I just sold my habit tracker for $10,000
Hey Indie Hackers,
I just sold Habits Garden, my first indie startup 🎉
- 1 Twitter DM
- 0 calls
- $10,000
💡This is my 2nd acquisition this year, I wrote an article on how to value micro-startups and sell fast
The story started in March 2022...
I had 200 Twitter followers and barely any income ($700/month from an old startup). I love games, I love habits. I combined both and created Habits Garden: a gamified habit tracker to grow flowers when building habits. In September 2022, the app made less than $200/month despite being my full focus... 😪
Then I met @DanKulkov (who is now my good friend) and the game changed:
He helped me bury the product-obsessed developer I was and turned me into an entrepreneur. I launched many free side projects to promote the habit tracker (engineering as marketing). The most viral one is VisualizeHabits.
Three things happened:
- Habits Garden revenue tripled
- My Twitter growth tripled too
- I realized speed is more important than focus (at the beginning)
By January 2023, my Twitter crossed 10,000 followers and Habits Garden was paying the bill (~$800/month). So I decided to build the most requested feature: a mobile app. As a web developer, this is daunting. Apple & Google gatekeepers, 15% revenue cut, new programming language… But I got lucky AF:
@martindonadieu DM-ed me about a new tech called Capacitor. We became friends and.. he flew to my house to help me build the mobile apps.
2 weeks later, Habits Garden was live on the Apple Store & Play Store. I was blown away 🤯
Unfortunately, in March 2023, the app wasn’t paying much more than the bills despite working all day on it. I sat down and decided to move on. It was really hard to turn the page after 1 year of focus.
Fast forward to today, I still fix bugs (if any), answer emails, and make sure everything is running well. I don’t add new features and barely tweet about Habits Garden but the revenue is quite steady ($500/month).
@ripper234 reached out by Twitter DM, offered to buy at my asking price, and… we closed a deal!
Here’s what I learned from this experience:
- The people who engage with you in the comments can become your friends and make you a better person. I wouldn’t be here without Dan & Martin.
- Focusing on a startup without obvious traction is time loss and nerve-breaking.
- Launching fast creates a shipping muscle and inspires others.
I hope this inspires you to work on your side-projects 🧑💻
Google Whisk - Generate images using images as prompts, not text prompts
After 19,314 lines of code, i'm shutting down my project
Need feedback for my product.
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Nice! This is precisely what I have recently been thinking about. I am running a small software house with my friends, but I believe that building something on our own could be more fulfilling, engaging, and effective. Right now, we need to put a lot of effort into gathering project scopes, managing, dealing with customers, etc. I have always been a UX designer but have just started learning web development. My partner is a mobile programmer, so we are a dream team to do this. The only problem that makes me nervous is how to give the product a booster...
Inspiring. Gives me the motivation to try and finish one of my projects.
Nice case study
great post
Congrats, thanks for sharing!
Great post! Thanks for sharing!!
thanks @marclou, Even i am also working on creating habit builder, your post helped me a lot.
Thanks for sharing @marc, you're doing some great work, you are a real inspiration.
"The people who engage with you in the comments can become your friends and make you a better person."
Great to read this, I'm hoping everyone finds such a (business) friend.
"He helped me bury the product-obsessed developer I was and turned me into an entrepreneur." - We often get too engrossed in product development, but sometimes it's just for our own gratification.
" I launched many free side projects to promote the habit tracker (engineering as marketing). " - This is indeed a very effective marketing strategy.
Can someone elaborate this?
I launched many free side projects to promote the habit tracker (engineering as marketing).
This looks interesting approach.
Hey to go about this?
Thank you I'm advance
As an individual also building a habit-maker application, it was very inspiring! Want to hear more about how you did the marketing for your side projects
I'll be writing about this soon, it's mostly engineering-as-marketing + launching.
I wrote a few articles about launching in my newsletter if you're curious
https://marclou.beehiiv.com/
Congratulation!
Thank you for sharing information!
One of the most valuable lessons is that chasing a startup without evident traction is a recipe for wasted time and frayed nerves.
Thank you for sharing this!
Thanks!
Think this one is one of the best learnings: Focusing on a startup without obvious traction is time loss and nerve-breaking.
I've worked on 4 startups now, all been victim to that same fault, thinking its just around the corner.
this is awesome
Agreed, focusing on a startup without obvious traction is time loss and nerve-breaking.
But you have to keep motivated.
Sometimes it's a matter of time before it works...
Inspiring,thanks for sharing!
Congrats!
Marc is such an inspiration to the community. Thanks for sharing and congrats!
Good to hear Lucas, thanks for your kind words!
Nice view from your perspective, Marc. I was so curious about this processess with AWS, Databases stuffs. Nice case
Marc Lou's journey with Habits Garden is truly motivational, showing resilience and the power of community in the indie hacking world.
Thank you so much for your kind words! We're thrilled that you found our post amazing. Your support and appreciation mean the world to us. If you have any more thoughts or questions, feel free to share them. We're here to make your experience even better! I would like to refer
Great Post, Congrats
Inspiring!
pretty straight forward, good job!
What an interesting story, thanks for sharing, and congrats on the sale! What do you think you should have done differently to boost product growth?
I'd have partnered with a productivity influencer.
Thanks Vic!
The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a cognitive bias that's easy to fall into. Thanks for the post, and congrats on the sale!
nice! Congrats!
Thanks for mentioning Capacitor. Just found it out. Seems really useful
Thanks for sharing this. Congrats, and onto the next one!
I like the idea of offering free products to help with marketing. How did you connect the various products back to your pay product through internal ads?
Unrelated, but I think cross promotion of complementary products is the future. I have seen some Indie Hackers do this. Oscar Stories and OurBabyAI, and ChatPDF and JenniAI. For example, when someone has bought @marclou ShipFast, next think they will need it hosting or web analytics, so he could promote a hosting service or analytics to people customers. Ideally, the hosting service could offer ShipFast customers a discount, and Marc could earn commission. I'm trying to scale this at offerthis(.)co
It could but the conversion wouldn't be really good.
Instead, I embed the promo within the use of the free tool. The paid product appears as an extension of the free tool.
If you play with http://www.visualizehabit.com/ you'll see the embed promo for Habits Garden