Have you ever wondered how an independent developer can build a productivity tool from scratch that earns $1,000 a month in a short period of time? Today, we will share such a story. The protagonist is Daniel Lewin. He created a Kindle productivity tool called K2, which successfully attracted the attention of many Kindle users.
Daniel Lewin is an independent developer with a rich technical background. His vision problems made him concerned about the time he spent in front of a computer screen, which prompted him to find a more efficient way to read. Therefore, Kindle became his first choice. However, during use, he discovered many limitations, which inspired him to create the K2.
The birth of K2 was not smooth sailing. Daniel's original idea was to build a Mac OS application that could send PDFs and EPUBs to Kindle. But after testing the idea publicly, he found that people weren't willing to pay for it. So he pivoted and focused on sending articles and Twitter posts to Kindle, a feature that attracted more user interest.
In order to get value to users as quickly as possible, Daniel decided not to build the entire application right away. Instead, he launched a simple form where users could enter a link, which would then be sent to their Kindle. Although the UI of this initial version was very basic, early users used it frequently and provided valuable feedback.
Daniel began building K2 publicly in January 2022 and released a beta version on Twitter. He kept improving the product until one day, someone mentioned K2 on Hacker News, and that day, he received several orders. This was a huge encouragement to Daniel and allowed him to see the potential of the product.
After a few months, Daniel decided to stop selling lifetime memberships and switch to a subscription system. The decision was challenging at first, but when he released K2 again on Hacker News, the product gained huge traction. K2 made the front page and stayed in the second position for almost two days. During this time, Daniel learned a lot about product promotion and user retention.
In the early stages, Daniel's only growth strategy was to build K2 publicly on Twitter. Not only does this help build your personal brand, but you also get quick feedback from early adopters. However, he also realized that spending too much time on Twitter was not sustainable. As a result, he began to explore other channels, such as developing Safari extensions and submitting them to the Apple App Store, optimizing App Store keywords, etc.
Additionally, Daniel has built several free tools to drive traffic to K2 and capture users’ email addresses. He sends monthly product updates and promotions to stay connected with users. These strategies gradually achieved results, and K2's user base began to grow steadily.
For independent developers who want to start a business, Daniel made the following suggestions: First, get over the initial fear and hesitation as soon as possible and start taking action; second, don’t wait until the product is perfect before releasing it, but adjust as you go; third, spend at least 50 % of your time in sales and marketing; and finally, join a supportive community to learn from and encourage each other with other developers.
Looking to the future, Daniel plans to continue optimizing K2’s functionality and user experience and explore more growth strategies. He believes that as long as it continues to iterate and improve, K2 is expected to become the preferred productivity tool for more Kindle users.
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