Latest / The Indie Hacker Podcast with Fexingo: Solo Developers, SaaS Side Projects, and Independent Tech / Building a SaaS Side Project While Working Full Time
Transcript
- Lucas: So you've got a full-time job, maybe a family, maybe a social life you're not willing to sacrifice entirely — and you still want to build a SaaS business on the side. Luna: That's the dream for a lot of developers I talk to. But the gap between wanting it and actually shipping is huge. Lucas: Right. And today I want to look at someone who actually did it — a solo developer named Mike, who built a tool called HourStack. It's an invoice and time-tracking app aimed at freelancers. Nothing flashy, nothing that hadn't been done before. But he got it to forty thousand dollars in annual recurring revenue in eighteen months, all while working a full-time engineering job. Luna: Forty K in ARR is real money. It's not 'quit your job' money for most people, but it's meaningful. How did he get started? Lucas: He started with a landing page and a waitlist. That's it. No code for the first month. He put up a simple page saying 'Invoicing for freelancers, done simply' and drove traffic through a few freelance forums and a Reddit post. He got about two hundred sign-ups in the first week. Luna: So validation before building. That's textbook — but most people skip it. Lucas: Exactly. And he didn't just collect emails. He personally emailed every single person who signed up. Asked them what they used currently, what they hated, what they'd pay for. He said about sixty percent of people replied. That's insane engagement. Luna: Because he was a human, not a company. That's the indie hacker advantage. Lucas: Right. So after a month of conversations, he had a clear feature list — not what he guessed, but what actual potential customers asked for. He built an MVP in about eight weeks, working evenings and weekends. Launched with a simple monthly plan at nine dollars. Luna: Nine dollars is interesting. That's almost aggressively low. Was that to get traction fast? Lucas: Partly. He said he wanted the first hundred customers to be almost frictionless — no sales calls, no 'is this worth it' hesitation. Nine dollars is the price of a coffee subscription. The goal was to get people in the door and then improve the product based on real usage. Luna: And then he could raise prices later, which is a classic bootstrapper move. Lucas: He actually hasn't raised prices much. He's at twelve dollars now, after two years. The churn is low — about four percent monthly — and customers stay because the tool integrates with their workflow. He focuses on a very narrow set of features and does them well. Luna: So what does a typical week look like for him? He's got the day job, plus this. Lucas: He's very structured. He blocks two hours every weeknight — eight to ten PM — and four hours on Saturday morning. That's about fourteen hours a week. No Sunday work. He says the consistency is more important than the total hours. Luna: Fourteen hours a week is a lot on top of a full-time job. That's basically a part-time job. Lucas: It is. But he also says that the first six months were more like twenty hours a week. He ramped down once the product was stable and customer support became more about answering emails than fixing bugs. He also automated a lot of the support with a knowledge base and in-app guides. Luna: I think the temptation for a lot of people is to go all in — quit the job, build full time. But this shows you can get to forty K ARR without that risk. Lucas: Yeah, and there's actually a benefit to having constraints. When your time is limited, you're forced to prioritize ruthlessly. Mike says he never built a feature that wasn't explicitly requested by at least five paying customers. That's a very high bar. Luna: That probably explains why the product feels focused. There's no feature bloat. Lucas: Exactly. So let's talk about the downsides, because this isn't all rosy. Luna, what do you think the biggest risk is? Luna: Burnout. Hands down. You're essentially working two jobs. Even with great scheduling, it's mentally exhausting. Lucas: Mike actually hit a wall around month ten. He had about a hundred and fifty customers, revenue was growing, but he was waking up tired, his day job performance slipped, and he started resenting the side project. He took a two-week break — didn't touch the code, didn't answer support emails. Revenue dipped a bit, but not catastrophically. And when he came back, he set harder boundaries. Luna: That's key — knowing when to step back. I think a lot of founders feel like they can never take a break, especially when you're the only person doing everything. Lucas: Right. And the other risk is that your day job might not be compatible forever. If you're building a competing product — even accidentally — that's a legal and ethical minefield. Luna: Mike's employer was in a different space, so he was fine. But that's something you have to check before you even start. Lucas: Absolutely. So the big question for anyone listening who's thinking about this path: is forty K ARR worth fourteen hours a week for eighteen months? That works out to about thirty dollars an hour, which is decent but not amazing for a skilled developer. Luna: But it's not just about the hourly rate. You own the asset. And you can grow it. Forty K is a foundation, not the ceiling. Lucas: If today's episode was useful to you and you want to keep it ad-free, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo helps. Luna: Yeah, that's a great way to support the show. No pressure, but it really does make a difference. Lucas: So where does Mike go from here? He's at forty K ARR. He could raise prices, add a higher tier, or build a second product. He's actually thinking about all three, but cautiously. Luna: What would you advise him? Lucas: I'd say focus on retention and referrals first. If he can get monthly churn below three percent and add a referral program, he could get to sixty K ARR without building anything new. Luna: That's the indie hacker way — maximize what you have before you expand. Lucas: Exactly. And if he ever does want to quit his day job, he needs to think about health insurance, retirement, the whole safety net. Forty K isn't enough in most US cities. But it's a start. Luna: It's proof of concept. He knows people will pay for what he built. That's worth a lot. Lucas: Yeah. So for anyone out there thinking about starting a side project — the lesson isn't 'you need a brilliant idea.' It's 'you need a small idea, a way to validate it, and the discipline to work on it consistently.' HourStack is a great example of that. Luna: And you can start tonight. Put up a landing page. Email five people. See what happens. Lucas: Right. That's the episode. We'll be back next week with another story from the indie hacker trenches.