Part-time indie hacker develops app in 12 hours with no code, earns $15,000 per month
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Louis Pereira is a part-time indie hacker who runs an offline family business during the day and works on various projects on the internet at night. In March 2023, he was experimenting with the latest AI technologies and created four small products in just one week. Of these, AudioPen, a service that converts voice notes to text, was the most popular, and Louis saw the potential in this product and decided to focus on its development.
During the product development process, Louis used the power of no-code tools. He completed the product design for free using Figma, and used Bubble.io, which costs $30 per month, to do the actual development. For Louis, who had no coding skills, no-code tools were the perfect choice. After about 12 hours of intensive development, he was able to complete the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) of AudioPen.
To implement the core function of AudioPen, which is the text conversion of voice notes, Louis used OpenAI's Whisper API. Since speech recognition and conversion technology are difficult to implement with no-code tools, he solved this problem through API. Although there was a cost burden for using the API, it was a core function that was essential to AudioPen, so he was willing to pay this cost.
Meanwhile, AudioPen’s launch coincided with a unique hackathon event called “Half Day Build,” where the goal was to turn an idea into a real product within 12 hours. Louis participated in the event and shared his product development process live on Twitter, which helped him attract early adopters and paying customers.
AudioPen has been consistently profitable since its launch, and as an individual developer, Louis keeps operating costs to a minimum and sticks to a word-of-mouth marketing strategy. The only major expense is the cost of the AI API, which is essential for voice-to-text conversion, but Louis is willing to accept this cost as it is directly related to AudioPen’s core values.
One of Louis’ main strategies is to use Loops, an email marketing tool, to communicate with users. While he didn’t think email updates would be very effective in the early days of the product, he has been consistently sending thoughtful update emails to build a personal connection with his users.
Through all this, Louis has learned that it is important to be nimble and listen to the voice of the customer rather than being obsessed with ideas. His know-how is to constantly try out ideas until they are validated in the market, and then focus on the ones that are well-received.
Thanks to Louis’ smart choice of no-code tools and his quick execution through APIs, AudioPen has now become a successful service with $15,000 in monthly revenue. Louis’s case proves that even without coding expertise, you can quickly create a prototype by appropriately utilizing no-code tools and APIs, and continuously improve it based on customer feedback to create a compelling product.
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