BioWorkWriting

June 2021: Launching my first app

Portrait of me, Lukas HermannLukas Hermann
  • Monthly Update

Taking inspiration from Alex West I am starting to write monthly updates.

Launching a paid plan for stagetimer.io

Stagetimer was born on November 1, 2020, after I visited a friend’s studio. He had to run back and forth to an old laptop to start and stop a simple timer app. I was sure someone made a simple cloud-synced timer app. You know, those .io/.so/.to mini-apps. But no, nobody made it. So I started to build that very evening.

I posted it on Reddit on November 19 for feedback and got (for my standards) a lot of positive responses. There were even some suggestions for paid features. So I continued building more features.

Finally, on June 13 I did what I never planned or even considered. I launched a paid plan for stagetimer.io. That very evening, to my utter amazement, I got my first subscriber. At the end of the month, I had six customers.

For the first time in my life, I can post MMR (monthly recurring revenue) numbers. For the uninitiated, MMR is the holy grail for solo entrepreneurs. MMR is like a salary without the cons of being an employee. MMR means freedom, future, self-fulfillment, independence, flexibility, no more 9-to-5 grind, and no more advanced notice for vacations only to stay in the hotel the entire week due to rain. But it also comes with customer support, marketing, taxes, and the nagging feeling to always use your time productively.

Just to be clear, I have a full-time job with Laserhub. Stagetimer is my side project. But for me, it is also the beginning of a brighter future.

Stats

Stagetimer ↗ €52 MMR

Aller Anfang ist schwer.

– German Proverb “Every beginning is hard”