From layoff to $5k MRR in one month

Karl Weber lost his job, ideated for three days, then built a business in two days. A month later, he’s at $5k MRR.

Let’s take a peek at his finances. 👇

Losing his job

Karl started his subscription design service, Capsule, in January after losing his job as an iOS developer at a large financial company.

At the time, he had about $3,000 in savings, zero income, and a family to feed.

💰 "I'm 0% nervous. We've been in worse situations. Like, WAY worse. In less than a month of business, revenue has reached 83% of our current expenses. I'd say our chances are good." — Karl

A lot of people would be panicking right now, but he’s very — very — confident.

💰 "Honestly, I've never been more confident in my whole life. I realized that everything that I thought was out of reach or too difficult really wasn’t. All it takes is work. There is no secret sauce." — Karl

Subscription studios are pretty popular these days and he likes his odds. He’s grateful for that because he wouldn’t want to get “sucked into” another full-time job where he’d have to put his creative endeavors aside.

💰 "My stable job at a very stable financial company wasn't so stable after all. This business can't be taken away by an angry manager. It is way more stable. I may lose a client or two, but maintaining a good sales funnel mitigates the risk." —Karl

And the icing on the cake is that he loves what he's doing.

💰 "It’s the thing I want to do for the next 40 years. Seeing as how tech and art have been my interests for the last 30 years, I don't see how that will change." —Karl

Hard numbers

Karl launched Capsule about a month ago and he’s already making a pretty penny. Let’s take a look at what he’s bringing in.

• Revenue: $4,998/mo

• Founder pay: All of it (after expenses, taxes, etc.)

• Bank account: $600

💰 "I knew that Capsule would work. I knew it because I know I can do anything." —Karl

Here are his business expenses:

• Hosting: Free

• Creative software: $72/mo

• Educational subs: $25/mo

• Assets and fonts: $50/mo

• Productivity software: $50/mo

And here are his personal expenses:

• Rent: $2000/mo

• Utilities: $1000/mo

• Cars/insurance: $1000/mo

• Food: $1000/mo

• "Basic maintenance of life functions": $1000/mo

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Where he's investing

💰 "Almost all wealth stems from an advantage; not being scrupulous. With more cash, you can make more mistakes because the mistakes don't completely derail your life." —Karl

Karl makes quarterly investments with whatever cash he has on hand. He puts 60% into his anchor stocks:

• Nintendo

• Ford

• Apple

• Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF

• iShares Global Clean Energy ETF

And 40% into his core portfolio:

• Taiwan Semiconductor

• Adidas

• KeyBank

• Disney

• Target

• Microsoft

• AT&T

• Nike

• UPS

• Starbucks

• Visa

• Block

• Shopify

• Nokia

• SPDR S&P 500 ETF

His reasoning is that most of these stocks offer dividends, are financially conservative, and have decades of proven advantage in technology, trust, or operation.

💰"I see Nintendo as the most valuable company. They always focus on the experience first and are almost always right." —Karl

As for how much he has invested, he's keeping his cards close to his chest..

💰 "I don't want to embarrass myself by telling you how much I currently have invested. Maybe next year. I mean, I recently asked friends for cash to pay my rent. I'm tryna be humble, folks." —Karl

He also tries to save about $1k/mo for retirement, which he invests into his core stocks and mutual funds.

26% cash reserves

Even though he isn’t bringing in enough to cover his family’s expenses, he’s putting money aside.

💰 "I have strict cash reserve requirements that go beyond operating revenue. So currently I'm trying to save about 26% of income monthly." —Karl

He keeps that in the business for a buffer in case of fluctuations in customers. And once he hits about $12k/mo, he’ll limit his salary and keep everything over that number as a reserve.

In addition to operational reserves, this extra cash will help with taxes, investments, and (one day) hiring.

💰 "Wouldn't it be great to just take a couple of months off? Well, you can do it if you make enough and set enough aside." —Karl

3-month budgets

Karl budgets every week’s personal expenses for three months at a time.

