X followers, 0 paid sales
  • Burn: ¥3,170/month (~$21). I can stay alive for 3 years if this fails.

I reset my indie strategy this week. Here is the raw data from the kickoff of Phase A.

Phase A / B / C

Phase Dates Human Agents (Claude Crew)
A - Prep 4/16 – 5/31 English LP + demo video + Upcoming page Japanese articles / CTAs / PDCA
B - Launch 6/1 – 6/15 Live on PH, June 9 Post-mortem write-ups
C - Long tail 6/16 – 7/16 Depends on result Autopilot sales

The whole 3-month plan is engineered so that one day (June 9) decides the entire outcome. I do not spread attention across multiple channels.

Starting line numbers

Blog (masatoman.net)

  • 35 articles published (28 free + 7 paid)
  • 47 sessions / week
  • Zero paid article sales
  • Zero newsletter signups

Lesson: Writing more does not create traffic. Google had not indexed the site. So instead of more articles, I need external channels (Zenn, Qiita, X, Dev.to) to feed traffic.

X (Japanese indie dev account)

Metric Week 1 (3/31) Week 2 (4/6)
Followers 3 ~50
Total likes — 44
Total views — 1,933
Top post ER — 6.2%

Engagement rate by content type (Week 2):

  • Original + personal story: ER 7.1% (top)
  • Original + explainer: ER 4.3%
  • News recap (with label): ER 2.8%
  • News repost (no label): ER 0.0%

→ Phase A decision: kill all news reposts. Only ship original personal stories.

Fixed cost 

Vercel Hobby        ¥0
Supabase Free       ¥0
Resend Free         ¥0
Claude Pro          ¥3,000
Domain              ~¥170 ($13/year ÷ 12)
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Total               ¥3,170 / month (~$21)
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At ~$21/month I can keep iterating for 3 years if Phase A fails. This "immortal strategy" is the real foundation.

Why I am betting on one Product Hunt launch

Japanese indie devs are too good at building. If I ship a template SaaS, they just build their own. I watched my Stripe sessions climb to 33 with zero conversions.

Overseas, there is a "buy time" culture. $149 for a template that saves a month of work is easy math. So I am repositioning:

  • Japan side: sell operational know-how via a monthly membership (¥1,980/mo)
  • Overseas side: sell a template SaaS bundle via Gumroad, launched on Product Hunt

Bottlenecks with 52 days left

I am behind schedule. The 5 blockers:

  1. English landing page not shipped
  2. 60–90s demo video not recorded
  3. Product Hunt Upcoming page not public
  4. Zero Dev.to reach in English (this post is the first move)
  5. No list of 200 launch-day supporters

Human time is 100% on those five. Everything Japanese (blog posts, SEO, CTA tuning) is fully delegated to a Claude Crew of agents that run every night.

Next week

  • Mon–Wed: English LP wireframe + v1 copy
  • Thu–Fri: Publish Product Hunt Upcoming page
  • Sat: Week 1 Build in Public log (my blog)

Follow the journey

I will post weekly build logs every Saturday. If you want the full 3-month plan, revenue targets, and the Product Hunt launch checklist I am using, read the master version on my blog.

👉 Build in Public: Phase A Kickoff (full Japanese post)

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