Ramen profitable in 6 months

Kerlig™ – my new app is on Product Hunt today!

Before we dive in — my new app Kerlig™ is on Product Hunt today, and I’d greatly appreciate your support!

Ramen profitable in 6 months

Ramen profitability means earning enough to sustain business growth while covering essential expenses. This actually doesn’t sound too exciting, so let me put it in other words: infinite runway. If I decide not to upgrade my lifestyle, in theory, I can live like that indefinitely. That sounds better!

Half a year ago, I quit my 6-figure designer job and became a solopreneur. It's fun, but now I make $3k/mo with my apps, which is on one hand buying me freedom, on the other hand it’s significantly less than I earned in my day job.

Breakdown from last month:

• ✨ Kerlig: $1.7k/mo

• 🌐 LocalCan: $1.3k/mo

While this is a huge milestone, it also means there is still a need for a lot of work to match the level of my past salary. And most likely no fancy vacation this year.

Here is a short Q&A from X / Twitter and LinkedIn threads after I posted it.

Q: What has been the hardest thing during these 6 months?

I think the hardest thing was finances, the mental shift to no monthly paycheck, and relying on savings. An important learning, I'd say, is to lower your ambitions regarding the app or product you plan to build, especially on your first product. Don’t get me wrong, quality is crucial, but perfectionism can hit you hard, and I’m sure your ambitions are too high already. You risk wasting time on a product nobody wants, or worse, giving up and never launching it. Instead, build a simple product that does one thing well.

Q: Any tips for someone starting out?

If it was easy everyone would have $10k/mo SaaS and lay on the beach in Bali. The truth is, it’s tricky and a lot of things can go wrong. But if you have the itch to do something on your own, then go and do it! It’s scientifically proven that the pain of regret is greater than the pain of failure. Go to X/Twitter and learn as much as you can from people few steps ahead of you in the journey. Build a product in which you believe, for a group of people you care about, and that you will be a hardcore user yourself.

Q: How about satisfaction and motivation to work?

It skyrocketed, and I love what I do. Sundays are now different. Instead of stressing out about the upcoming week, I can't wait for Monday!

Other updates

I’ve launched LocalCan blog

I defended a DDoS attack on Webhook.cool

That’s all!

Stay tuned and I’ll see you next time! 👋

- Jarek