He bases his budgets on previous months and adds padding to discretionary accounts like food and shopping.

💰 "I learned this when I was serving a religious mission in my early 20s. They had us plan every hour of every day for the next week. Plus backup plans. Which sounds INSANE, but was actually AWESOME! I've never worked harder and I'm trying to get closer to that productivity. It was great." —Karl

He uses a physical planner with the week on the left and a grid on the right. The grid has three columns:

1. Income minus expenses

2. Contributions to savings

3. Debts

And that last column has a decent chunk in it — about $70k.

💰 "Doing this manually makes it an intentional chore and helps me to keeping things simple and expenses low." —Karl

Kiddos make you efficient

💰 "The only true resource is time, cherish it, value it, and protect it." —Karl

Karl is a dad. Supporting a family can be expensive. And being a good dad takes time.

💰 "I spend a lot of time with my children. In fact, I prioritize time with my children over work, and often slot work late at night to be around them during active times. Children grow and change quickly. I don’t want to miss out." —Karl

It’s a balancing act. Luckily, his kids inspire him to work smarter.

💰 "Constraints are the greatest creative influence. And there’s no greater constraint than limited time with your children. They force you to not dawdle or pursue frivolity. Perfectionism dwindles. Decisiveness takes hold." —Karl

Saving money

To save money, he cooks.

💰 "Personal sustenance is one thing you can control to dramatically increase runway. I control my spending to give me more time to build." —Karl

He’s also saving on health insurance — now that he lost his job, he doesn’t have it. It’s too expensive.

💰 "We broke. This is America. It's expensive AF!" —Karl

Instead, they pay out of pocket for any health situations. Luckily, they don’t have much in the way of medical bills, but he doesn’t want to risk it. He’ll get it again when he has a higher MRR.

Don't skimp on fonts

One thing he doesn’t save money on is fonts. He loves them. And he’ll buy them even if he doesn’t end up using them.

💰"90% of web design is typography. Graphic design, interface design, everything hinges on the characters we use to form our words. Composition, spacing, weight, leading, layout, personality, it's all in the fonts. Spend money on fonts! Or don't." —Karl

Socialism and AI

💰 "I'm a socialist, and strongly believe in distribution of wealth." —Karl

I mentioned that he’s considering hiring once the business is more established. If he does, he’ll do things a little differently. He’ll involve friends or apprentices and train them to become equal parties to everything. Everyone gets paid equally, regardless of experience.

💰 "Money is a way to share, give, and distribute power and choice. By equally sharing that power with someone, there is an immediate, clear, and equal buy-in. They feel responsible. They want the thing to succeed." —Karl

He says that many of the generic values that people have are imposed by capitalism — and capitalism is ultimately designed to make a few people rich and a lot of people poor.

💰 "All machines maximize the output of human input. Capitalism determines that those with the most initial capital are the winners when a machine is introduced." —Karl

And he views AI as a machine.

💰"You can see one aspect of the consequences of that system through to use of AI art. Folks are replacing work from artists with AI that produces reductive facsimiles of real art. All while wholesale stealing the source data — the art — that artists have made." —Karl

At the end of the day, Karl prefers socialist systems that distribute the benefits of the machine. He says this allows people to make their own decisions about how the machine is used.

Importantly, he notes that socialism doesn’t preclude personal or private ownership. Socialism can be adapted — similar to how we don’t live in a purely capitalist society.

💰 "More money moving around means more folks doing cool shit that they actually want to do instead what a boss says they ought to do." —Karl

Every action is a bet

Let’s wrap up with his best advice for indie hackers:

💰 "You don't need to buy anything to get started, and you don't need to be polished and perfect to launch. Launch with what you have. Build as you go." —Karl

You just have to get started. The rest will follow.

💰 "There is no magic advice, or secret, it's just work. That's it. A lot of work. If you work at it, you will be successful. It's fate, or Karma, or a universal law. Don't quit and you'll get better and better and your success will be inevitable. So get started." —Karl

You can find Karl on X or check out Capsule.

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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