Latest / The Indie Hacker Podcast with Fexingo: Solo Developers, SaaS Side Projects, and Independent Tech / How a Solo Dev Used a Slack Bot to Hit 10K MRR
Transcript
- Lucas: So you're working on a feature that's going to take you three hours of deep focus, and five minutes in, a Slack notification pings you about someone's dog being cute. James Chen saw that pattern as an opportunity, not just an annoyance. Luna: He built a bot that literally blocks distracting channels during focus time. I've tried similar things, but his execution was clever. Lucas: Right. He called it FocusFox, and what started as a personal script turned into a product hitting ten thousand dollars monthly recurring revenue within about eleven months. No marketing budget, no ads. Luna: So how did he get the first users? Because a Slack bot is useless if nobody installs it. Lucas: He posted the script on GitHub with a basic README, and a few developers found it through Hacker News. Then one of them said, 'Hey, could I use this without setting up my own server?' And that's when James realized he had a product. Luna: So he put a simple landing page up, added Stripe, and offered it as a hosted service for five dollars per user per month. That pricing is interesting. Lucas: It is. He deliberately kept it low enough that a team lead could expense it without approval. And because it's per user, the more people in a Slack workspace who install it, the more revenue per team. Luna: There's a natural viral loop there, right? If I install it and block channels, my teammates see I'm 'in focus mode' and ask about it. Lucas: Exactly. That organic word of mouth inside teams drove almost all his growth. He told me that his first ten paying customers came from three different companies, and by month six, he had forty teams. Luna: What about the risk of building on Slack's platform? Their API can change, they could build a similar feature themselves. Lucas: That's the biggest downside. James acknowledged that he's essentially a tenant on Slack's land. But he also pointed out that Slack has had focus mode features for years, and they've never been as simple as his bot. He thinks the platform risk is real but manageable if you stay small and nimble. Luna: Did he ever consider expanding to Microsoft Teams or Discord to diversify? Lucas: He built a basic Discord version, but it never took off. He said the culture is different — Discord users are less willing to pay for productivity tools. So he doubled down on Slack and now has about four hundred paying users across a hundred and twenty teams. Luna: That's impressive for a side project. And he's still solo? Lucas: Still solo. He works on it about fifteen hours a week alongside a full-time job. His costs are basically server hosting and the Stripe fee, so his margins are around ninety percent. Luna: What's the biggest lesson you took from his story? Lucas: That distribution doesn't have to be a separate activity. If your product lives inside a tool people already use, and if it has a natural sharing mechanism, you can grow without any marketing spend. FocusFox's distribution channel is Slack itself. Luna: Yeah, it's almost like a parasite in a good way — it benefits the host and itself simultaneously. Lucas: There's also a lesson about pricing. He could have charged more, like ten or fifteen dollars per user, but by keeping it at five, he removed the need for purchasing approval. That lowered friction significantly. Luna: And the feature set is deliberately minimal. He doesn't try to compete with full time-tracking or project management tools. Lucas: Right. FocusFox does one thing: it blocks Slack channels for a set period. That's it. The simplicity is part of the appeal. You can set it up in under a minute. Luna: If this conversation gave you something usable for your own projects, like the idea of building inside an existing platform or the pricing strategy, the way these episodes stay ad-free is listener support. You can head to buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small gesture that lets us keep doing deep dives like this without interrupting with ads. Appreciate anyone who finds value and wants to throw in a coffee. Luna: So back to James — he's now thinking about adding a 'focus streaks' feature to gamify the experience a bit. But he's cautious about feature creep. Lucas: That's smart. One thing I noticed is that he actively monitors support requests and only builds features that multiple users ask for. He's kept the product lean on purpose. Luna: What's his plan for reaching the next milestone, like twenty K MRR? Lucas: He's experimenting with a referral program where existing users get a month free for every new team that signs up. He also wants to improve onboarding for non-technical users — right now, the setup flow assumes you understand Slack app permissions. Luna: That could be a barrier. But given his growth so far, he seems to have a good instinct for what matters. Lucas: I think the biggest takeaway for any solo dev listening is that you don't need a massive audience or a complex go to market plan. You need a product that solves a real pain point inside a platform where your users already spend time. Luna: And a pricing model that makes it a no-brainer to try. Lucas: Exactly. FocusFox proves that a tiny, focused tool can generate meaningful revenue if it fits naturally into someone's workflow. Luna: Alright, that's a wrap on today's indie hacker story. Until next time. Lucas: Thanks for listening.