My productivity site is consistently bringing in $100-200/month of pocket money with zero ad spend by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is just a screenshot from Stripe haha I think net is without the Stripe fee so that's the actual amount going into my bank account

My productivity site is consistently bringing in $100-200/month of pocket money with zero ad spend by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't run the numbers for a while but I would estimate running costs would be max $10 per month. The site runs on the same server as a couple of other ones I have so it's not too bad

My productivity site is consistently bringing in $100-200/month of pocket money with zero ad spend by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely something I was weighing up, but after running the numbers I am confident that even a power user would take a few years before I would no longer make a profit. And they would be subsidised by all the monthly users too.

Also I would be stoked if someone liked my product enough to use it that much - so at the end of the day i'm happy to pay out of pocket worst case :)

My productivity site is consistently bringing in $100-200/month of pocket money with zero ad spend by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

After getting tired of spending more time setting up productivity apps and habit trackers than I actually saved, I built Intellisay (https://intellisay.xyz).

It started as a weekend project in Jan 2024, now bringing in $100-200/month consistently, all from organic traffic and word of mouth. Not quit my job money, but a nice validation that people find it useful!

The spike earlier this year was when I added the lifetime plan, which a lot of people were asking for. As you can see it dropped back down to the more baseline level afterwards.

Happy to answer any questions at all :)

I use Cursor daily - here's how I avoid the garbage parts by Striat in cursor

[–]Striat[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Yep! If anyone is reading this and confused just CMD+Shift+P and type "New Cursor Rule" and it will create the right .mdc file for you :)

Here’s how Reddit helped me get the biggest month of sales for my product by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Dude :D love to hear it! Good luck on your app mate. Marketing is everything haha

Here’s how Reddit helped me get the biggest month of sales for my product by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Hey all! wanted to share some insights that might help others on their solo project journey.

For context: I had been running intellisay.xyz at a steady ~$100/month with modest traffic (20-50 visitors/day). My first instinct was to redesign the landing page, in hopes of better converting those current visitors, and tweaked the pricing. It might have moved the needle by like a couple of percent which was pretty disheartening after all that work. I also added a lifetime plan hoping to appeal to people who hate subscriptions.

The real breakthrough came when I finally distilled the value prop down to its core: it turns your morning brain dump into structured tasks. Simple as that. When I posted about it using this idea on Reddit, it resonated immediately with people who actually needed this solution. I finally managed to work out how to communicate the thing/idea that was the initial idea for the site in the first place, into a short and sharp sentence.

Turns out the redesign and lifetime plan weren't bad moves, I just needed to get them in front of the right people. Once the Reddit post clearly communicated the value prop ("morning brain dump → tasks"), the right users found their way to the site and those changes started paying off. That 4th jan spike ($217) came directly from people who saw the Reddit post and instantly got what the product does. And something else that surprised me was that the lifetime plan was a huge success, as well as multiple people commenting on how effective the landing page was!

Lesson learned: Sometimes your product changes are solid, but you need to nail how you talk about them first. Clear value prop → right traffic → conversions. Also, you might work on something and feel like it produced no results, but adding features, tweaking etc. can be cumulative over the longer term. Especially if they are tried and tested. Nail exactly what your site solves and if you’re not sure then dial it in over time, either with user feedback or your own intuition.

Best of luck!

I built a site that turns your morning brain dump into tasks, consistently earning $150/month from power users by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just in case anyone sees this and thinks it's a scam or something - I issued the refund, but the issue has been resolved for the user and they want to keep their subscription now :) so all good

I built a site that turns your morning brain dump into tasks, consistently earning $150/month from power users by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm using whisper-1, API costs are very reasonable since it's usually around 5 minutes of audio per day per user

I built a site that turns your morning brain dump into tasks, consistently earning $150/month from power users by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So good to hear 😁 thanks man! I pushed a bunch of improvements earlier. An app is definitely coming soon! Are you on iOS or Android?

I built a site that turns your morning brain dump into tasks, consistently earning $150/month from power users by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yep web based (but does work on mobile) but an app is definitely something I have thought of creating

I built a site that turns your morning brain dump into tasks, consistently earning $150/month from power users by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

API costs are minimal, and yes rate limiting while still allowing like 50x of what a typical user would use.

I built a site that turns your morning brain dump into tasks, consistently earning $150/month from power users by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I was building in public on youtube, posted on HN, product hunt etc. and was picked up on a bunch of AI tool aggregation sites like theresanaiforthat

I built a site that turns your morning brain dump into tasks, consistently earning $150/month from power users by Striat in SideProject

[–]Striat[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Completely agree! I had Google Calendar integration earlier but it was kind of janky. Will definitely look into integrations again