Solo Dev Saturday 🧱 - April 2025 Progress Report
Approaching MVP, dealing with multiple goals and chasing a moving finish line.
Hey there Solo Dev!
Another month has passed, and I hope you’ve been making good progress on whatever it is you’re doing.
In the last report, I talked about the project I was starting: the first real Solo Dev project I’ve built with an intention to launch and support. I called it SoloDev Liftoff, but I realized it’s not really aimed at just Solo Devs, but also Solopreneurs in general.
I now call it Solopreneur Liftoff.
Dev Corner 🏗️
This month’s been development heavy. I have prioritized it higher than pretty much anything. Most of the MVP functionality has been added. I finished off last month with a Clean Architecture backend, a login screen, some simple forms and an ugly dashboard.
This month I added:
Products with different revenue types and milestones
Financial independence projections based on both your existing products, as well as “what-if” scenario projections with fictional products that can be stored and compared against, with monthly financial data
A decision journal supporting color-coded tag based management and archival of entries
A new dashboard with relevant revenue visualization, product performance, progress tracker, personalized insight based on the user’s current products and financial profile and a timeline view of all milestones the user has created
Responsive design to make sure the pages don’t look broken on different resolutions
Architectural challenges
Last month I tried to put down as much of my backend as I could. I’d say I got very far, but it hasn’t been without changes (nothing ever is).
I struggled a lot with how to get the scenarios saved such that they contain “snapshots” of specific products at a moment in time. If you ever were to revisit a scenario in the future, but one of the included products had changed within it, the result wouldn’t be correct.
This led to some fun challenges in how to save the data correctly, and re-access it as a user.
Scope creep
You can never sit down and build something like this without getting ideas. As you build something you have that wouldn’t this be cool moment, and you have to weigh the options.
Is it necessary?
A lot of the time, for MVPs, the answer is no.
But I still implemented some of these things as well. Like tags on the decision journal, or the personalized insights. I made the choice that I believe they are valuable enough to add for the time it takes to implement.
Solo Dev is a game of constant trade-offs.
What’s next?
All the things I personally find less fun.
Preparing for deployment. Figuring out how to set it up and keep it running. Making choices for infrastructure, ensuring security is where it needs to be, setting up components to help fix bugs, allowing users to provide feedback easily.
This is the part I dread of any project: you can see the finish line, but it’s an illusion.
It keeps moving as you run toward it, a new important problem to be solved, but only from a development perspective. The user doesn’t care at all how you deploy.
Liftoff Insights 🌱
There are still no revenue or user metrics to share.
Since I haven’t released anything yet. In the last report I defined a goal: release an MVP by end of May. It’s looking likely, but I have a vacation coming up that will cut into my development time quite heavily.
I don’t really have any success criteria for the MVP. I don’t have a big audience, and do not expect much traction. I hope to make back what I spend on deployment, and hope to grow the product with time.
I wanted to include the number of hours I spent developing, aiming for 10 hours a week, but promptly forgot to keep track of it early last month. I think it’s safe to assume I hit the target (probably a little more). I’ll do better next month, as I really want to know the number myself.
I still have only paid for the Claude subscription for this product. Due to the issues with limits on Claude I was considering dropping it. Earlier today, however, my automatic payment went through for next month.
Guess we’re gonna keep Clauding on.
I am gonna be transparent here as well: once I get back to focusing on Substack growth, I’m thinking to lock this section behind the subscription with some additional perks.
My current plan is to include an annual subscription with Solopreneur Liftoff.
Top 3 Lessons Learned 📚
The main 3 takeaways I learned this week, and I want to impress on any would be Solo Devs 👇
You’re gonna feel behind: there’s always more to do than time to do it
You’re gonna have to do things that do not excite you: I’m not a big fan of all the architectural stuff—I find it more fun to just build
You’re gonna feel you’re almost there, only to realize you missed something crucial: this might even happen a lot, as we can always add more layers
And in order to feel less behind, we have to embrace the quick wins that can add up.
Next Month
Next month is May, and my goal is to launch the MVP.
I realize that I’ve been going against a lot of common entrepreneur wisdom as I built this product:
I didn’t validate the idea
I didn’t ship as fast as possible
I focused on learning instead of marketing
But I’ve also done valuable things:
I asked: “What do I want to learn?”, not just “What do I want to do?”
I embraced resilience, even as some things look overwhelming
I let myself take breaks to fully recharge
There’s always trade-offs, but whatever we do, it builds our confidence.
I have three clear goals for May:
Finish the remaining work to get the MVP ready to deploy
Figure out exactly how I want to deploy
Deploy and get feedback
If we’re being honest, that’s really only one goal: deploy the damn thing. And since I have little to no experience actually doing that, I’m going to keep it as simple as I can.
So let’s do it.
Community Connection
If there’s one thing having a full-time job, keeping up with the day to day, and building Solopreneur Liftoff has had an impact on, it’s my newsletter activity. I hope to return with a more focused approach to this newsletter as I launch the MVP.
I can’t wait to not feel so behind.
What's your go-to method for balancing multiple commitments without burning out?
I’d love to hear your advice! Is it just a case of seasons?
I think it might just be product-building season.
Newsletter season comes after.
See you next Saturday!