"If money is your only goal, you’ll fall short.”

William Paul quit his job as a software engineer back in 2019. Since then, he has been working on various projects trying to make ends meet.

He has six months of runway left and he’s working on two SaaS products — one of which is getting some early traction. Let’s take a peek at his finances. 👇

Find your internal motivation

💰 "If money is your only goal, you'll fall short. Bootstrapped entrepreneurs have to be willing to earn no money for a long time, so it's important to be driven by something more." —Will

Will’s father always encouraged him to do what he loves. And this encouragement informed his whole outlook on business and money.

💰 "Set an intention to do your best work. The money will follow." —Will

He believes that you have to align your work with what drives you internally and find purpose through that.

That's how you produce your best work, commit more time, and persevere. And money will be a natural by-product.

💰 "Finding a balance between financial responsibility and pursuing passions, relationships, and health can lead to a richer life overall. It isn’t just about accumulating wealth." —Will

Hard numbers

Will wants to achieve $10k/mo in personal income. That's where he'll feel the "balance" that he mentioned above. Here's what he's currently bringing in:

• ColdClicks revenue: $631/mo

• Pixel revenue: $450/mo

• Other sources of funding: Savings

• Founder pay: $0

• Bank account: 6 months of runway remaining

Here are his business expenses:

• Total: $550/mo

• AWS: $0/mo (enrolled in AWS Activate)

• OpenAI: $200/mo

• Vercel: $20/mo

• Google Workspace: $150/mo

• Instantly: $100/mo

• Other subscriptions: $80/mo

And here are his personal expenses:

• Total: $2130/mo

• Rent: $1200/mo

• Utilities: $400/mo

• Food: $300/mo

• Internet: $30/mo

• Other (including school debt payments): $200/mo

Charge for value

💰 "The most important thing is to understand your target market and their problems. Get that right, and the rest will fall into place." —Will

ColdClicks currently has six customers, only weeks after launch. And each customer is paying a little over $100. That’s a pretty high price point.

To get there, Will looked at the market and what competitors were doing, then reduced the price a bit after getting some pushback from users. They're okay with the current price, largely thanks to his messaging.

💰 "We've tried to keep our messaging around potential ROI. Our target market is businesses that send a lot of emails, and a small increase in reply rate for this vertical can translate to thousands in additional revenue." —Will

To get those six customers, Will used cold email, dogfooding ColdClicks to create personalized opening lines for each email.

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Indie hacking is a high-risk investment

Will is currently investing — in reinvesting — in his business.

💰 "I believe reinvesting earnings back into the business will yield by far the highest return in the long run. I've also made non-money capital investments in the business through my time and attention, and it makes sense to support that financially." —Will

At the moment, all of his revenue is reinvested back into his businesses to cover costs. But soon, he hopes to put some revenue toward growth as well.

💰 "We plan to up our email outreach, spend on highly targeted ads, and subscribe to more marketing tools like Ahrefs so we can begin investing in content and SEO." —Will

He doesn’t currently do any traditional investing because he doesn’t have enough income. But when he starts, he says he’ll keep risk exposure low with stocks and shares ISA, exchange-traded funds, and maybe real estate.

After all, building a business is enough risk for any portfolio.

💰 "Lower-risk investments would balance out the comparatively high risk exposure I have by investing in my business. We've seen good growth, but any investment in an early-stage business is high risk." —Will

Get out in nature

💰 "I certainly wouldn't describe myself as a minimalist but it is very freeing to own less." —Will

For the most part, Will doesn’t spend much. He tries to keep his belongings to a minimum.

💰 "When I do buy something I usually invest a good amount of money into it. Cheap is expensive. There are hidden costs in repair fees, poor performance, and replacements." —Will

Instead of things, he spends his money on experiences. Specifically, hiking trips.

💰 "Something that's vital as a founder is to find ways to get away from the screen, explore a new environment, and decompress. I get this through hiking." —Will

Will books several hiking trips per year. This month, he’ll be on his way to the Netherlands for a few multi-day hikes. He sees it as an investment in himself and his business.

💰 "Hiking is brilliant as it allows me to unplug, connect with nature, and spend good time with family and friends. I always come back with my battery fully recharged and tons of new ideas for my business." —Will

And when he goes, he leaves his smart devices at home. All he brings is an old Nokia for calls and texts.

Oh, and there’s one other thing he’ll spend on.

💰 "Coffee. The amount of money I spend on coffee is way, way too high." —Will

He says it’s a good excuse to get out, take a walk, and disconnect for a while. But he likes specialty coffee so it can be pricey.

Partner up

Having a cofounder cuts your ownership and income in half, and that’s a tough pill for many founders to swallow. But Will is all about it.

His cofounder, Igor, is an experienced marketer. And he says partnering with him has been a game changer.

💰 "It'd be my best advice to new or aspiring startup founders, find a cofounder early on. Building a profitable business is difficult enough. Why stack the odds even further against yourself by attempting it solo?" —Will

Fail fast

And finally, a bit of hard-earned advice:

💰 "Time is your greatest resource. Find a problem to solve, get to an MVP, validate, and move on quickly if things aren't working." —Will

You can reach out or follow along as he documents his journey on X. Or check out ColdClicks.

Please note that the above are opinions. This is meant for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be financial advice.

And if you'd like to be featured as a guest in a future interview for this series, let me know in the comments!

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