
$20k/mo because he refused to pay $2,500/month for something "easy"
Everyone wants to build the next big SaaS product.
Nobody wants to be the plumber fixing someone else's broken pipes.
Martin was building a tiny mobile app in CapacitorJS. Nothing fancy.
He needed fast updates. Simple feature, right?
The only solution? $2,500/month.
For something that seemed "sure easy to do."
So he did what any frustrated developer does – he built it himself. Open source. Just for his own app.
Then other developers found it. Started using it. Asked if he'd make a paid version.
He said sure.
Today he's at $20k/month. 85% net margin. $0 spent on ads.
What actually worked:
Free plugins as lead magnets
– He builds GitHub plugins people actually need. They find him organically. No cold emails. No Twitter threads.
Support = sales
– Every GitHub issue he fixes is a potential customer. He treats open source support like customer development.
Be the expert in a room full of beginners
– His customers "know nothing about native." He's not competing with experts. He's solving problems for people who are lost.
The lesson everyone ignores:
The best businesses aren't solving sexy problems.
They're solving the $2,500/month annoying problems nobody else wanted to fix.
Full story here