[Journey] - Becoming a profitable Indie Maker

Charly The Rabbit

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Hello I’m Charly The Rabbit and this is my journey, welcome :)

Indie Maker: Person building a software idea that can generate revenue
Profitable: Income greater than expenses

The Project
Viral Quotes (viral-quotes.com) will allows business owners to viralize their brands without spending on ads

What is a Viral Quote?
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This type of content is highly shareable on social networks because it makes people feel intelligent and profound, who doesn’t want to look smart?.

A crazy pricing model?
I love experimenting with new ideas, to monetize this project two plans will be available
$XX means a fixed price, but I haven’t decided the amount yet.
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I think this flexibility on the basic plan will reduce the typical friction of buying online and can dramatically increase sales. Let me explain it
  • Suppose that only 1% of visitors purchase the purple plan.
  • I could let those other 99% just go, putting $0 in my pocket OR I can offer them a simpler package and give them the chance to pay the price they want.
I like this pricing model a lot, I hope it works as well as I think :)


Expenses
Domain: $20/year
Server power: $5/month
Hosting: $0 (I’m using the free tier of Firebase Hosting)
Development: I’m coding everything by myself, but I will sum the total hours I’ve spent on this project and multiply it by $20, which is the current hourly fee I earn on my day job.
UI Design: 10hrs x $20 = $200 (Yeah I also did the UI Design).

The Journey
One time per week I will post my progress here. The initial posts will be related to the development process but once the app is launched I will share my monthly income, expenses, the challenges I face during the journey and how I swing them, and announce possible new features for the future.

Questions are welcome and advice/feedback super welcome !

Greetings,

Charly the Rabbit
 
You should've added a (limited) free plan that features your website on the quotes. This will work as an advertisement and bring more customers. This is similar to the traditional word of mouth promotion.
 
Your idea is good and also well planned work. It seems that technique will help you soon. I will wait for your regular post. I think that It looks a attractive journey. waiting for your outcomes too. All the Best.
 
You should've added a (limited) free plan that features your website on the quotes. This will work as an advertisement and bring more customers. This is similar to the traditional word of mouth promotion.
That's a great idea @Starblazer , based on your feedback I've done some changes on the Pricing Model
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  • For the White Plan, now you can choose between your Logo or URL. While the Purple Plan you can show both (Logo and URL)
  • I've restricted the price input to a minimum = $1, because if I allow $0 that would be a donation not "Pay What You Want"
Your idea is good and also well planned work. It seems that technique will help you soon. I will wait for your regular post. I think that It looks a attractive journey. waiting for your outcomes too. All the Best.
Thanks for your comment ;)

Weekly Update
1) This week I've been working on the Landing Page which is completed. I'm satisfied with how it looks, below you can see a videocapture:
Click the image to play the video

2) Viral Quotes will also works on mobile, I've designed a super easy interface, putting your brand Logo and URL will take less than 30 seconds.
Click the image to play the video

This was my progress this week :)

Your feedback is welcomed

Charly The Rabbit
 
Interesting journey and good luck to you! So, you'll provide the viral quote images with the logo based on the subscription plan? If yes, the image creation process is automated?
 
Interesting journey and good luck to you! So, you'll provide the viral quote images with the logo based on the subscription plan? If yes, the image creation process is automated?
Thanks for your wishes. In this initial version of Viral Quotes, the prices are one-time payment, no susbscription based. Maybe in the future I switch to subscription model, but this time I want to keep it simple.

The image creation process is semi-automated. Users must position their logo or URL just one time which takes less than 30 seconds, and the app will apply those settings automatically to all the quotes (30 or 600).

Buyers will receive a link (5 mins aprox after payment) on their email where they can download their quotes.

Weekly Update

This week I've started with what will be the Visual Editor (where user can positionate their logos and URL). The capture below shows the mobile version, I will start with it and then code the desktop version.

I've received a feedback from a guy who told me to allow to write Website URL or handle, since there are influencers who doesn't have a website but will likely purchase Viral Quotes to improve the engagement of their Instagrams or Twitters accounts. That was a great idea.


PD: I do really listen your feedback, let me know which features you would like to see.

3IssawX

This was my progress this week

Charly The Rabbit
 
Fun project!

Just promise me; if you do make a lot of money with this - don't reveal here on BHW... People will copy if not even just straight rip the site.
 
wise words right here :D


Update #2

All the subreddits have been growing slowly, they're all currently on 2.5 - 3.2k subscribers each.
2 days to reach 10k yikes
Oops, You posted update on wrong thread :p
 
Good luck to you! Following this. Interesting stuff!
Thanks very much.
Fun project!

Just promise me; if you do make a lot of money with this - don't reveal here on BHW... People will copy if not even just straight rip the site.
Lol, thanks for the advice. I'm taking special care with security, even if they rip my site, the "engine" won't be on the site.

WEEKLY UPDATE

I've fully coded the "Step1: Business Information" screen, works on both mobile and desktop (up to 4k monitors). Here is where you will enter all your business information to generate the Viral Quotes.

Desktop
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Mobile
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This was my progress this week, as always your feedback is welcomed.

Charly The Rabbit
 
WEEKLY UPDATE
I was absent for some time because I got sick, but I'm on track again ;)
This week I fully coded Step 3: Square Settings and Step 4: Rectangular Settings screens. Those screens will allows you to positionate your logo and url/brand.


Click the image to play the video:

Mobile View: Click the image th play the video:

This was my progress this week, I hope you find this journey interesting. I'm more closer to the great launch !
 
2023 is THE YEAR!
Ok, two years have past since my last comment. Sorry about that, I fell in to the confort zone of having a salary and forgot my personal journey of becoming a profitable Indie Maker.

WEEKLY UPDATE

Two weeks ago I was fired ;), this is a good thing because now I can refocus back to this project/journey by using 100% of my time. Gladly, I have savings!


IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm back on track and this project/journey will be launch very soon, I'm tunning the final details and I will let you know when its ready!
 
That's actually a lovely idea. Next, try to build a library of templates for your customers.
You can check Canva, they have a lot of designs, find what you like and add it to your website.
Just imagine a library of 500 designs, that would be wonderful.
 
Definitely Following! Good luck.
Thanks !
That's actually a lovely idea. Next, try to build a library of templates for your customers.
You can check Canva, they have a lot of designs, find what you like and add it to your website.
Just imagine a library of 500 designs, that would be wonderful.
I will take note of that idea. Shouldn't be hard to code, playing with layouts, colors, fonts and text position can generate several nice designs

WEEKLY UPDATE
  • I've been working hard on coding the payment and checkout page. I'll be using Lemon Squeezy to receive payments since it allows me to bank transfer the money to my country.
  • In this initial launch the app will be 50% automatic / 50% manual. Each time a new customer pays, I'll receive an email with all their information and then I will generate the quotes and .zip them back to the customer. In later versions this process will be 100% automatic.
For those who are curious this pie chart shows how I've been using my time during the creation of viral-quotes.com
stats.png

I should be launching Viral Quotes in 7-10 days approx.
This was my progress this week, I'd be glad to answer your questions.

Greetings,

Charly The Rabbit
 
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