Have you ever been troubled by the size of your video or picture files? An independent developer named Hugh Den developed a Mac OS application called Compress X to address this pain point and successfully achieved his small goal of earning US$2.5K per month.
Compress X not only reduces the file size of videos and pictures by up to 90%, but also provides users with a simple yet powerful offline solution. Since its launch, the app has helped more than 2,770 customers compress 26,000 files, reduce over 7TB of data, and generate $5,000 in sales.
But the app’s birth wasn’t all smooth sailing. Hugh's initial development journey began with an app called Expense Body, which was used to record daily expenses. After selling it, Hugh worked with his brother Tony Dean to develop several applications, including Snapper, a quick screenshot tool for Mac OS. While working full-time as an IOS engineer, Hugh discovered the problem of limited upload size of video files. This was the opportunity for Compress X to be born.
In order to verify his idea, Hugh focused on building the most basic version of the product, which only implemented the function of selecting videos and compressing them. After sharing the demo on Twitter, users responded enthusiastically, which further strengthened his confidence. He then continued to improve the product by adding new features, fixing bugs, and improving application performance.
In January this year, Hugh launched Compress On the day of release, sales notifications continued, verifying the market potential of its products.
In order to retain customers and attract new ones, Hugh not only responded quickly to feedback and feature requests, but also introduced features such as image compression, GIF conversion, and built a professional landing page that showcased user reviews and real-time statistics to enhance customer trust. .
Today, Compress X's revenue is stable, with revenue reaching US$3,300 in the first month, and maintenance costs are extremely low. Hugh is confident about the future and plans to release more features to increase competitiveness.
Hugh’s story tells us that as long as you have an idea and have the courage to implement it, it is possible to create valuable products. He encourages other entrepreneurs to take the plunge, share their progress openly and get early feedback. At the same time, he also emphasized the importance of balancing main and side hustles, and shared his experience in learning skills other than coding.
Whether you are an entrepreneur or a developer, Hugh's experience is worth learning and learning from. The courage to practice, continuous innovation, and paying attention to user needs are the keys to success.
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