两周上线应用搭建工具，一年内做到月入1万美元MRR

Choosing a different path

I'm Diego, creator of AppAlchemy, a website for quickly creating native mobile apps directly from your browser without downloading any programs or complicated setups to your computer. At my first college career fair, I instantly knew I didn't want to pursue the traditional career path. Launching scalable online projects sounded much more exciting. I learned to code — mostly from YouTube — and immediately started building projects. I launched projects throughout college. Most failed. Some made money intermittently. Then, college ended. All my friends had corporate jobs lined up. But I had nothing to show for my time: no job, no past internships, and no successful side projects. At the time, it was scary. But I don't consider building those projects a waste of time. The work spans every business area. There's no better way to learn all those skills.

Taking the leap

After college, I cold-emailed a startup founder, showcasing some projects I had launched. They hired me as a software engineer. I worked there for a few months, but something felt off. I felt unfulfilled. I wanted to create something of my own. But I knew I'd have to do something different this time around. So, I left my hometown, got a studio apartment in Austin, and went all in on what became AppAlchemy. At the time, products like Lovable were going viral on Twitter. But I realized no one was doing that for mobile apps. I knew from experience that creating mobile apps was a tedious process, requiring you to download Xcode and have a decent Mac just to get started. So, I built a simple MVP and started posting on Reddit to see if people were interested. I only had a few months of runway, so I had to make it work. I launched it about a year ago, and it has already grown to thousands of users. It currently makes $10k+ MRR.

Launching in two weeks

Compared to my software engineer job, I had more mental energy to dedicate to this. That was helpful. It allowed me to move faster. I launched the first version in about two weeks. On past projects, I spent too much time building features. I should have been marketing. And when I developed features, I should have based them on what actual users wanted. For AppAlchemy, I immediately started posting on Reddit and Twitter. Growth was initially slow, with a few sporadic paid users. And I started charging right from the start — monthly subscriptions and yearly discounted plans. Paying customers are what ultimately prove demand for a product.

Growth via Reddit

From there, I posted updates about the product, shared videos of myself using the product, and talked about vibe coding and AI tools on Reddit. Reddit is an underrated marketing channel. People in the SaaS space recommend launching on Product Hunt and similar directories. But if your target customer isn’t an entrepreneur or early adopter, the targeting is ineffective. It leads to poor results. There is a subreddit for every imaginable niche, so it's the best way to target specific interests relevant to your product. Most people fail with Reddit marketing because their posts are pushy and don’t feel organic to the platform. You don’t wanna make it feel like an ad. Instead, provide value in your niche, then casually mention your product in the middle of the post. And become an active Reddit user first. Join subreddits related to your product niche or related to stuff you're passionate about. That way, you become familiar with the type of posts that do well. And you warm up your account, too. Posts from completely new accounts will almost always get filtered out automatically. Aside from Reddit, I gained many users through word of mouth. People who liked my product talked about it on social media and shared it with their friends. Last summer, a major Twitter influencer posted about AppAlchemy, and I gained a significant influx of users overnight.

Tech stack

The original version was a simple React MVP that let users chat with an AI to build and preview a mobile app. Today, I use Next.js as my main framework. I used Firebase for authentication and database management, but recently switched to Supabase, which has been a better experience. I use Claude Code and Cursor extensively for development, so it's important to use open tools that AI can easily interact with.

Community and clean eating

My biggest challenge so far has been isolation. I wasn't surrounding myself with like-minded people. Being an indie hacker gives you a lot of freedom, but you often spend a lot of time by yourself. If I had to start over, I would share more about my journey online. Many recommend building in public to get users. But I believe the biggest benefit of building in public is meeting like-minded people working on interesting projects. So that's my main advice to indie hackers: Surround yourself with people who are building things. It makes the journey more fun, and you'll learn a ton. And one more thing. People don't often talk about eating clean in entrepreneurship, but I think it's huge. Indie hackers need to make important decisions every day. Eating garbage prevents you from having the necessary mental clarity and energy to do that well.

What's next?

My future goals are to grow AppAlchemy, level up as an entrepreneur, and have fun along the way! Check out my Twitter to connect or follow my journey. And for anyone who wants to build mobile apps fast, you can learn more at AppAlchemy.