25-year-old marketer quits his job to launch his MVP: "I can live on any amount as long as I'm doing what I love."

25-year-old Alex Liu quit his job in June to focus 100% on his new product, AutoAE. It launched in July and now he's at $400 MRR with six months of runway left.

The pressure's on. Let's take a peek at his finances.

Earning that first dollar

Alex earned his first dollar online a few years back during a break from college, when he wanted to travel, but lacked funds. He had some experience in market research, so he started selling in-depth analyses of industries and companies on a local Fiverr-like platform. He earned over $2k in the first month.

This was a big moment for him. Suddenly, he realized that working for others wasn't the only path.

Full time or bust

Since then, he's built a few side projects while working full time. But they all ended with "not enough success".

When he has a job, he tends to get deeply involved in it, aiming to excel, which leads to conflicting priorities and, ultimately, poor performance in both areas.

That, along with a previous employer’s discouragement of side projects, meant that Alex had no interest in splitting his focus. So he quit his job two months ago, and now, he's focusing entirely on AutoAE.

He's happy with that decision because, as he says, "Timing is crucial in the world of marketing." He needs to be prepared to seize every opportunity, even if it means living on minimal savings.

“I can live on any amount as long as I'm doing what I love.”

Splitting equity

Interestingly, Alex's cofounder is not working on AutoAE full time, but they still have a 50-50 equity split. This could cause issues in some partnerships, but not this one.

Alex says it's important to be equally incentivized. And anyway, their time investments are not dictated by whether or not they have full-time jobs. His partner works just as hard.

“With shared belief, money issues become less significant.”

AutoAE revenue

AutoAE was launched in July. He describes it as a bridge between CapCut and Adobe After Effects. It allows you to create viral hooks for your videos in seconds.

Alex offers a free tier, a one-time purchase ($2.90 per video), and subscription tiers ($8.30/mo).

Here's what he's bringing in:

• Revenue: $400 MRR

• Funding: $1k from personal savings

• Founder pay: $0 (will take 20% when they hit roughly $1k MRR)

• Business bank account: $1480.27

• Personal bank account: Six months of runway

He got his first customers with cold outreach — mostly "super cold", but also a few YouTuber friends. Everything he earns will be reinvested into marketing.

Business expenses

Alex has the view that every single business decision needs to be analyzed.

“Calculate the profits and losses for every product decision — at least roughly.”

Even with something as small as purchasing a SaaS subscription, he calculates the ROI. And, when possible, he borrows access to a friend's account instead.

So, as you might expect, his monthly businesses expenses are low — in fact they're pretty much non-existent:

• Vercel - Website Hosting: $0

• Supabase - Database / Auth: $0

• CloudFlare R2 - Storage / CDN: $0

• Self Hosting - Video Rendering: $0

• Video editing: $0 (a contractor is working for free because he believes in the product)

Personal expenses

And here are his monthly personal expenses — also very low:

• Rent: $200

• Food: $250

• SaaS subscriptions: $50

• Car payment: $300

Ignoring traditional advice

Alex was raised in an "average middle-class East Asian family," and that means his parents placed a huge emphasis on saving money.

“Even now, my mom still reminds me on every call, ‘You must save some money.’ LOL, Asian moms. I never really followed that advice.”

Despite his mother's frequent reminders to save, Alex went another route. He prefers investing in his business and living a life with purpose rather than strictly adhering to traditional saving methods.

His focus is being happy, while being disciplined. And it's working out — he was able to save up over 6 months of runway, after all.

Keeping a tight budget

Alex says that, as a founder and marketer, there are just too many options for spending money — and his resources are very limited. So he has to plan his expenses carefully.

“I budget everything. Missing a coupon for a meal destroys my day!”

He takes the same approach to budgeting his time. Every Sunday, he makes a list of key tasks for the upcoming week and prioritizes them.

That list isn't as detailed now as when he had a job, though. He finds that it's better to focus on fewer tasks as a founder. It allows for more flexibility, and gives him the ability to seize unexpected opportunities.

He also divides his money into three parts.

1. Spending: Stays in a safe savings account

2. Risk taking: Goes into marketing and he tracks the ROI

3. Emergencies: Currently in the form of his car, which he can sell in an emergency

Delaying investments

Currently, Alex is not making financial investments outside of his business — that's where he wants his focus to be.

He hasn't made this decision willy nilly; he has calculated the opportunity cost and decided that, at this stage of life, time is his most valuable asset.

Once he's 28 years old, he thinks this will change, and he'll start investing in stocks or other financial instruments — but only in areas he thoroughly understands.

In the meantime, though, he does make one other kind of investment. He buys clothes for his girlfriend.

“It's an investment in our good life. She is my muse.”

Irresponsible investing

Alex has no issue with seeking external funding. Heck, he wants to be an angel investor one day himself. But he says it's irresponsible to raise funds before achieving at least $1k MRR.

That milestone, in his mind, is an indicator of product-market fit. And raising or borrowing money before reaching it often carries a higher cost than anticipated.

Parting advice

His advice to fellow indie hackers is this: Don't just build in public. Market your product beyond X.

Write posts for Reddit, Medium, and IH. Create images for Pinterest and Instagram. Make videos for YouTube and TikTok.

“You are both the maker and the seller. Try innovative ways to market your product — it will work!”

That's what he's doing. You can follow along on X and YouTube. And he'd love your feedback on AutoAE as he tries to grow it.

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