A weekend project that made US$22,000 in its first week and now makes more than US$1 million a year

In 2021 Tony was a software engineer in Singapore, with 7 years of experience. When COVID kept Tony at home in 2020, the Indie Hackers podcast became a daily habit. 3

The first attempt was a log viewer for the Mac. Tony wanted it perfect, with tons of features and tests, worked on it for about six months, then gave up. 3

The second was DevUtils, a Mac app that bundles everyday developer tools and works offline. Tony built the first version in about two weeks and charged US$9, once. 3 It reached Hacker News on 27 September 2020. 6

After the launch spikes, sales stopped. Tony tried paid ads, SEO and sponsorships, then chose Twitter as the long-term channel. The account grew from 100 followers in November 2020 to 700 in May 2021. 3

Close to 1,000 followers, Tony wrote a script that drew a progress bar around the profile picture. People loved it, so it became a web app with a US$4 a month Pro plan: Black Magic. 3 By August 2021 it made about US$300 a month, DevUtils about US$200, and Tony handed in a notice. The last working day was 20 September 2021. 3

Black Magic grew into a Twitter analytics and CRM tool. It reached US$100,000 a year in June 2022 10 and US$10,000 a month in August 2022, more than Tony's last salary. 7

Xnapper came from a question people kept asking: how do you make those clean screenshots? Its beta sold US$7,802 of early-bird licences in June 2022. 10 On its Product Hunt launch day it was the #1 product and made US$4,212. 7

Two AI products, EmojiAI and AskCommand, made about US$100 together, with about 50,000 followers behind them. 2

In January 2023 Tony wrote that Black Magic was at US$14,000 a month, with slowing growth, and "heavily dependent on the fate of Twitter". 11

Around February 2023, Twitter announced that its API would no longer be free. In March, a large Twitter app company told Tony the new minimum: US$42,000 a month. 12

Black Magic made about US$14,000 a month at about 90% profit, so the price was out of reach: three times its revenue (our arithmetic: US$42,000 ÷ US$14,000). Access could also be cut off within about two weeks. 12 Tony had rejected a US$500,000 offer for Black Magic only a few months earlier. 12

Under that time pressure, Tony reached 3 buyers and got 2 offers. Hypefury bought Black Magic for a total of US$128,000, less than one year of its revenue. 12 Black Magic's customers learned of the sale on 17 May 2023. 13

Soon after the sale closed, Twitter announced a US$5,000 a month plan. Tony wrote that Black Magic would have paid it, had it come a month earlier. 12 Black Magic's site now says it is shutting down on July 1, 2026. 43

Tony used ChatGPT heavily and was annoyed by its website. It logged you out every day, typed answers slowly, and had no search over past chats. 2

On 1 March 2023, OpenAI announced the ChatGPT API. On 2 March, Tony registered typingmind.com, a name ChatGPT suggested. 2 The Twitter drama took the rest of the week, so the first version was finished over the weekend. 3

On Monday, 6 March, Tony posted it on Twitter: a better interface for ChatGPT, free to use with your own OpenAI key. It got so much attention that Tony added payment, and the first sale came the same day. 2

Every new feature got a tweet, and every tweet brought sales. The revenue was US$1,000 on 7 March, US$2,000 on 8 March, US$4,000 on 9 March and US$10,000 on 10 March. Tony puts 99% of those sales down to the Twitter audience. 2

On 11 March TypingMind launched on Product Hunt and was the #1 product of the day, with 902 votes. Total revenue reached US$22,700. 2 The price started at US$9 and rose as features were added; by September 2023 it was US$39. 3

Tony saw most AI wrappers charging a monthly fee, and expected OpenAI to make their features easy for anyone to copy. So TypingMind was a plain tool: a static web app, with no backend, no server and no database. 2

People bring their own API keys, kept on their own device. There was even a version customers could host themselves. With nothing to run, there was no recurring cost, so a one-time price was affordable. Tony credits that decision with much of the success. 2

A licence key activates the app; there is no account and no login. 14

Tony then added paid features that need servers: Cloud Sync, and TypingMind Custom, a version for teams. Both are subscriptions. 14

In its first 12 months TypingMind got 171 updates. In February 2024 it passed US$500,000 in total revenue, and the subscriptions alone made US$15,000 a month, more than Black Magic at its sale. 14

The catch, as Tony describes it: every new feature in the one-time version must cost nothing to run, or the promise of lifetime access breaks. 14

With TypingMind making more than US$40,000 a month, Tony had little time left for Xnapper. In March 2024 Tony sold it for US$150,000: US$100,000 up front and US$50,000 through a revenue share. 9

The buyer came from a tweet. A one-time product making about US$4,000 a month sold for more than Black Magic at US$14,000 a month. 9 That left two products: DevUtils, on autopilot, and TypingMind. 9

In November 2024 TypingMind passed US$1 million in revenue over the previous 12 months, 20 months after launch. One-time licences were still the main source, at about 50% of a month's total. 4

Selling to companies meant video calls and sales cycles of months. The team closed one 3,000-seat deal and several 1,000-seat deals. Resellers also sell TypingMind under their own brand, paying Tony a platform fee. 4

To make those sales easier, Tony spent more than US$20,000 on SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR compliance, security audits and lawyers. 4

Paid ads and sponsorships gave terrible results, so Tony stopped them. Licence sales kept rising anyway, from word of mouth and almost daily mentions on Reddit. 4

By October 2025 TypingMind made about US$130,000 to 160,000 a month, and team subscriptions passed 50% of it. The latest paid ad campaign had cost US$600 for 2 conversions. 5

TypingMind is still Tony's main focus. In June 2026 it added Agent Skills, and Tony launched it again on Product Hunt, three years after the first launch. Tony's regret: not launching every six months or so, since Product Hunt accepts major features of the same product. 15

The home page still sells a lifetime licence, "Pay once, use forever", and counts more than 20,641 customers. 1

1. How did monthly revenue move between the first week and September 2023, after Tony stopped sharing it?
2. How many teams pay for TypingMind today, and what does a typical team pay?
3. What does support for lifetime licence holders cost each year?
4. How large is the team in 2026, and who handles sales?