Kevin is the founder of Software Ideas and Coder Notes.
Projects
Software Ideas
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Kevin launched Software Ideas on July 7, 2020. He got 300 subscribers and $500 in sales within 2 days. He attributed a lot of the success to him taking the time up-front to pre-sell the newsletter. After 1 week, he had reached $437MRR and had 532 email subscribers. In that milestone post, he shared the three main reasons he believed it was doing so well. By July 20, the project was paying for its own expenses.
He was able to hit $1k MRR in just 19 days. The newsletter reached 1000 subscribers on the same day. He wrote about the things he did right that helped him accomplish this so fast. 6 days later, it passed the $1500 milestone. It hit $20k ARR the next day. On August 4, he woke up to 100 paid customers and $1,900 in MRR. He hit $2,000 in recurring revenue exactly one month after Software Ideas public launch. He shared the lessons learned that might help others unlock the same growth. By August 20, it had hit $3.1k MRR.
It got it’s 200th customer before the end of the second month. He wrote about the lessons he’d learned in that time at How I reached $4,000 MRR in two months! By September 23, Software Ideas hit the $5k MRR milestone and had earned $15k in revenue. He hired his first writer that same day.
By September 28, the product had hit 3000 subscribers across the free and paid tiers. The paid tier had 291 subscriptions. He reached 300 paid subscribers on October 6. He wrote about how he reached that goal at How I grew Software Ideas to $6k MRR in three months. The above post received about 2,000 views, led to roughly 80 free signups, and 8 new customers.
He hit $20k in sales on October 9. Just 10 days later, on October 19, he hit $7k MRR. He reached 400 paid subscribers on October 26.
The product continued to grow quickly. On November 3, Software Ideas hit $8k MRR. He celebrated the $100k ARR milestone on November 17. The product hit $9k MRR on November 23. Just one week later, he reached $10k MRR. He shared some thoughts of what he’d learned throughout the experience.
On December 15, the product hit 11k MRR and 600 customers.
Daily Blog
He shared more behind-the-scenes details of the Software Ideas Daily blog. Each day, he wrote about what had been happening, what was on his mind, and how he planed to move the business forward.
Interesting Facts
- Software Ideas is an Open Startup.
- His goal for August, 2020, was to double the value of a SoftwareIdeas.io subscription. He ended up increasing the conversion rate from 6.07% to 8.7%.
- In October, he shared the metrics for September.
- He shared a case study about how he validated the idea (including the Notion template) at Indie Hackers.
Daily Updates:
- $5,867 MRR, $18,403 in sales, 9.88% Conversion Rate (October 5)
- $5,924 MRR, $18,574 in sales, 9.95% Conversion Rate (October 6)
CoderNotes
CoderNotes is a Code Note Platform for Solo-Devs and Teams. He shared how to best use the product at A Day With CoderNotes.
He published the landing page on February 12. He released the alpha version on February 21. By March 5, he noticed the first strangers using the product. Over the next two days, the number of people interested in the beta nearly doubled. He launched the official beta version on April 25. He shared the lessons learned in a post on Indie Hackers.
He didn’t make his first sale from the product until May 21. He recommended that others getthe first sale before the product launch.
The product officially launched in June, 2020. He wrote a post sharing 5 Lessons Learned from Launching his first SaaS. On June #7, it became the #2 product on Product Hunt.
He removed its free plan in July, 2020.
Interesting Facts
The product started as a way to learn faster from online developer courses. It became the best way to save and find code snippets and technical notes (source).
In July, 2020, he realized that it’s really, REALLY hard to get developers to change their habits around note-taking. His target customer was programmers who are already taking notes.
Threads
- His 2010’s Recap.
- How does Kevin balance sleep with waking up at 5AM to work on his projects?
- Interesting things Kevin had noticed while researching hundreds of companies
- POSITIONING STRATEGIES 101: These tips allow bootstrappers to compete in markets that already have huge competitors.
- Rules for pre-sales
- The reasons he switched from Phoenix to node.js.
Features
Interviews
$8000/month newsletter in 4 months with Kevin Conti of Software Ideas at Newsletter Crew
UI Breakfast Podcast. Episode 190: Software Ideas with Kevin Conti at UI Breakfast