Latest / The Indie Hacker Podcast with Fexingo: Solo Developers, SaaS Side Projects, and Independent Tech / How a Solo Dev Used an API to Hit 10K MRR in 90 Days
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this story I've been tracking from a solo dev named Alex. He built a SaaS product that connects to a major project management API, I'm not naming the platform because he hasn't publicly disclosed it, but think something like Asana or Monday.com. He hit ten thousand dollars in monthly recurring revenue in just ninety days from launch. Luna: Ninety days? That's fast. What was the product exactly? Lucas: It's a reporting and analytics layer. So the platform itself has basic reporting, but if you want cross-project dashboards, custom metrics, or trend analysis, you're out of luck. Alex saw that gap. He built a lightweight integration that pulls data from the API and visualizes it in a clean dashboard. He charged twenty-nine dollars per month. Luna: So he solved his own problem? Or did he survey people? Lucas: Bit of both. He was a project manager at a small agency before going indie. He knew the pain firsthand. But he also spent a weekend scraping the platform's community forum — found hundreds of threads asking for better reporting. That validated the demand. Luna: Smart. So how did he build it so fast? Lucas: He built the MVP in two weeks. The API was well-documented, so he didn't have to reverse-engineer anything. He used a no-code backend tool for the database and authentication, and a front-end framework he already knew. The first version had only three reports: project progress, task completion rate, and workload distribution. That was enough to start. Luna: And the first customers came from where? The same forum? Lucas: Exactly. He posted a simple 'I built this tool to solve my own reporting pain, anyone want early access?' in the community forum. Got forty sign-ups in the first day. He then reached out to each one personally, offered a free month in exchange for feedback. That gave him a direct line to what users actually needed. Luna: So he built in public, essentially. That's a recurring theme on this show. Lucas: It is. But what's interesting here is the pricing. Twenty-nine dollars a month. That's not a no-brainer price point like nine dollars, but it's also not enterprise-level. He tested it against nineteen and thirty-nine. Nineteen felt too cheap for the value, and thirty-nine had too much friction. Twenty-nine hit the sweet spot. Luna: And what about the growth after those first users? How did he go from forty to paying customers that scaled to ten thousand MRR? Lucas: He built a referral program into the product. Every user got a unique referral link. If someone they referred signed up for a paid plan, the referrer got one month free. That drove a viral coefficient of about zero point seven — meaning every ten users brought in seven new ones. That compounded fast. Luna: Zero point seven is impressive for a B2B SaaS. Most are below zero point three. Lucas: Right. And he added a second growth lever: he wrote a detailed guide on how to use the platform's API to build custom reports, and submitted it to the platform's own documentation hub. That guide got featured, driving a steady stream of targeted traffic. He estimates it brought in about twenty percent of his total sign-ups. Luna: So he piggybacked on the platform's own content marketing. That's clever. Lucas: Exactly. He didn't compete with the platform; he extended it. That's a key lesson for any indie hacker building on top of an API. You want to be a complement, not a threat. Luna: But there's also the risk of platform dependency. If the platform changes its API pricing or terms, he's exposed. Did he have a plan for that? Lucas: He did. From day one, he built in a layer of abstraction so that if the API changed, he only had to update one module. He also started adding features that weren't dependent on the API alone — like manual data import via CSV. By month three, about fifteen percent of his users were using CSV import, which meant they weren't fully locked into the platform. Luna: Diversification. Smart. What about churn? At that price point, you'd expect some churn. Lucas: Churn was around five percent monthly in the first three months. That's not terrible for a new product, but it meant he needed to keep acquiring customers to grow. His customer acquisition cost was effectively zero — between the forum posts, the referral program, and the featured guide, he spent nothing on ads. So even with five percent churn, he was cash-flow positive from month two. Luna: That's the dream, right? Bootstrapped, profitable, growing organically. But ninety days to ten thousand MRR is still exceptional. What do you think was the single biggest factor? Lucas: I'd say the speed of iteration. He launched with a minimal product, but he was shipping new reports every week based on user requests. That created a sense of momentum. Users felt like they were part of the development process. That kind of engagement is hard to replicate with a bigger team. Luna: It's also a great example of the 'build in public' ethos we talk about a lot on this show. And if today's tech conversation gave you something usable, listener support is what keeps this podcast ad-free and independent. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Totally. And that support directly helps us bring more stories like Alex's to light. So, back to the specifics — one thing that stands out is that Alex didn't just rely on the API's community forum. He also did cold outreach to project managers on LinkedIn. That's a manual channel, but it worked. Luna: How many messages did he send? Do you have a number? Lucas: He sent about five hundred LinkedIn messages over the first month. His conversion rate was around two percent, so about ten new customers from that alone. That's a twenty-five percent boost to his initial customer base. And those customers tended to be higher-value because they came with a direct conversation about their pain points. Luna: So the LinkedIn outreach also gave him product feedback. That's a double win. Lucas: Exactly. He told me that some of his best feature ideas came from those conversations. One user needed a burndown chart for sprint planning. Alex built it in a weekend. That user then became a vocal advocate, referring three other teams. Luna: That's the power of being a solo dev — you can respond that fast. A bigger company would have taken weeks to prioritize and build that feature. Lucas: Right. And Alex kept his overheads incredibly low. His only recurring costs were the hosting and the API subscription — about fifty dollars a month. So even at ten thousand MRR, his profit margin was north of ninety-five percent. Luna: That's insane. So what's he doing now? Is he still scaling, or did he hit a ceiling? Lucas: He's still growing, but he's starting to see the limits of the platform-dependent model. The platform's API has rate limits that cap how many users he can serve. He's exploring adding support for other project management tools to diversify. He's also considering a higher-tier plan with advanced analytics for power users. Luna: Sounds like a natural evolution. Any advice from him for other indie hackers? Lucas: He said the most important thing is to pick an API that has a large, active user base but poor native reporting or integrations. That's the sweet spot. Also, don't try to build for everyone — focus on one use case and nail it. And talk to users every single day. Luna: Solid advice. And a good reminder that sometimes the best opportunities are right under your nose, in the gaps of tools you already use. Lucas: Exactly. And with that, I think we've covered the key takeaways. Next week, we'll look at a solo dev who built a SaaS using a very different model — selling to enterprise clients from day one. Should be interesting. Luna: Looking forward to it. Thanks for listening, everyone.