Hey guys just wanted to share my indie dev journey the past 4 years at college. I really struggled to get any internship whats so ever. I crumbled in Leetcode interviews. I hated grinding for it, and genuinely thought it was a waste of time. After like the 100th rejection I decided I would just make my own stuff instead, and that decision was the best decision I ever made in my life. I'm 23, and I just sold my last startup for a pretty staggering amount, and now I develop my own stuff full-time and travel the world.
I began my coding journey in the summer of 2018, before university started. Although I was a computer science major, almost all of the skills needed to create apps were self-taught. I dove deep into coding for hours daily, often spending the majority of my time debugging.My first app (freshman year) , "Dream Check," was essentially a to-do list that I had high hopes for but turned out to be a dud. I poured 6 months into it, working 5-8 hours per day, and despite all my effort, it only received 100 downloads and made $0. I was disheartened, and I tried other ventures like dropshipping and affiliate marketing (very idiotic thinking), which didn't work out either.
After the initial setbacks, I got back into app development in 2020, during the COVID lockdown. I had learned a lot since my last attempt, watching Y-combinator lectures, reading books like The Lean Startup and Hacking Growth, and applying those insights to my new app.My next app was "Focusbyte," a gamified study timer that rewarded users for staying focused. I validated the idea with a landing page on Reddit, getting 500 sign-ups before I wrote a line of code. The app took 4 months to develop and after launch, I made my first sale of $2.99 within days. Eventually, I reached over 30k downloads and a total revenue of $2k.
In the summer leading up to my final year at university I created a gamified meditation app called "MindGarden," inspired by my personal struggle with panic attacks. Within 3 months of launch, I made over $1k. In January 2022, during the New Year Resolution season, I made $5k in a single month. The revenue stabilized at about $3k per month, and the total revenue generated from this app was $58k and total downloads was a little over 70k up to this date.
My biggest takeaway from this journey is that I'm not special. I had to grind hard to get to this point. I tried and failed multiple times, and it was only when I shifted my mindset that I saw success. I made a 5 min more detailed video on all of this:
, tryna get back into documenting building on Youtube, so would appreciate any support!!
I began my coding journey in the summer of 2018, before university started. Although I was a computer science major, almost all of the skills needed to create apps were self-taught. I dove deep into coding for hours daily, often spending the majority of my time debugging.My first app (freshman year) , "Dream Check," was essentially a to-do list that I had high hopes for but turned out to be a dud. I poured 6 months into it, working 5-8 hours per day, and despite all my effort, it only received 100 downloads and made $0. I was disheartened, and I tried other ventures like dropshipping and affiliate marketing (very idiotic thinking), which didn't work out either.
After the initial setbacks, I got back into app development in 2020, during the COVID lockdown. I had learned a lot since my last attempt, watching Y-combinator lectures, reading books like The Lean Startup and Hacking Growth, and applying those insights to my new app.My next app was "Focusbyte," a gamified study timer that rewarded users for staying focused. I validated the idea with a landing page on Reddit, getting 500 sign-ups before I wrote a line of code. The app took 4 months to develop and after launch, I made my first sale of $2.99 within days. Eventually, I reached over 30k downloads and a total revenue of $2k.
In the summer leading up to my final year at university I created a gamified meditation app called "MindGarden," inspired by my personal struggle with panic attacks. Within 3 months of launch, I made over $1k. In January 2022, during the New Year Resolution season, I made $5k in a single month. The revenue stabilized at about $3k per month, and the total revenue generated from this app was $58k and total downloads was a little over 70k up to this date.
My biggest takeaway from this journey is that I'm not special. I had to grind hard to get to this point. I tried and failed multiple times, and it was only when I shifted my mindset that I saw success. I made a 5 min more detailed video on all of this: